Long live the Ollie burger

8. February 2011 by admin.

August 25, 2010

The Taste Bud: Long live the Ollie Burger

The Ollie Burger is the stuff of legend: Thick, juicy, spicy and unique, it is available from only one place in Louisville these days, and a handful of places on the planet. That said, I learned that eating more than one of these delectable mouth-gasms in a single day might not be a great idea.

Let me start from the beginning.

I hadn’t had an Ollie Burger in years. Then recently, my friend Amy talked me into meeting her for lunch at Ollie’s Trolley, located downtown at Third Street and Kentucky. The tiny trolley-shaped shack is the last of its kind in Louisville, and the burgers — topped with a slice of mozzarella cheese, inside a bun slathered with a Thousand Island-based sauce — are as delicious as they were in the 1970s. The French fries, which are shaken in Ollie’s spice mix, are just as good.

The late Ollie Gleichenhaus was a legendary grouch who was particular about his burgers. Former Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown, who had done quite well with his Kentucky Fried Chicken concept and made “Colonel” Harlan Sanders a legendary figure, tried to do the same with Ollie, who ran a tiny burger joint in Miami Beach. Ollie’s top-secret spice combo reportedly includes 32 ingredients, and Brown believed it was the burger version of the Colonel’s chicken recipe. The story didn’t end quite the same for the Ollie’s franchise, but a few of the Ollie’s Trollies have hung on, including locations in Cincinnati and Washington, D.C.

When I recently dined at the Louisville Ollie’s with Amy, her son Davis and his friend Jackson, the delicious burger and fries brought back a flood of youthful memories. These spices, these burgers and fries, are just … well … perfect somehow. Jackson even went so far as to proclaim Ollie’s food to be “like being naked in a pool of kittens.” (Give him a break, he’s just a kid.)

My lunch experience, which cost a measly $6, prompted a Google search for more info about Ollie’s. Turns out there are a number of people across the country pining for this stuff after years of deprivation. There is even a black market of sorts for recipes that purport to reveal Ollie’s secrets. One of them has only about 15 ingredients, including both Heinz 57 and A.1. steak sauces. Um, no.

But I struck gold when I found a retired executive from Lum’s restaurants, which served Ollie’s burgers and fries back in the day. Dennis DeBlasis, who was a director of operations for Lum’s, doesn’t know the recipe himself, but he still has access to the spice mixes, and he sells them for $10.95 per pound via his website (www.lums-recipes.com). He assured me the other recipes I found online were bogus.

“Anyone who states they have the recipe is dreaming,” DeBlasis claims. “John Y. Brown created Colonel Sanders and also Ollie’s (restaurants). The spices and recipes are not known to the public.”

He noted that all restaurants that served the Ollie’s burgers and fries bought the spices from a single distributor in 1-pound bags — which is what he now sells. “This is the closest anyone’s come to the original (spices) as designed by Ollie,” he says.

So I decided to see for myself. I bought his spices and recruited Amy’s help, and together we made Ollie’s burgers and fries for dinner on a recent evening. And it’s true — the spices I bought from DeBlasis, so help me, taste just like the real deal.

It’s not a difficult meal to make — mix the burger spices with water to create a marinade, and add them to Thousand Island dressing to create the bun sauce. Marinate the burgers, cook, top with mozzarella on a bun slathered with the sauce, and guess what? MOUTH-GASM. And as for the fries? We baked instead of fried (slightly healthier), then simply shook the hot fries in a large bowl with the spices (use lots for a greater kick). We melted as we devoured our delicious dinner. If, God forbid, Ollie’s downtown ever closes, we’re set.

But getting back to my original point: To ensure I had the proper perspective for comparison, I had Ollie’s for lunch the day we made the burgers. You know, for research purposes. However, two Ollie Burgers and a couple of potatoes’ worth of extremely spicy Ollie’s fries within seven hours of each other is not something I recommend. Sadly, even something as good as Ollie’s should be enjoyed in moderation.

