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Bob's Burger Express

28K views 115 replies 65 participants last post by  Timber hunter 
#1 ·
How many of you remember Bob's Burger Express? It was very sad to see their decline under new ownership, and eventual demise. At one time they had been very, very good. I worked for them for a period of time, and they were top notch in the 80's, at least the one I worked at.

Anyway, I was in the store with my wife today, and

they had Bob's Secret Sauce!

Julia and I were tickled pink about that, and got a bottle. I have no idea who is making it or if it's the original recipe. But it was a nice blast from the past.

:excited:
 
#16 · (Edited)
I lived in Salem in 1968 and Remember Bob's Burgers.
It was the sauce that made the burgers. Might have had a fry dip as well???

That was a big night out! I remember burgers being 49cents

Edit....
Old Coot jogged my memory.
Burgers were 19 cents
Cheese Burgers 29 cents
 
#17 ·
:throb:Each trip to Salem...Bob's Burgers!!!:throb:

Loved those trips in the 80's...early 90's? When did they leave us?

BU
 
#20 ·
Bob Cory was a cook in the military, probably during or just after WW II. When he got out he opened a lunch counter in one of those new-fangled self-serve grocery stores at the corner of Portland Road and Lana Avenue, just north of the underpass. The building is currently some sort of furniture outlet

In the early fifties he opened his first burger joint at the corner of Hood and Capitol streets, about a mile south of the underpass. The building is still there, home to an Arctic Circle. Store number 2 was the Browning and Commercial site.

From opening until at least the mid-60's, burgers were 19 cents. From the age of 9 until I was about 20 I lived on Browning. Bad juxtaposition, oink!

The burgers were great, but those fish sandwiches, especially if they got left in the fryer an extra 20 seconds...oh my!
 
#21 ·
A special treat during the summer when I was a kid would be going to Bob's and getting the 19 cent burgers, french fries, and strawberry shakes and then heading over to Avery Park in Corvallis for a picnic dinner with my family. Afterwards, we would get to play on the train and the jet that were in the park. I would also eat there a lot in high school when I was moving irrigation pipe on a farm on Peoria Road east of Corvallis. SG
 
#22 ·
Crazy thread!! I was just talking with a co-worker tonight about Bob's and how it used to be. I remember driving home to Madras from Bend and stopping at the one in Redmond for burgers. And then after I moved to Salem going to the Bob's on River Rd with a buddy who's g/f worked there. The memories of the burgers...:food:
 
#23 ·
I went to work for Bob's in 1986 at the end of my freshman year at the U of O. In 1987 I left for National Guard training and came back in 1988. In 1992 the company was sold when Bob Corey decided to retire. The buyers were not bad people, but they didn't know the restaurant business. They fired all of the store managers, people who had been there 15-30 years and were truly the heart of the business.

I had learned from those outstanding managers that if you focus on quality, the profit will come. The new owners were an investment group and were profit oriented, not quality oriented. My boss was fired. At that time I was the #3 guy. The assistant manager and I were transferred to the slowest restaurant in the chain. I suspected that this was to justify later firing for performance. We turned it into the highest profit store in the chain in 4 months, even though we created the highest average employee wage in the chain.

I left for two weeks of National Guard training and came back to find my boss (former assistant manager of the store I had been at to begin with) had been transferred. My new boss had driven off or fired most of our crew, and he cut my hours so low I couldn't eat or pay my rent, even if I chose between the two. My wife had just given birth to our first child. His justification was that he could pay someone minimum wage to do what I was doing and maximize his bonus. Within a week (in the middle of a recession) I found a job paying 50% more hourly, with opportunities for overtime, and quit. For some reason the jerk got mad when I did so.

I came back about a year later. The guy who cut my hours had driven the restaurant into the ground. He had reversed all of our sales increases in about four weeks and it never recovered. It closed in six months. So I ended up back at the restaurant I had started at. I worked there, along with another job at the same time due to financial need, and finished up college at the same time.

They offered me my own restaurant on the same day I brought in my two weeks notice because I wanted to finish up school with only one job, and try to get into medical school. It was an awkward moment, with the district manager offering me a promotion to general manager, and me responding with handing him my type-written two week notice.

In the next year the Eugene stores all closed, then the rest died a slow death.

My wife and I moved to Salem in the interrim when it became apparent that it would be a bad idea to go to medical school with three children I tried to frequent Bob's in Salem. I have no idea what went on in the Salem stores during all this. Around 1995 or 1996 or so, it was clear to me that they were on their last legs. I'd see garbage on their floors, the windows were filthy, something that NEVER would have been tolerated before. I made one last visit to one in West Salem, and it was pathetic. The staff was slovenly and apathetic. The restaurant was dirty. The food was awful.

I have drawn a number of lessons from all this. The search for the almighty dollar is futile. If your pursue quality and excellence, the dollars will follow. If you pursue the dollar, quality and excellence will suffer and the dollar will never come. You can never pursue the dollar because it will be a futile pursuit. Give it up. Be the best at what you do, and all things come then. At one time Bob's really was the best at what they did. When they stopped pursuing quality in search of the dollar, they lost everything.
 
#25 ·
Thats funny how many of us liked Bobs........me and my wife go to Burgerville every once in a while just because their regular burgers are about the closest thing to the Bobs burgers left out there.

I do remember from a relative that one of the 'secret' ingredients in the burger/fry sauce was pickle juice..:)
 
#30 · (Edited)
Yes I go back to the 19 cent burger era, and I spent some hours going 'round and 'round in Kevin's dad's '72 LeMans. I wonder if someone has that car today?

Now it's Arctic Circle, their fry sauce isn't bad.
 
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