A few years ago I wrote an article about the last Burger Chef restaurant located at at 432 North Gilbert Street in Danville, Illinois. At just under 100 miles and a little over an hour and 45 minutes away, it was well worth the trip back to Nostalgiaville. Okay, so it wasn’t named Burger Chef anymore, but if you walked through the front door of Schroeder’s Drive-In restaurant, you’d never know Burger Chef ever went away at all. Sadly, that can no longer be said.
I first visited Schroeder’s Drive-In restaurant about 25 years ago with my wife Rhonda. We were chasing wild rumors of a sole surviving restaurant from the Indianapolis-based Burger Chef fast food chain still in operation somewhere in the wilds of Illinois. It was our quest, our holy grail, our pot-of-gold at the end of the rainbow. Well okay, maybe not, but we wanted to find it. That is, IF it really existed. Keep in mind, there really was no internet to speak of back then and certainly no Mapquest or Google search so we were on our own.
The Burger Chef chain closed nationwide after being purchased by Hardees in 1982. Up to that time, Burger Chef was the main competitor of the mighty McDonald’s machine with over 2,500 franchises nationwide. Burger Chef was the first fast food chain to offer a kid’s meal, a drive-thru window, and a salad bar. Who can forget the Super Shef? The Big Shef? The Funburger? Heck, the restaurant’s cartoon mascots and TV pitchmen Burger Chef and Jeff were almost like family! Burger Chef was an Indianapolis institution to be sure.
I recall pulling into the parking lot of a restaurant whose sign looked suspiciously like the old orange and aqua blue Burger Chef signs I knew as a kid. The sign’s name was different but it’s color, shape, size and shadow were unmistakable — not unlike the old Roselyn bakery signs that still dot our city landscape whose shape remains familiar in spite of the fact that the businesses they now advertise offer cell phones or dry cleaning instead of coffee cakes and donuts. All doubt was assuaged as we entered the familiarly shaped building and gazed past the counter in awe and wonder at the illuminated menu board.
The product names were changed but the size, design, shape and most importantly the ingredients were the same as all of those old Burger Chef food offerings I grew up with. The walls were covered with nicely framed examples of old Burger Chef signs, memorabilia and old fashioned photos of the restaurant in it’s heyday. But make no mistake about it, we knew we were in a Burger Chef! My wife and I joyfully ate our meals while nostalgic images, catchy jingles and fanciful memories bounced around in our heads. In a word, it was “Incrediburgible.”
On that first trip we met Butch Schroeder, son of the man who had built and operated the original Burger Chef back in 1960, Hank Schroeder. Butch had worked there all his life and informed us that (lucky for him) when Burger Chef closed as a chain, they did so just a few months after re-signing a 10-year lease with the corporation. Because of that fortunate Catch-22, Butch was able to keep the Burger Chef name until 1991. It seems that Rhonda and I were there just a few weeks after that name swap. In the words of Secret Agent Maxwell Smart, “Missed it by that much.” Butch Schroeder was a delight, sharing his stories freely with us for over an hour. As we left, he gave us a handful of old Burger Chef memorabilia that was still in stock behind the counter. We still have those cherished souvenirs to this day.
Life got in the way and we didn’t make it back to Schroeder’s until 2011. We Googled it to make sure it was open and stopped in on our way to Springfield, Illinois for the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s election to the Presidency. I made it back to the eatery a few times after that. Butch Schroeder was gone, retiring after 48 years of service slingin’ burgers, showerin’ shakes and flippin’ fries. The new owner / manager, Dan Dubois, bought the restaurant from Butch in October of 2008. Dubois had worked at the restaurant since he was 16 years old. “I worked my way from the bottom up,” Dubois said. “It’s the only thing I know.”
As we savored our fast food memories, we were amazed at how busy this place was. People rushed in and out, most eating their food in the surprisingly spacious multi-section dining room. Back then, it was no surprise that while still a part of the Burger Chef chain, the store ranked highest in sales volume of any Burger Chef in the nation for over a decade. And those employees…the only other place I’d ever seen employees work so hard to keep a place clean were the Disney theme parks. I still believe it was the cleanest fast food restaurant I’d ever seen.
