August 22, 2005
Lights on for service | Ken and Jeanne Burton celebrate the 50th anniversary of Fat Boy
By Sean Donahue
In the 1950s and 60s, Brunswick's Fat Boy drive-in was the hangout for teenagers after spring dances and fall football games, as well as on long summer nights. The Bath and Brunswick kids would stake out opposite sides of the parking lot that surrounds the low-slung green building, but both camps would enjoy the same assortment of burgers, onion rings, Canadian-bacon BLTs and thick frappes.
Fat Boy is still there. So are its frappes and car hops. And so are those original customers, says owner Ken Burton. "As these kids grew up and stayed in the area, now they're coming back with their families," he says. "And it keeps going on and on and on as long as we keep the prices reasonable and the food good."
With Fat Boy's 50th anniversary this summer, what began as a novelty of the car-obsessed 1950s has become a palace of nostalgia. One of the few remaining drive-in restaurants in Maine, Fat Boy has withstood the arrival of Burger King, McDonald's and other chains that crowd the nearby Cook's Corner shopping area. The business has also stayed within the same family: Burton's uncle, John Bollinger, founded Fat Boy in 1955 with partner Joseph Campbell, who was stationed at Brunswick Naval Air Station across the road. A year later, Burton's father, Joe, replaced Campbell and ran the business until turning it over to Ken and his wife, Jeanne, in the early 1980s.
Amidst that consistency, the family made changes to Fat Boy that likely helped it survive this long. In 1955, Fat Boy only offered service through a take-out window; the next season Bollinger hired car hops, who could serve more customers at once. The Burtons also streamlined the cooking system. Food is carefully portioned ˆ from weighed onion ring servings to a pre-assembled tray of lettuce and tomato stacks ready to be slapped onto burgers ˆ and the cramped kitchen is run like an assembly line. The only workers who move very much, according to Ken, are the "frappe boys," who shuttle between two frappe machines on opposite sides of the room.
That's not to say there weren't bumps along the way. Fat Boy's "Whoper" burger owes its phonetically challenging name to a spat with Burger King over the "Whopper" name, which forced the Burtons to drop a "p." And these days, the lack of drive-ins means that some customers just don't get the concept, says Jeanne. Customers try to circumvent the car hops and order at the counter, or drop their orders on the ground when they fidget with the trays on their windows. Even worse are the tray thieves ˆ Ken says they've lost six or seven trays already this season ˆ because new trays simply don't exist.
Given all the chances for chaos, as well as a nightly staff of 18 to manage, it's not surprising that Ken and Jeanne only get one day off each during the summer. (Fat Boy opens in late March and closes in October; the Burtons decline to say how much the restaurant makes during a season.) "It's kind of like a baby that you have to be right with all the time," says Jeanne.
Even as they look back at 50 years, though, the Burtons are thinking about Fat Boy's future. The potential closing of BNAS would undoubtedly have some impact on their business, say Ken and Jeanne, though they say they'd survive it. They're also thinking about their grown son and daughter ˆ who both work at the restaurant ˆ taking over the place some day, and what kind of personal stamp they'll want to put on Fat Boy. In a business so steeped in nostalgia, though, they say it's important not to veer too far from peoples' memories. "They might want to change a few things, who knows? And that's not a bad thing," says Jeanne. "They just have to be smart about it. Like Joe [Burton] always said to us, 'Be careful what you change.'"
Fat Boy is still there. So are its frappes and car hops. And so are those original customers, says owner Ken Burton. "As these kids grew up and stayed in the area, now they're coming back with their families," he says. "And it keeps going on and on and on as long as we keep the prices reasonable and the food good."
With Fat Boy's 50th anniversary this summer, what began as a novelty of the car-obsessed 1950s has become a palace of nostalgia. One of the few remaining drive-in restaurants in Maine, Fat Boy has withstood the arrival of Burger King, McDonald's and other chains that crowd the nearby Cook's Corner shopping area. The business has also stayed within the same family: Burton's uncle, John Bollinger, founded Fat Boy in 1955 with partner Joseph Campbell, who was stationed at Brunswick Naval Air Station across the road. A year later, Burton's father, Joe, replaced Campbell and ran the business until turning it over to Ken and his wife, Jeanne, in the early 1980s.
Amidst that consistency, the family made changes to Fat Boy that likely helped it survive this long. In 1955, Fat Boy only offered service through a take-out window; the next season Bollinger hired car hops, who could serve more customers at once. The Burtons also streamlined the cooking system. Food is carefully portioned ˆ from weighed onion ring servings to a pre-assembled tray of lettuce and tomato stacks ready to be slapped onto burgers ˆ and the cramped kitchen is run like an assembly line. The only workers who move very much, according to Ken, are the "frappe boys," who shuttle between two frappe machines on opposite sides of the room.
That's not to say there weren't bumps along the way. Fat Boy's "Whoper" burger owes its phonetically challenging name to a spat with Burger King over the "Whopper" name, which forced the Burtons to drop a "p." And these days, the lack of drive-ins means that some customers just don't get the concept, says Jeanne. Customers try to circumvent the car hops and order at the counter, or drop their orders on the ground when they fidget with the trays on their windows. Even worse are the tray thieves ˆ Ken says they've lost six or seven trays already this season ˆ because new trays simply don't exist.
Given all the chances for chaos, as well as a nightly staff of 18 to manage, it's not surprising that Ken and Jeanne only get one day off each during the summer. (Fat Boy opens in late March and closes in October; the Burtons decline to say how much the restaurant makes during a season.) "It's kind of like a baby that you have to be right with all the time," says Jeanne.
Even as they look back at 50 years, though, the Burtons are thinking about Fat Boy's future. The potential closing of BNAS would undoubtedly have some impact on their business, say Ken and Jeanne, though they say they'd survive it. They're also thinking about their grown son and daughter ˆ who both work at the restaurant ˆ taking over the place some day, and what kind of personal stamp they'll want to put on Fat Boy. In a business so steeped in nostalgia, though, they say it's important not to veer too far from peoples' memories. "They might want to change a few things, who knows? And that's not a bad thing," says Jeanne. "They just have to be smart about it. Like Joe [Burton] always said to us, 'Be careful what you change.'"
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