Kewpee
"Hamburg pickle on top, makes your heart go flippity-flop!"
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| Private | |
| Industry | Fast Food |
| Founded | Flint, Michigan, U.S., (1923) |
| Founder | Samuel V. Blair |
| Headquarters | Lima, Ohio, United States |
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Number of locations
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5 Restaurants (2010) 3 corporate 2 franchisee |
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Area served
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Midwest United States |
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Key people
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| Products | Fast food, including hamburgers, french fries, pies, and Frozen Malts |
| Services | franchising |
| Revenue | $6+ million (2009) |
| Owner | Harrison E. Shutt |
| Website | kewpee.com Racine, WI kewpees.com Lansing, MI |
Kewpee Hamburgers is the second known chain of hamburger fast-food restaurants, founded in 1923 in Flint, Michigan under the name "Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs". Kewpee's current headquarters is located in Lima, Ohio. The chain is named after the Kewpie doll. Kewpee was one of the first to institute curbside service, which later morphed into a drive-in service, and then finally was transformed into drive-thru service. Its founder, Samuel V. Blair, also claims to be the first to use the flat bun and developed the "deluxe" hamburger. The Lima Kewpee locations have locally raised beef delivered daily to each Kewpee restaurant. The Kewpee Restaurant in Lima, Ohio is considered a historic site.
Kewpee Hamburgers is a chain of fast-food restaurants founded in 1923 in Flint, Michigan, by Samuel V. Blair under the name "Kewpee Hotel" in a stand.
In Lansing, Michigan, the Weston family has owned and operated the Kewpee's 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. Kewpee's early plans under Blair and Adams seemed to stay out of major cities. After Prohibition, some Kewpee restaurants added real beer to their staple of root beer, which was on many Kewpee menus joining the standard coffee offerings of other hamburger chains. In 1928, the Lima, Ohio, location opened under the ownership of Hoyt “Stub” Wilson. About 200 Kewpee locations existed by 1929. In 1936, with a Kewpee already located in Findlay, Ohio, Wilson opened a restaurant there called Wilson's Sandwich Shop. At its peak just before World War II, there were more than 400 Kewpee restaurants in operation.
Blair, upon his retirement on April 1, 1944, started renting the original location. Blair died in 1945 and licensees continued to lease their locations and paid royalties for use of the Kewpee name from the estate until the Kewpee trademark went up for sale in 1955. The 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 leaser William "Bill" V. Thomas while the trademark went to Ed F. Adams's Kewpee Hotels partnership of Toledo, Ohio. About 1958, Harrison "Harry" E. Shutt went to work for Wilson at his Lima restaurant. In 1963, the Grand Rapids licensee locations were sold and separated from Kewpee as Mr. Fables.
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Wikipedia