| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Fast Food |
| Founded | Flint, Michigan, U.S., (1923) |
| Founder(s) | Samuel V. Blair |
| Headquarters | Lima, Ohio, United States |
| Number of locations | 5 Restaurants (2010) 3 corporate 2 franchisee[1] |
| Area served | Midwest United States |
| Key people | Harrison E. Shutt, President[2] Myrna Shutt, VP Scott Shutt, VP & GM[1] |
| Products | Fast food, including hamburgers, french fries, pies, and Frozen Malts |
| Services | franchising |
| Revenue | $6+ million[1] |
| Owner(s) | Harrison E. Shutt[1] |
| Website | Racine, WI Lansing, MI |
Kewpee Hamburgers is the second known chain of hamburger fast-food restaurants, and was founded in 1923 in Flint, Michigan under the name "Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs".[1][3] Kewpee's current headquarters is located in Lima, Ohio.[1][4] The chain is named after the Kewpie doll.[1][5] Kewpee was one of the first to institute curbside service, which morphed into drive-in service, and then finally was transformed into drive-thru service.[3] Its founder, Samuel V. Blair, also claims to be the first to use the flat bun and developed the "deluxe" hamburger.[4] The Lima Kewpee locations have locally raised, boneless beef delivered daily to each Kewpee restaurant. Then employees grind and patty that day’s burgers.[1]
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Their advertising slogan is: Hamburg pickle on top, makes your heart go flippity-flop![3]
Kewpee Hamburgers is a chain of fast-food restaurants founded in 1923 in Flint, Michigan by Samuel V. Blair under the name "Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs".[4] At its peak, before World War II, there were more than 400 Kewpee restaurants in operation with half closing during the Great Depression.[3] The early Kewpees were not franchises and there was no group association. Each differently-owned Kewpee had its own menu with their own different style of hamburger.[4]
Kewpee began operating out of a wagon then from a location on Harrison Street Downtown Flint.[4] In Lansing, Michigan, the Weston family has owned and operated the Kewpees restaurant since it opened in 1923. The Weston family has had as many as two Kewpee restaurants open at one time in Lansing. The Westons are in their fourth generation of operating Kewpee.[5] Kewpee's early plans under Blair and Adams seem to stay out of major city. After Prohibition, some Kewpee restaurants add real beer to its staple of root beer, which was on many Kewpee menus joining the standard coffee of other hamburger chains.[3] In 1928, the Lima, Ohio location opens under the ownership of Hoyt “Stub” Wilson.[1][6] In 1936 with a Kewpee already located in Findlay, Ohio, so Wilson opened a restaurant there called Wilson's Sandwich Shop.[6]
Blair, upon his retirement on April 1, 1944, started renting the original location. Blair died in 1945 and licenses continued to lease the location and paid royalties for use of the Kewpee name from the estate until the Kewpee trademark went up for sale in 1955 and Blair estate owned locations went up for sale in 1958. The original location and the rights to the Kewpee were split up in sale with the original location going to leasor William "Bill" V. Thomas while the trademark went to Ed F. Adams's Kewpee Hotels partnership of Toledo, Ohio[4][7] About 1958, Harrison "Harry" E. Shutt goes to work for Wilson at his Lima restaurant. Ed Adams' partnership, Kewpee Hotels transferred the Kewpee trademark to Kewpee Hotel Systems, Inc. in 1965[7] of which Ed Adams was president.[8] The number of Kewpee locations dropped considerably in 1967 when the Kewpee Hotel Systems, Inc. demanded a full franchising arrangement and a percentage of the profits. The locations which objected either closed or changed their names. The original Flint location changed its name to Bill Thomas' Halo Burger which is still a thriving business, but not at the original location which was torn down in 1979.[4][9] Hortense M. Adams took over as president of Kewpee Hotel System, Inc. by March 1975.[10] In August 1985, a Kewpee International partnership, (later most likely incorporated as Kewpee of Toledo) led by former Kewpee Hotel System Vice President Robert L. Dane, purchase the Kewpee rights from Kewpee Hotel System, Inc.[11] The Kewpee, Inc. forms in 1969 by Harold J., James F. and Richard E. Meredith based in Lima, Ohio.[12] "The Kewpee, Inc. of Toledo" assigns the trademark of Kewpee to "The Kewpee, Inc."[13] Shutt becomes president in 1970 of Kewpee, Inc.[1] and purchase's Wilson's Lima location upon Wilson's death[6] in 1980.[1]
According to a 2001 interview with Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, as a child, he lived near the intersection of Douglas and Kalamazoo Avenue in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Thomas used to love eating at a Kewpee restaurant, which stood at Burdick and South. He said it's what inspired him to go into the business. Kewpee's sold square hamburgers and thick malt shakes, much like that famous restaurant that Thomas eventually founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1969.[14]
In January 2010, Kewpee is named to the National Restaurant News 50: All-American Icons list[15] and the Lima City Council honors Kewpee with a resolution recognizing this honor.[16]
There are five known remaining Kewpee restaurants, as follows:
| Type | private corporation |
|---|---|
| Industry | Fast Food |
| Founded | 1936 |
| Founder(s) | Hoyt “Stub” F. Wilson |
| Headquarters | Findlay, OH, USA |
| Number of locations | 1 |
| Key people | Wilbur Fenbert, President Pat Baker, manager[18] |
| Products | hamburgers, malts[19] |
| Owner(s) | Wilbur Fenbert (40%) Maxie Curtis Pat Baker |
| Employees | 32[18] |
Wilson's Sandwich Shop is a spin-off business of the Kewpee Hamburger chain[6] located in Findlay, OH[18] . It is a local institution with people going there to get intouch with the community with it being a regular stop for local Courier reporters getting "man-on-the-street perspectives". Various famous people and politicans regularly visit including singer Johnny Mathis, U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and former Vice President Dan Quayle.[19]
In 1936 with a Kewpee already located in Findlay, Ohio, so Hoyt “Stub” Wilson, the Lima Kepee licensee, opened a restaurant there called Wilson's Sandwich Shop.[6] Wilson sold ownership in the 1960s to three employees: Wilbur Fenbert, Harold "Lance" Baker and Woodie Curtis. With the deaths of Baker and Curtis, their spouses took over their ownership interests.[19]In 2008, then Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden stopped there while on the campaign trail. [19]
Wilson's faced possible closure in 2009 with the downturn in the economy and Occupational Safety and Health Administration fines over their hamburger patty molding machine potentially pinching, electrical shock or electrocution. With training and safety precautions unaffordable, the then manager Mike Fenbert ceased using the machine and move to purchase premade patties.[19]