Hamburger

The name comes from a doll. Kewpies were baby-Cupid characters drawn by the cartoonist Rose O’Neill, who began publishing them in 1909; from 1912 they were made as bisque dolls in Germany and became one of the most popular toys of the era. When Samuel Blair opened his Flint stand in 1923 he borrowed the craze, calling it the Kewpee Hotel and selling “Hotel Hamburgs”, and early slogans called it the “Mity Nice Hamburger”. The chain’s square burgers later stayed in the memory of a young Dave Thomas, whose Wendy’s would sell square patties too.

• United States
• Since 1923
• $

Samuel V. Blair opened a hamburger stand in Flint, Michigan, in 1923 and called it the Kewpee Hotel, after the Kewpie dolls that were a national craze at the time. Only White Castle is an older hamburger chain. Kewpee grew by licensing its name: there were about 200 by 1929 and more than 400 just before the Second World War, mostly in smaller Midwestern cities. Among the children who ate at one, in Kalamazoo, was Dave Thomas, who later said the place, with its square burgers and thick malts, was what made him want to go into the business. He founded Wendy’s in 1969.

Five restaurants: three in Lima, Ohio, plus one each in Racine, Wisconsin, and Lansing, Michigan.

The full Kewpee Hamburgers burger menu and story →