Flashback Friday: Depending on their age, Wichitans miss either Zipps burgers or Zipburger

Welcome to Flashback Friday, a feature that will run Fridays on Kansas.com and Dining with Denise. It’s designed to take diners back in time to revisit restaurants that they once loved but that now live only in their memories — and in The Eagle’s archives.

This week’s featured restaurants are Zipps Drive Thru, which operated in the 1990s, and Zipburger, founded in 1940.

If you say the words “Zipps Burgers” to a nostalgic Wichitan, you’ll probably get a reaction.

But the age of your audience will determine which restaurant they’re likely remembering.

If you’re talking to a Gen Xer who ate out in the 1990s, it’s probably Zipps Drive Thru, which served cheap burgers and seasoned fries from two Wichita locations —747 N. Ridge Road and 1310 W. Pawnee — from 1989 until 1998.

If you’re talking to baby boomers or older, they’re likely thinking of Zip-Burger, the sandwich shop/diner that had connections to the Valentine Diner founder and was open at 601 E. Harry from 1940 until the mid-1950s.

The newer Zipps Drive-Thru is often mentioned by modern-day Wichitans in Facebook forums dedicated to Wichita nostalgia. Part of a chain based in St. Louis, Zipps was one of the early adopters of the “double drive through” concept that’s so popular today. The restaurants had drive through windows on both sides of their buildings, but traffic flowed the same direction on each side, so depending on what side a driver chose, the person in the passenger’s seat might be placing and accepting the order. The restaurants also had walk-up windows.

Zipps specialized in 99-cent quarter-pound burgers, and its fries were unusual. Fans of the restaurant remember that they were a darker color, somewhat spicy and almost seemed breaded. The menu also included double burgers, chili and soft drinks. When the first Zipps Drive Thru opened at Central and Ridge near West Acres Bowl in 1989, the Wichita Eagle reported that the highest-priced item on the menu was $1.69.

The restaurants were brought to Wichita by a group of businessmen that included John Crum, owner of West Acres Bowl and Northrock Lanes at the time. The Zipps chain also had restaurants in Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico and Arizona.

Zipps ad 1994

Article from Sep 7, 1994 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kansas)

Though the owners said in 1989 that they had sites identified for three additional Zipps, the only one that was added was at Pawnee and South Seneca in 1994.

The restaurants were popular with high school students and people in search of affordable fast food and creamy milkshakes. In 1992, though, the Zipps chain was taken over by Nashville-based Rally’s , and Wichita’s two restaurants seem to have both disappeared by around 1998.

Zip-burger, meanwhile, appears to have been a creation of Arthur Valentine, the owner of Valentine Manufacturing Inc., which from the 1930s to the 1970s created tiny prefab metal buildings used for restaurants. (The Brint’s Diner building is an example.)

When the restaurant first opened at 601 E. Harry on the last day of 1949, it was called Valentine Zip-burger, and an ad that ran in the Wichita Eagle said that it was designed “as a showpiece for the all-steel Valentine sandwich shops.” The equipment that came with the small pre-fab diners was all included at the Pawnee Zip-burger on a larger scale, and Valentine operators often received their training there.

The ad also said that Valentine created the original Zip-burger sandwich in coordination with the restaurant’s manager.

“This sandwich was developed by food laboratories in Chicago after months of research,” the ad read. “Precooked, packaged and ready to serve, Zipburger sandwiches come in two flavors: chicken and barbecue.”

Zip Burgers ad 1949

Article from Dec 30, 1949 The Wichita Beacon (Wichita, Kansas)

The following year, though, Valentine appeared to bring his friend Frank Hokr on board, and the restaurant soon became known as Frank’s Zip-burger. Hokr, a Great Bend native, had moved to Wichita in 1928 and purchased the Klondike Restaurant at 119 E. William for $3,500. He ran that restaurant — which served steaks, chops, plate lunches, cold drinks, cigars and candy — with the help of his wife, Hilda.

She died at age 50 in 1940, and seven years later, Frank married Irene Farrer — 30 years his junior. The wedding happened at the home of Arthur Valentine, who served as Hokr’s best man. Valentine’s wife was the matron of honor.

Together, the new couple ran Zip-burger — which sold hamburgers, pies, and “the best chili in town” by the pint or quart. Their smiling faces often appeared in advertisements.

“Mrs Hokr’s chief job at Zip-burger is the baking of the homemade pies that has already made the cafe a favorite eating spot by hundreds of Wichitans,” read an advertisement that ran in The Eagle in 1950. “She also aids Mr. Hokr in the preparation of his famous chili, stews and other short orders.”

Zip-burger appears to have operated until around 1957, the last time it was mentioned in the local newspapers. Two years earlier, it appears, the Hokrs had sold the restaurant to Bok Wong and Max Ying Wong, two transplanted restaurateurs from San Francisco, who kept the restaurant’s name and much of its menu but added Cantonese dishes.

The Hokrs went on to run a liquor store called Frank Hokr Retail Liquor, which operated at 2427 E. 13th St. in the 1950s and 1960s. The store was the target of frequent robberies: Frank was 79 when he was knocked unconscious during a robbery in 1963. The following year, his wife was working alone in the store when an armed robber forced her into the back before fleeing.

Frank died in Long Beach, California, in 1975 at age 91. Irene was 81 when she died in 1995 in Mannford, Oklahoma.