Therefore, my next experiment is to see if the drug store brand of Alka-Seltzer is just as effective as the real thing. And if so, can I make it at home?

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SUBSCRIBE TO OLLIEBURGER SPICES & TIDBITS WEEKLY NEWS LETTER

7. April 2010 by admin.

To subscribe to Ollieburger Spices & Tidbits weekly news letter just email your email address to dennis@ollieburgerspices.com .

Bob Thom who designed and implemented the LUMs breakfast menu for the Perlman brothers and was one of the first supervisors for LUMS corporate is now part of our team. Bob began his restaurant career with IHOP ( International House of Pancakes) and also was on the team that started CHI-CHI ( Chi-Chi’s was a popular Mexican restaurant chain from 1975 to 2004. )

Bob, Welcome Back.

It has been 25 years since Bob and I worked together at LUMS.

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Some history of Ollieburger

22. January 2010 by admin.

HOME OF THE OLLIEBURGER

Here is some history of the Ollieburger:

ENTREPRENEURS: John Brown’s Buddy

At a Kentucky Derby breakfast in the Governor’s mansion nine years ago, a young lawyer with a hunger for riches ran into a courtly old gent with a recipe for fried chicken. The rest is history: John Y. Brown Jr. built an $830 million empire around Colonel Harland Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken. Having made his fortune, Brown sold out last year to Heublein Inc., a food and liquor distributor, and went into semi-retirement at age 37. But then he met Ollie Gleichenhaus, who runs a seven-stool hamburger joint in Miami Beach. Now Brown is determined to make him the Colonel Sanders of hamburgers.

Ollie is hardly the patriarchal Kentucky colonel type. A 60-year-old native of Brooklyn, he looks and sounds more like Archie Bunker’s big brother. But his hamburgers are something else: one-third pound of lean meat seasoned with 32 spices and a special sauce. Gleichenhaus, who insults customers and employees with equal abandon, takes his seasoning seriously; he often chastises patrons who unknowingly ask for ketchup or mustard.

Actually, Brown’s discovery of Gleichenhaus was not exactly serendipitous. Brown, the son of a longtime politician, retired from the chicken business in part because he wanted to become the Democratic candidate for Senator from Kentucky this fall, but then former Republican Governor Louie Nunn was nominated for the Senate, and Brown decided that maybe he would wait until 1974. He needed something to do meanwhile, an activity that would still leave him time for political jobs like organizing the telethon that netted more than $2,000,000 for the Democratic National Committee last month. Last August, accordingly, he bought Lum’s, a 340-outlet beer-and-hot-dog chain, for $4,000,000 in cash.

Lum’s franchises lost $150,000 last year—partly, says Brown, because “they did not have very good food. I figured that upgrading it would be my first task.” So Brown recruited a platoon of young executives and told them to scour the country until they found the perfect hamburger.

A month later they returned with Gleichenhaus. “I told John I was happy, I don’t need this,” Ollie recalls. “Then he told me he’d make me famous, bigger than the Colonel. He said my name would be in lights, on T shirts and plates, everywhere. He hit me in a weak spot.”

Lum’s hired Ollie to train its personnel, and it is now testing Ollie-burgers—at a high 95¢ each—in its Ohio outlets. Gleichenhaus is not entirely sure that Lum’s countermen can duplicate his masterpiece: “Those yo-yos are looking for a short way to make my burgers, but there’s no way other than the right way.” Even so, Brown intends to go nationwide with Ollie-burgers within a year, and has prepared 63 television commercials featuring Ollie in “an Archie Bunker kind of approach.” [1]

The Ollie burger seasoning was sent to the Lums restaurant in a case which contained twenty four one pound bags. The prep personal had to prepare it one day ahead of time. The Ollie mixture was then painted on the top and bottom of the burger before it was put on the grill. In the beginning a grill press was used to cook the Ollieburgers (like the george Forman grill of today without ridges) This was to cook the Ollieburgers with the Ollie sauce painted on both sides evenly so the yo-yos at Lums could duplicate Ollie’s masterpiece. Lums also spread the bun with an Ollie dressing to insure that the Ollieburger had the Ollie taste. The bun dressing was also made from the Ollieburger seasoning.

