Burgers, Shakes & Fries: 12 Years Of Quality Food, Friendly Faces

GREENWICH, CT — It's 10:30 a.m. on a Thursday, about an hour before Burgers, Shakes & Fries opens for business, and owner Kory Wollins is tending to an air conditioner located above the entrance on a particularly hot summer day. Once that task is done, he moves to cleaning the patty machine, then putting the finishing touches on tidying up just before warmly greeting the first customers to walk through the door.

He walks the new faces through many options of burger toppings, then asks for their names, making a point to write them down.

"We write people's names down," Wollins said. "It's funny, people always think it's like a trick that we remember their name, but once you write someone's name down enough times you remember it. Everyone here also has a really good memory for names though, and that goes a long way."

Needless to say, Wollins is very hands on when it comes to running his restaurant, which may be one reason it is still so popular after 12 years in business.

Located on Delavan Avenue in the Byram section of town, Burgers, Shakes & Fries (or BSF for short) opened in 2007 to almost immediate acclaim. During those first few years, a customer on a typical Saturday could expect to find a line out the door of the relatively small building, which was a deli before Wollins took it over.

"When we opened, I thought if I could serve 100 people a day out of this place that would be great," Wollins said, "but on some Saturdays in years two and three, we were serving over 360."

It was a good position to be in for Wollins, who in many ways took a big risk when he opened the restaurant. Though he had a lot of support from his wife and a number of friends who assured him BSF would be awesome, there were many times he was told the location, cost and other factors would result in failure.

"When I opened this place, I used every last dime I had," Wollins said,"but I said ‘I have enough faith in myself right now, so I'm just going to give it my all.'"

He also had faith in the concept, which can seem simple on paper: burgers, shakes and fries. Wollins agrees with this in some sense, but he also finds the amount of permutations and changes a customer can make when ordering just those three items offers a large number of possible combinations.

"It's not that there's a complication in the variety," Wollins said, "there's a complication in doing something simple very well consistently."

Wollins partially attributes his early success to loyal customer support online and the market not being as saturated with burger joints as it is today. Of course, the biggest factor to the continued success of BSF is in its namesake.

Biting into a BSF burger immediately opens up a true symphony of experiences: the soft crunch of the toasted buttered bread melting over one's tongue, followed by the crisp crunch of lettuce, pickles, onions or whatever toppings have been chosen. This sensation is then complimented by the taste of warm and gooey slices of melted cheddar, Swiss, American or even Gorgonzola cheese, then finally brought home by the explosion of grease and savory flavor that comes from biting through the patty into the other slice of bread.

In short, each bite is an exciting and remarkably tasty journey.

The buttered bread is an especially unique aspect of their burger, but it was not always part of the plan. According to Wollins, the original idea was to serve them on potato rolls.

"When we put the burger on that roll, even though we thought the burger was good, it kind of got lost in the potato roll," Wollins said. "It was just too much bun for the burger, because I really want the burger; I don't really care about the bun, but I wanted to use something that works."

Partially inspired by the historic "birthplace of the hamburger," Louis' Lunch in New Haven, the BSF team tried putting the patty on bread instead.

"It was OK, but it kind of lacked something, so I thought why not try buttering and griddling it like a grilled cheese, but without patty melting it?" Wollins said. "Once we put the butter on there, it just kind of got this savory, delectable kind of quality that it lacked without the butter on it."

That willingness to try something new is part of BSF's mantra of constantly improving and evolving while still maintaining what people have come to love about it. Over the years, the restaurant has added some items, including buns, to its menu of predominantly burgers, shakes and fries. Their shake selection offers a variety of options, including cinnamon, cookies n' creamand Neapolitan.

They have also opened a second location in Darien, which serves chicken tacos, salads and quesadillas along with full bar service.

Yet as he's looked toward evolving and expanding, Wollins has made an effort to maintain what people love about the restaurant: a welcoming environment with great food served up by friendly faces, most of whom have worked there for many years.

"I think what kind of sets us apart, other than the quality and consistency of what we're putting out, is the fact that the experience here is that of a familiarity and friendliness that you don't get in too many places in general," Wollins said. "I think we excel at that."

Patrick Mandeville has worked at both the Greenwich and Darien locations for about four years and finds he is still excited to come to work every day.

"We have a good team here. We always work together well, and the people are always nice. It's just fun to work here," Mandeville said. "Everyone comes here and knows what they're going to get out of this place, everyone knows each other's names; it's just a nice, family-friendly place."

Maintaining that positive atmosphere is important to Wollins, who has the innate ability to put anyone he talks to at ease by treating them like an old familiar friend. It's how he has managed, after 12 years, to still be so excited about burgers, shakes and fries.

"I'm happy," Wollins said. "I get to work with really great people and I get to see my customers and talk with them everyday. I've watched a lot of my customers' kids grow up, and I've watched these people's lives change."