Patrons Return To Pay Tribute To Harold's

KENT

Middle-aged folks who once cruised into Harold's Drive-In in cars with big fins, stopped by in their Toyotas and Acuras yesterday to pay final homage to the man and the burger.

After nearly four decades behind the grill, it was Harold Vickrey's last day. The owner of the popular burger joint, Kent's first and only true fast food emporium through the 1950's and 1960's, hung up his spatula and closed the doors for good.

New owners plan to renovate and reopen the restaurant in November as Ghorm's.

"Kent has changed so much, but this place hasn't," said Leigh Mathena, a Covington resident who hung out with other teenagers at Harold's in the 1960's. "There's always somebody here you know, always."

Mathena sat on a curb in front of the drive-in, munching a burger with her sister, Pam Sawyer, and their friend, Jack Ottini. It was like a high school reunion, their burgers heavy with grease, and their conversations redolent with nostalgia.

But for Vickrey, it was another day working the grill like a madman.

The 62-year-old moved with the speed and agility of a much younger man. He slapped burgers on the grill and flipped buns with a spatula as fast as his waitresses shouted orders to him.

In one swift movement, he wrapped an order in foil paper and tossed it on the counter, shouting, "Quarter pound up!"

By his own reckoning, Vickrey has sold millions of hamburgers. Since opening his first drive-in in 1954, his menu has varied little from its staples: burgers, fries, onion rings, fish and chips, sodas and milkshakes, the kind that are hard to suck through a straw.

"He makes a really good hamburger," said Freda Carroll, whose husband Jim, and daughter, came all the way from Seattle just to taste a Harold's lunch one last time.

The Carroll's and other grown-up Harold's patrons recall when he moved his drive-inin 1958 and opened a second one in Auburn. He closed the Auburn drive-in in 1964 and moved Harold's to the top of East Hill in 1969, just up from the high school on Kent Kangley Road It was one of the first businesses in that part of town.

"I'm happy; it's time he slowed down," said Murial Vickrey, Harold's wife, who worked the friers making french fries and onion rings yesterday. "But it's sad at the same time."

The husband-wife team were in their early 20's when they sold their house and used the proceeds, $7,000, to open the drive-in. Harold drove a school bus in the morning, ran the drive-in at lunch, then drove a bus in the afternoon. Murial worked the late afternoon and night shifts.

Through the years, their children, Murial's mother and many other family members worked at Harold's.

But in February, Harold had triple bypass surgery to stave off a heart attack. Murial attributes his clogged arteries not to burgers, but to the stress of working 12 to 14 hour days, six and seven days a week.

Still working the grill, Harold said he will miss the people and the breakneck pace. But he has a lot of things to keep him busy; deferred maintenance on his big house and fishing for halibut and salmon.

"It's a fun business," he said. "If I didn't like it, I wouldn't still be here."

As the lunch line lengthened at Harold's yesterday, one woman, Sharon Veitenheimer, said she had come from Tacoma just to see her old boss. Veitenheimer worked for three summers at Harold's in the early 1960's.

Harold, she said, was a fair and patient man who cared about the kids he hired. When the girls were upset over a broken romance, he gave them flowers. If you needed time off, you got it. And he didn't want his waitresses serving food to people in their cars, like other drive-ins.

"He didn't think it was a lady-like thing to do," Veitenheimer said. "He was a gentleman."

Harold also made sure his workers kept their grades up and never let them work too many hours.

"The ones who get good grades are better workers," he said. "If you work them too many hours, they'll get burned out."

Harold's is being bought by two brothers, Dave and Tom Ghormley, who have close ties to another fast food institution: Dick's Drive In.

Warren Ghormley was one of three partners who owned Dick's, until he sold his share last year. Dave and Tom, his sons, worked at the Seattle burger joints for about 30 years.

After bringing in new equipment and sprucing up the building, the Ghormley's plan to reopen the drive-in by November under a new name: Ghorm's. Burgers and fries will continue to be the menu's staples, but Ghorm's will not be a carbon copy of Dick's.

"We're not knocking off Dick's," says Dave Ghormley. "But there will be a similarity in commitment to quality and high value."

Vickrey had other offers for Harold's over the years, but never felt like any of them were qualified to run the business. He has no doubts that the Ghormleys are worthy successors to his legacy.