Daniel Higgins|USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
PRAIRIE DU SAC- A hunk of fresh ground beef hits the hot flat-top grill in the test kitchen at Culver's headquarters.
Craig Culver, 68, uses a large, perfectly polished metal spatula to pressthe beef into perfectly round patties, with the help of an equally well-polished round metal canister. That grill isn’t quite hot enough, by the way, he comments.
I've watched (maybe secretly wishing I was in)the Culver's commercials with the restaurant's co-founder surprising customers, offering to bring them into the kitchen as he cooks their burgers. That was a tricky shoot, Culver says, because they were doing it during lunch hours at a Culver's in Tampa, Florida.
When gray edges form around the patties, he explains, they're ready to flip. The flip reveals a layer caked with crispy bits.
“That’s exactly what we’re looking for.”
Culver can’t even estimate the number of burgers he’s flipped since founding the first Culver's with his wife, Lea, and his parents, George and Ruth.
The chain, which on July 18 celebrated its 34th birthday,has become known for its burgers, cheese curds and frozen custard. You could call it the Midwest's answer to regional chains that get national attention like the New York-based Shake Shack and California's In-N-Out Burger. But Culver's tops both of them in annual sales— $1.43billionlastyear, compared to Shake Shack's $359million and In-N-Out's $908million according to the Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report 2018 by Technomics, a restaurant and food service research company.Culver'sranks 42nd overall beating other regional stalwarts White Castle($547million), Steak 'n Shake ($1.09 billion), and Waffle House ($1.33 billion) too.
If you can make it at more than 130 locations in America’s Dairyland, a state where frozen custard and cheese curds aren’t exactly exotic, then maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that the chain hasfound success in 23 other states.
RELATED: Culver's releases new flavors of the day
RELATED:Frozen custard didn't start in Wisconsin—but we're still the custard capital
Opening more than 655 restaurants bearing the family’s name wasn’t initially part of the plan.
“My dream was to move back and open the A&W as Culver’s and live happily ever after in my hometown,” he said. “That was my dream, to be part of the community and the schools and the churches.”
And in 1984, after graduating from University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and stints as a manager in fast food chains, a 34-year-old Craig Culver, stood in that repurposed A&W building in Sauk City witha greatview of a full parking lot. And the nearby Hardee’s. And also aDairy Queen.
“It was like throwing a party and nobody ever came,” says Culver of those early days.“Nobody knew who we were; itwas slim pickings.”
Culver's was early to 'fast casual' restaurant trend
Culver's wasfast casual — order at the counter, take a number to your seat, wait for your food to be delivered — decades before it would be the hottest trend in the food industry.
“We were a pioneer in that,” Culver says. “We wanted to make it to order.I like to call us the slowest fast food restaurant in the world and, we’re proud of it.”
Before opening Culver's with his family, Culver worked for four years as a manager at a McDonald’s.
“We wanted to be ourselves, never knowing we’d be going head-to-headagainst them someday.”
Well, maybe not head-to-head in overall sales;McDonald's is still golden by that count. But per unit, Culver's is a true blue performer. The average Culver's generatedabout $2.2million in sales per unit last year, according to the Top 500 Chain Restaurant Report 2018 by Technomics, a restaurant and food service research company, while McDonald's grabbed $2.6 million per restaurant.
David Henkes, a senior principal at Technomic, says while Culver's near 10 percent sales increase over 2016is partly due to geographic growth, adding stores in new locations, don't discount the importance of its Wisconsin-ness.
Culver calls it"exporting Wisconsin."
Or, as Culver's CEOJoseph Kossputs it, "We've taken this Wisconsin hospitality and bring it to all the markets we come to."
It took three years for the first Culver’s to turn a profit. The first franchising attemptin 1988failed.
Still, Craig and Lea continued to put in the long hours restaurant life demands while still finding time to raise their three daughters.Mandy Culver, the middle child, whose birthday falls on the anniversary of the first restaurant's opening, jokes that growing upshe thought her dad wore french fry cologne, but also has fond memories of family vacations including tripsto see her grandparents in Florida.
Long hours plus a lifetime of restaurant experience helped the Culvers overcome early setbacks, but Culver says having a passion for people is even more important.
Serving popular Wisconsinculinary treats doesn't hurt.
Culver's butter burgers were inspired by 'Happy Days'
The tagline for Culver's, "Welcome to delicious,"might as well read: Welcome to Wisconsin. Its butter burgers were inspired by a Milwaukee drive-in that wasthe model for Arnold's on the TV show “Happy Days.” Its frozen custard is patterned after an Oshkosh drive-in from Craig Culver’s college days. And, of course, there are the cheese curds.
Culver's franchise on the verge of opening restaurants in its 25th state, Alabama. It can already be found as far east as North Carolina, south intoFlorida, over to Arizona, up to Idaho and back again.
Culver is a Wisconsin guy. He was born in Neenah; his family moved to Prairie du Sac when he was still small. Today he can gaze wistfully at the hillside view from the company’s corporate offices, located along the Wisconsin River. Growing up, he and his brother, Curt, played cowboys and Indians in those woods, fished on the river and rode bikes to the golf course with clubs rattling in golf bags slung acrosstheir backs.