The Ollieburger seasoning and the french fry seasoning can be purchased at

dennis@ollieburgerspices.com or at dennisdb61@aol.com . The cost is $10.95 per pound plus shipping via USPS.

{1} Time Magazine

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PURCHASE OLLIEBURGER SPICES

22. January 2010 by admin.

HOME OF THE OLLIEBURGER

Hi, Welcome to LUMS

LUMS was a family restaurant chain in the United States. LUMS was founded in 1956 by Stuart and Clifford S. Perlman when they purchased Lum’s hot dog stand in Miami Beach for $10,000. Over the next few years, the Perlman brothers opened three additional Lum’s restaurants, for a total of four by 1961. Clifford Perlman, who in addition to owning Lum’s, had been serving as the president of Southern Wood Industries, Inc., resigned that position to work full time for Lum’s. Under the brothers, Lum’s began aggressively expanding and franchising. In 1969, Lum’s, Inc. was admitted to the New York Stock Exchange. In 1969, Lum’s, Inc. purchased Caesars Palace, then a 500 room hotel casino on the famous Las Vegas Strip, for $60 million. The food operations of Lum’s, Inc. were sold in 1971 to John Y. Brown, then Chairman of Kentucky Fried Chicken and a group of investors. At the time of sale, the company owned and franchised 400 stores in the U.S., Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Europe. In 1978, Wienerwald Holdings A.G., a Swiss holding company and parent of the Wienerwald restaurant chain, under the direction of Friedrich Jahn, purchased the 273 restaurant chain from Brown. However, Wienerwald had overextended itself and was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1982. The original Lum’s location closed in 1983. The last remaining LUMS location, in Davie, Florida, closed on June 28, 2009.[6] For a time, the company’s commercial spokesman was Milton Berle. [1] I was the director of operations for a franchise in Vermont and upstate New York for 12 years from 1980-1992. I made this website to keep alive the history and taste of some menu items this great American eaterie. I have the original recipes for the ollieburger, wienerwald chicken, hotdogs steamed in beer and the key lime pie. These items consumed my life for all those years as I opened new LUMS, trained our trainers and managers,visited and inspected for quality, cleanliness, and service for all of the LUMS restaurants six days a week twelve to sixteen hours a day. Terry the owner and I would leave our office in Shelburne,Vermont at eight oclock in the morning and return between midnight and two the next morning. I met many people in New England who have become ljfe long friends. This website/blog is dedicated to all of them.

Purchase the Ollieburger & Ollie french fry spices at dennisdb61@aol.com

[1] Wikipedia

Order ollieburger spices. ollie fries spices at dennisdb61@aol.com

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Lums Ollieburger recipe variations

10. September 2009 by admin.

Lums Ollieburger recipe variations

I have been getting lots of comments on the Ollieburger spices that I have been selling. I am posting some of them for you to read.

Dennis, I wanted to get another 2 lbs of Ollie Blue from you. I have
after 3 or 4 different amounts come up with the closest thing to what
I remember an original Ollie burger from Ollie’s in Miami Beach
tasted like. I am mixing 1 teaspoon of your Ollie blue right into
each 1/3 lb burger patty and let sit for 30 minutes before grilling.

Had a half dozen people over last night
that are all old Miami Beach High School folks and they all agreed. I
have also given them all your email address so I would expect you
will be hearing from them as well.

Thanks Rick

Hi Dennis,
Yes I have tried it twice and both times were good. The second time I made a double batch but made the mixture a little thicker, let it stand over night, put one teaspoon per patty in the burger, made the patties and placed them in the sauce to marinate until time to cook them (about 8 hours in this case). My wife does not think they are as great as I do but that is why there is chocolate and vinella.
Tom

Mixed up the bun sauce FANTASTIC It’s a shame I have one of the few ollies trolleys and I have to get my sauce from Florida lol. Will be ordering more by the end of this week .Will get back with you.
Thanx greg

Dear Dennis,

Back in November I bought some Ollie’s seasonings from you. Unfortunately, I’ve lost the recipes for making the bun sauce and how much seasoning to put in with the meat. Could I trouble you to send me that again please? I promise this time to scan it, copy it, and put it in three places so I can’t lose it again.

