Blimpy's keeps sizzling

Blimpy Burger has been an Ann Arbor tradition since 1953

Blimpy's keeps sizzling

First they said it was crazy, then chain restaurants came in, but an Ann Arbor burger eatery has survived skeptics thanks to tradition and a little bear

By PETER EPHROSS

NEWS SPECIAL WRITER

RETAIL REPORT

To fully experience eating at Blimpy Burger, you need to go before or after a University of Michigan football game.

The restaurant, 551 S. Division at Packard, is right on the way to the stadium for many fans. Business is brisk.

Burgers are slapped rapid-fire onto the grill, and a line of customers surveys the menu that highlights burger sizes - from a single to a quint. Yes, that’s five burgers under one bun.

Customers yell out their orders to be heard over the sizzle of the grill.

DaVee Askew, whose purposefully rude treatment of first-time customers is eclipsed only by the pride she takes in her job, is working behind the counter with her usual aplomb, clarifying orders and flipping burgers in a series of whirling motions.

When a customer asks if there is American cheese for his hamburger, Askew turns around and stares at the customer. With sarcasm in her voice, she answers, “No.” Then she smiles, and returns to her work.

The man behind the greasy but tasty little burger patties is longtime Blimpy’s owner Jim Shafer, someone who never thought he’d get into the food business.

“It was the last thing I thought I’d do,” he says.

By 1953, though, Shafer had migrated from Jackson to Ann Arbor and was unemployed. He had gained some experience in the hamburger business while in Jackson. So, with some borrowed money he opened two restaurants - one at Packard and Division, the other on Huron Street across from the old courthouse.

While hamburgers were the restaurants’ main items, Shafer also
served breakfast at the Huron location. He served up two eggs, ham, toast, juice, and coffee for 65 cents. The price was so cheap that a friend said, ‘‘You're crazy to do this.”

Shafer simply took the man’s advice and made it into the store’s name. For many years, the name of the restaurant was Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burgers.

Jim Shafer’s friend wasn’t the only one who thought Blimpy Burgers wouldn’t succeed. Shafer remembers one restaurateur telling people in town, “This guy won’t last six months.” In 1993, Blimpy’s celebrated its 40th anniversary.

Blimpy’s had its heyday in the late 1950s and 1960s when fast food was still a novel concept, and chains had yet to move into Ann Arbor. The restaurant delivered to fraternities and sororities, to university offices, and, for a time, served as the supplier to the concession stands at Michigan Stadium.

Blimpy’s was open seven days a week, 10 a.m.-midnight. DaVee Askew, whose first tenure at Blimpy Burger ran from 1969 to 1971, remembers starting on Monday to prepare the food for each football Saturday.

Shafer recalls his success with a mixture of surprise and modesty. “My lack of information didn’t hurt me,” he says.

By the mid-1970s, though, the delivery and sandwich business ended. In the 1980s, as competition from chain restaurants such as McDonald’s and Burger King increased, business slowed. Hours were cut back, and Shafer was ready to retire. In both 1991 and 1992, under new management, Blimpy’s actually closed for a few months.

Despite Shafer's assertions that he was always concerned about nutrition because he sold pints of milk instead of half-pints, a menu focused on fried burgers and deep-friend french fries seemed a bit out of place in a more health-conscious era.

“We’re convinced they have an ambulance on call," says Matt Renner, a lifelong Ann Arbor resident and Blimpy’s patron.

Luckily for Blimpy’s fans, Rich Magner was ready to come back to Blimpy’s after long stints at other local restaurants. He had worked at Blimpy’s from 1969 to 1974, and had even met his wife, Chris, there.

Upon his return as manager in the spring of 1992 - he leases the store from Shafer, who now lives in the Irish Hills - Magner kept most things at Blimpy’s the same. The green tabletops and the swivel chairs are still there, and all of Blimpy’s meat is still ground in-house. Townies - people who order a triple with American cheese on an onion roll and chocolate milk, says Magner -wouldn’t want it any other way.

Magner repainted the store and added a few new menu items. He also re-introduced a number of Blimpy’s traditions - giving out two-dollar bills as change, selling Blimpy’s Bucks for gift certificates, and the use of the bear as the store’s mascot. (In his earlier tenure, Magner used the bears as the centerpiece for the Blimpy’s t-shirt logo.)

Last winter, he took the bear concept a bit farther. During the winter, he built snow bears in front of the building along Packard.

So many kids came by begging their parents to take a picture of them with the bears that Magner instituted a kids-eat-free policy on Tuesdays after 3 p.m. The bears not only increased business on a slow day, they also fulfilled Magner’s creative desires - he’s a former U-M art student.