How N.B.’s Last Drive-In Restaurant Has Stayed Open For Nearly 50 Years
BATHURST – Glenna Smith grew up at Big D Drive-In restaurant, the last of its kind in New Brunswick. Her father, Richard Dobson, had worked there as a teenager and took it over in 1986. Next year, the restaurant will celebrate its 50th year in operation.
“I worked here ever since I was 13 years old,” says Smith. “I went to university and had a nursing career for about 11 years and then I decided I was going back into the family business because I thought it was a worthwhile thing to keep going.”
Big D, on St. Peter Avenue, was originally opened by Keith DeGrace, the owner of Atlantic Host Hotel in Bathurst, in 1969. It sells the things you’d expect to find in a classic drive-in restaurant – milkshakes, soft-serve ice cream, quarter pounder burgers, onion rings, fries and barbecued chicken. All to be ordered from and eaten in customers’ cars. This concept was popular in the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s.
Dobson started working at Big D soon after it opened. When DeGrace opened a second location in Miramichi in the 1980s, Dobson moved there to manage that shop. But after DeGrace sold it, Dobson moved back to Bathurst and began managing the restaurant there. In 1986, he bought the shop from DeGrace.
Dobson was able to keep some of its signature plates, like the Danny Burger – a cheeseburger with a home-made sauce named after DeGrace’s father, who opened Danny’s Inn not far from the drive-in.
Now Dobson’s daughter is part of the management team, preparing to take over the family business, though that’s still quite a few years away.
“We look at it as a family business,” says Smith. “My mother’s here and I’m here. My sister lives away so she’s not. My daughter works here. I know my father likes to keep active and I think he wants to keep running this place for maybe another 10 years and then go from there, health permitting and all that. He’s in his 60s and quite active, so it’s looking good that way.”
Having been around for so long, Big D has many loyal customers and employees. Mark Hickey has been the manager of the Bathurst kitchen since 1986, while some servers have been there for 25 years. Workers that leave sometimes come back. Currently, between 17 and 18 people work there, including some students and part-time cooks.
“Even if we’re not related by blood, I find that we just feel like the Big D family most of the time,” Smith said.
It’s been able to stay open for so long because Big D has managed to evolve with time but also keep things simple.
“We have some menu additions as the chicken burger started to come out or some seafood. We offer a few different things. But we don’t like to change things too often. People know I can get this here and it tastes like that,” Smith says.
Big D’s customers tend to come back for classics like the Danny Burger, fried clams and “Beefpower” – roast beef served in a sesame seed bun. The staff at Big D cooks the food to order and it sources its ingredients from around New Brunswick. For example, the hamburger meat comes from Beresford, a town just up the street from the restaurant.
“Usually, our clientele has been coming here for years, maybe as a child and as they grow up,” says Smith. “They just keep on coming back for their favourites.”
Others want to try it out because it offers a different experience than regular fast-food restaurants. Smith said that in the summer, many people stop to take pictures.
“This concept is old, but in a way, it’s interesting for people to see,” she said.
I remember coming here as a kid, I remember seeing the tray on the window and [servers] come to take your order and I sit in the car and have my burger and fries, it’s fun,” she said. “You can play your own music and you can just relax and it’s your own little zone, but you’re eating out.”
The restaurant is open year-round and remains busy in the summer months and Christmas time. On regular days though, the nights can be quiet. The restaurant closes at 9 pm this time of year, and 10 pm in the summer.
“It’s noticeably different without tourists or people coming home. Sometimes [Big D] is like their first stop here. Before they go to their parents or family, they come to get a Danny Burger first,” she says. “I find that the evening business has kind of died around here, but it’s okay. We can cover it. And when it’s time to go to bed, it’s time to go to bed.”
Over the years, Big D has had to adapt to many changes. One of the biggest ones was the switch from cash to debit- and credit-card machines, Smith said. Before, staff would ask customers to take out cash from a bank machine nearby.
“But now we could get the wireless Bluetooth machine and tap, and it’s almost more than 50:50 [card to cash ratio] now, just in the three years that I’ve been back,” Smith said.
Big D has also begun managing its online presence through a Google website and a Facebook page – the latter started by a fan. It still takes orders by phone, but it has decided not to move to online ordering.
“We like to keep it pretty basic … because the more you rely on technology, the more problems you’d have when it doesn’t go well, right?” Smith said. “So if the power goes out here, we do have to shut down. But if the WiFi’s out, we still can function although we’d have to ask could you get cash or whatever, because that happens.”
Recently, the restaurant invested $6,020 to replace its outdoor and indoor lighting with more efficient LED ones and longer-life lightbulbs through NB Power’s Small Business Lighting Program. This would save it $1,400 annually.
“There will be less power consumption for our lighting. It’s much brighter outside there,” she said. “Now the manager has an app on his phone to control the lighting and he can put it on timers.”
Big D’s challenges have less to do with technological changes and more with natural occurrences.
“All those winters were challenging. If anything, you want to make sure you’re accessible. Any road work or anything, you got to make sure people can get here,” Smith said. “And you want to make sure you have staff. It can be a challenge but we always seem to be able to find people.”
With restaurant equipment being expensive, Smith’s father tries to only spend money where needed, such as a walk-in freezer, fridges, upgraded lighting, a new ice cream machine and a heat pump.
“But don’t go too big and then can’t maintain what you have,” Smith said about her father’s approach. “[The business is] generating revenue. He’s like, ‘I’m not in it for the money.’ We have our employees, and we just want to be here for Bathurst, for this area.”
“We just keep on going and hope for the best.”