Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger is the place to go for all the meat-eating and, more important, meat-enjoying inhabitants of Ann Arbor.
Still in its original location at the corner of South Division and Packard, Blimpy Burger claims to be Ann Arbor's oldest hamburger stand. When original owner James Shafer opened Blimpy Burger in 1953, the menu consisted of three items - hamburgers, cheeseburgers and potato chips. Now Blimpy's boasts more than 15 toppings for burgers, sandwiches, fried vegetables, desserts and more.
There are options for vegetarians, including a deep-fried veggie burger for those who ask for it. But "Blimpy's is actually one of the only burgers that a lot of vegetarians break their vows for," said Rich Magner, proprietor of Blimpy Burger. The possibilities for a burger are endless - there are more than 1,245,760 possible Blimpy's combinations! "There are no two Blimpy Burgers that are the same - ever," Magner said.
Magner began working at Blimpy Burger in 1969 and continued until 1974. In 1971, Magner designed Blimpy's signature T-shirt with the teddy bear mascot. Magner does most of the artwork for Blimpy's and his brainchild was the Blimpy bear. The owner, Jim Shafer, commissioned Magner to draw a T-shirt with some sort of cow mascot.
"I don't do cows, so I did the bear," Magner said. He is promoting the bear image by including the bears in ads and by sculpting the families of snow bears that have been perched under Blimpy's awning in the winter time since 1992. The bear figures, made with just freshly fallen snow, can last from a couple days to a month if it stays consistently snowy and cold.
After other endeavors in the restaurant business, Rich came back to Blimpy's, reopening it in March 1992 as the proprietor, taking over for Shafer. Shafer molded Blimpy's into what it is today, and Magner continues the tradition. Blimpy Burger is unique in its own right.
"We grind the beef ourselves, so it's never more than a day old," Magner said. The beef is never frozen, and all the products are made in the establishment, except for the fries and the buns.
Blimpy's cooks its burgers in a particular way - the hamburger meat, which yields 10 patties to the pound, is rolled up into small balls when raw, placed on the grill and smashed flat. All the patties are the same size, so they take the same amount of time to cook. "Ten patties takes the same amount of time to cook as two patties," Magner said.
So no matter how big the burger, the wait for an order will never be very long. The burgers range in size from a double to a quint, which equals a half-pound of beef on one bun. The menu stops at the quint burger, "but people can get as many patties as they want," Magner said. So far, the biggest burger anyone has eaten included 37 patties.
Roderic Collins, 27, of Ann Arbor, broke his own record of 32 patties in 70 minutes this past July. Collins came into Blimpy's and ordered a 40-pattie burger, with cheese on all of them and a few sides, and managed to eat 37 of the patties. He ate almost four pounds of beef in about an hour and a half. Magner rewarded Collins with a custom-designed T-shirt. "But I don't like to encourage that kind of eating all the time," Magner said.
Blimpy's attracts students and townies alike. Magner said the ratio during the school year is about 60 percent to 70 percent students, to 30 percent to 40 percent townies. It switches in the summer, so Blimpy's doesn't experience a total lull in the summer when students are gone. The parking is cramped around Blimpy's, but "the people that want a Blimpy's somehow find a way to park and get here," Magner said.
The busiest days are definitely football Saturdays, attracting avid Michigan football fans of all ages. Since Blimpy's is small, the lines go out the door. "I've seen cooks put 75 people through the line inside an hour," said cook and longtime worker Paul Hoplin. "That's like an order being put through every 45 seconds!"
There is a particular way to place an order at Blimpy's, enough that if a customer comes in for the first time, it is clearly obvious to the cooks. "There is a reputation for being rude and sometimes it can come off wrong," Magner said. He explains that employees have to coach first-timers through, so that the line gets taken care of efficiently. "If people don't have a clue how to order, you have to coach them through it," he said. "We're kind of educating them so they'll know how to order next time."
Blimpy's definitely has a following of loyal customers that have been regulars for years. Magner claims to recognize customers today that came in the establishment when he worked there in the early '70s. Also, "there are customers that come in that you know by their order," he said. "I don't know their names but I know what to put on their burger."
There are also the new students that start coming in every fall after discovering Blimpy's. When asked if he liked Blimpy Burgers, Peter Christiansen, a first-year LSA student, said, "Oh, definitely. This is the bomb."
His brother, Dino, an LSA sophomore, added "It's good food and it's cheap." Both students have been coming to Blimpy's since they started attending the University.
"I came here when I was a senior in high school and I've been coming here ever since," said the brothers' friend Riley Brennen, a first-year LSA student. Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger has been around for over 40 years and is now serving the fourth generation of Blimpy Addicts. Its obvious popularity with the young and old of Ann Arbor ensures its success for years to come.
DAMIAN PETRESCU/Daily
Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger offers a lot more than just burgers.