The old Schroeder’s had a huge Burger Chef restaurant shaped birdhouse that bloomed out of it’s plant-festooned flower bed like some exotic orchid. The restaurant had memorabilia displayed on the walls and within custom made cases. Not all of the memorabilia was related to Burger Chef though as Dan still displayed Butch’s collection of World War II Air Force and aircraft related relics as well. One couldn’t help but conjure up fantastic daydreams of P-52′s straffing Burgerilla like some fast food King Kong while munching fries in the dining room.
But oh the Burger Chef memorabilia; yo-yos, frisbees, cups, glasses, posters, award jewelry, pins, funmeal prizes, and Star Wars promotional merchandise (Burger Chef was the first national chain to jump on the Star Wars bandwagon back in the late 1970s) line the shelves of the glass covered cases, all shiny and clean without a cobweb or dust bunny to be found among them. It was like some Hard Rock Cafe for fast food!
Schroeder’s celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010 but sadly closed in the Spring of 2015. It reopened under new management a year ago September but it doesn’t take long to figure out the magic has vanished. Rhonda and I visited the old Burger Chef in early October on our way up to the Wisconsin Dells. We should have known things had changed forever as we sat in our car at 10:15 awaiting a 10:00 am posted opening time. We entered the restaurant and everything was different. The menu boards had been removed, now replaced with flat screen TV’s dangling from the ceiling. But it didn’t matter as the menu had changed to a list of uninspiring fast food selections. Gone were Schroeder’s authentic clones of the Big Shef and Super Shef replaced with knock-offs. I guess you can’t clone a clone.
For me, the single menu item that transported me back in time was Schroeder’s apple turnover. It was amazing: the little bubbles of the fried pies were still there after all these years! With the cinnamon sprinkled on top and the layer of white icing on the bottom, just like old times! It was like I was back in the days of Sugar Smacks, Sugar Pops, Quisp, Quake, and Sugar Frosted Flakes. Now everything is so health driven that eating is no fun anymore. Okay, we’re living longer, but nostalgia has its place, you foodies!
Rhonda and I ordered food of course. Whatever their version of a triple cheeseburger was called and some iced tea. We asked one of the two girls about the apple pies. Do they still have the icing on the bottom? The girl behind the counter was clueless and yelled our question back to her co-worker. “No” was her response. As we waited for our food, we walked around to have a look at the old place. Gone were all but a few pieces of Burger Chef memorabilia and what few items remained looked as if they might have been found left over in the attic. Gone were Butch’s replica airplanes and old photos of his family restaurant taken over the past half century.
The bathroom was closed and, judging by the standing water in the hallway, flooded. The telltale sign for Rhonda was that the floor all over the restaurant was sticky, “Butch and Dan would have never let this happen” she said. To make matters worse, neither one of us finished our sandwiches. “I don’t think that’s real cheese” was Rhonda’s comment. When I spoke with Dan Dubois back then, he proudly proclaimed. “I guess our secret is that everything is fresh here. We even make our own tartar sauce from scratch, which makes all the difference. You really wouldn’t believe how much of a difference that makes until you try someone else’s after trying ours.” Sadly, you can sure tell the difference now.
On our way back from Baraboo, we again stopped at Danville to fill up with gas and grab a couple of ice teas for the road. We went to the local McDonald’s which was, quite by accident, less than a half mile from the old Schroeder’s. This McDonald’s was unique in that the walls were tastefully decorated with great vintage photos of Danville’s famous sons and daughters, including Dick Van Dyke and his brother Jerry, Donald O’Connor, Bobby Short and Gene Hackman. This Mickey D’s was so slick it even had images of the Van Dyke brothers etched into the glass panes above the booths! I guess, at least in the case of Burger Chef, McDonald’s wins again.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