Along with sister, Georgia, they enjoyed what he says was a pretty typical Wisconsin small-town childhood of the late '50s and early '60s.
Growing up in the restaurant business
His parents bought an A&W in 1961, when Culver was 11, so he and his siblings were also biking to work in the new family business. Up to this point, Culver’s father had worked inspecting and grading dairy farms for a dairy cooperative.
“He bought that restaurant with no experience,” Culver says of his father. “The guy he bought it from was supposed to show up and help for the first two weeks. He never showed.”
Since that date, Culver has worked in the restaurant or food service business except for the summer of 1968, the year his parents sold the A&W.After selling the A&W, the Culver family owned and operatedthe Farm Kitchen in Baraboo and, briefly, Culver’s Ritz Supper Club located on the corner of Wisconsin Highways 33 and 12.
Watching his parents work “so darn hard” growing up, Culver says hedidn’t want to work in the food service industry. At least that was the plan when he went to study biology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
Ultimately, the people side of the business drew Culver back into the food service industry. He said he enjoysworking alongside peoplein restaurants, at headquarters and in his interactionswith customers.He credits his parents.
Appreciate the people around you. That's the fatherly adviceMandysays she's taken to heart.
During her weddingreceptionand hersisters', says Mandy, Craig asked the servers to come out and for the guests to show their appreciation with a round of applause. Servers at family reunions and other events get the same appreciation.
It's a life view that fits the food service life.
"You see such an immediate feedback," Culver said.“You can put a smile on a face pretty quickly.”
It starts with the burgers
Butter burgers were a topic of conversation (this was after college, during the time when his family owned the supper club) with a Milwaukee friend when Culver says thelight bulb went off in his head. If he ever had his own restaurant, he was going to serve butter burgers.
Wisconsin is home to two kinds of butter burgers:
1. Butter burgers served with generous pats of butter melting between toasted buns and hot beef patties.
2. Butter burgers built with a toasted buttered bun atop freshly pressed ground beef patties.
Culver's servesthe second variety. They've even trademarked ButterBurger.
"We weren’t sure what a butter burger was going to be, but decided we’d butter and toast the bun,” Culver says. “It’s really an old tavern-style burger, using fresh beef we press into a hot grill. It took us a couple of weeks after opening to figure that out."
Frozen custard: It's like ice cream, but way better
Frozen custard didn’t need figuringout, though a little unintended marketing didn’t hurt.
“My father would take a pint or quart down to the bank when making a deposit and give it to the tellers,” Culver recalled. “We didn’t think of it at the time as marketing, but it really was.”
Today Culver’s features a flavor of the day. Though it started more as a flavor of the week. Caramel pecan — still Craig’sfavorite— wasthefirstbig seller.
"The custard piece is a different twist," Henkes said. "That's a uniquely Wisconsin thing and they're using thatWisconsin thing to their advantage."
The restaurants'small batches of fresh custard are churned out by a $30,000 machine located in full view of customers.
The Galloway Companyin Neenah supplies the majority of the custard mix that gets mix-ins and is frozen on site.
Frozen custard contains, by federal standards,at least 10 percentbutterfat and 1.4 percentegg yolks by weight. Served soft, about 15 degrees warmer than hard-packice cream, and with less air beat into the mixture, frozen custard is a creamier, richer treat.
None of this is news to Wisconsinites, where frozen custard is a staple of warm summer evenings, but when it pops up in Nebraska or Texas or Tennesseecustomers are getting a taste something that — while not invented in Wisconsin— is as Wisconsin as bratwurst, beer or curds.
A simple bowl or cone of vanilla or chocolate custard can make the average ice cream as appealing as carrot sticks (OK, that’s a bit of stretch, but you get the idea), while the mix-ins add another level of yum.
Without the right people, there's no Culver's
The franchisee screening process includes paying $5,000 for the right to work a 60-hour week in a Culver’s restaurant. This helps both the company and potential owner-operators make sure it is a good fit for both sides.
Because franchises are awarded one at time, Craig still thinks of Culver’s locations “as independent restaurants.”
It's a selection process that screens for the right cultural fit and active owners. Both pieces thatHenkes says benefits Culver's continued growth.
"Any chain would love to have those traits," Henkes said. "Culver's is a little bit better at selecting those operators for themselves."
It's also a method to better ensure the Culver’s serviceis consistent at all locations from Sauk City to Tampa.
Culver's has all the pieces in place to expand into every state from coast to coast, says Henkes.
It will be up to the next generation of leaders to keep Culver's growing.
Culver, though retired from CEO role, plays a vital role in the company as chairman of the board, spokesman and mentor.Today's CEO Kossintends to keep exporting Wisconsin.
Koss started as a controller 21 years ago and worked his way up to CFO before taking over as head of the Culver's franchise.
As the person who's job is to watch the bottom line, he says one of his greatest experiences has been to see a teenager with at part-time Culver's job go on to becomea franchisee.
"I think the entire Culver family has created the culture," Koss said. "It is the most important part as far as our growth."
All of which Culver says provides owners and employees the“opportunity to make such a difference with so many peopleeach and everyday by just being themselves. Just being a good person. And giving them their smile. And a ‘please’ and a ‘thank you.’ It goessuch a long way.”