Thanks,

Janice

Dennis,

Just wanted to let you know that we made 1/3 lb bb-qed turkey burgers tonight with the blue and they were just awesome. Put 3 tsp in 1 lb ground turkey, formed into 3 burger patties and sprinkled a little more on the surface of both sides and let stand for 30 minutes. Grilled for 6 minutes a side and it was the best turkey burger that the three of us have ever had.

Please let me know if there is anything I can help you with.

Rick

Hi:
I got the spices Thursday; very quick.
The next day I made up a burger and fries by your directions. Even
though my kitchen doesn’t have the ambience of Ollie’s place, you have
allowed me to go back in time. Fantastic. Thank you so much.

Sincerely

Erik

I have since posted the directions for the Ollieburger and Ollie french fry seasoning on this blog.

I have tried Tom’s way of adding some spices into the burger meat and then making the Ollie marinade and the Ollie bun sauce and it was great. Also Rick’s turkey burgers were awsome!!! Everyone should try them, I added Lums bun sauce to Ricks turkey burgers and It has become my new favorite burger. Thanks Rick.
I appreciate all comments and will continue to supply the OLLIEBURGER SPICES as long as the good Lord keeps me around. Order at dennisdb61@aol.com .
Thanks,
Dennis

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Directions for preparing the Greatest Burger in the world: the Ollieburger & Ollie’s French Fries

31. August 2009 by admin.

THE DIRECTIONS TO PREPARE THE OLLIEBURGERS AND OLLIE FRENCH FRIES Directions for Ollie French Fries. Make sure you have hot fries , at Lums we had a plastic container with a lid and put the order of hot fries in it added the Ollie fry seasoning, shook it gently and the put them on the plate. This is the best way to get the Ollie fries. That’s it! Directions for the Ollie seasonings for the burgers and the bun sauce. To make the bun sauce: Mix two heaping tablespoon of Ollieburger spices into Two cups of thousand dressing and refrigerate overnight.To make the Ollie burger seasoning measure out 1/2 cup of seasoningAnd add to one and a quarter cup of water. Make sure you use a glassOr stainless steel container to hold this mixture, no plastic.Refrigerate at least eight hours or overnight.To make burgers (use ground beef 80/20 blend) which can be found at Walmart, Publix, Or any grocery store. Form a hamburger patty about 5 ounces (1/3 LB) paint the Ollieburger mixture Generously on top and bottom of burger (some marinate the burger in this marinade For about 10 minutes) and cook on a George Forman grill, an outdoor grill or skillet to medium or desiredTemperature. On a toasted bun spread the bun toping on both the crown andBottom of the bun. Place the burger on the bun and add a slice of Mozzarella cheese and enjoy your Ollie burger.This was the way we made them at LUMS. I am very partial to this method because this is the Ollieburger I am used to.

Since talking to people who ate at the Original OLLIES at

Miami Beach. Mix one teaspoon of Ollieburger Spices to each 1/3 lb of hamburger and let sit for about 20 to 30 minutes before grilling Or cooking. Captain Rick who ate there four times a week stated this way tasted Like the ORIGINAL OLLIE BURGER. He also stated no bun sauce at original Ollie’s. Ollie would throw you out if you put anything on his masterpiece. I tried his way and it is much easier and taste great. I still like the LUMS’ way since I have eaten Ollie Burgers this way for many years.

order ollieburger spices at dennisdb61@aol.com

ENJOY, Dennis

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My Bio

20. August 2009 by admin.

I am a retired Director of Operations for Lums restaurants living in Florida. I was associated with Lums from 1980 till 1992. Our Restaurants were in upstate New York (Plattsburg & Lake Placid) and in Vermont (Burlington, Barre-Montplier, White River Junction, & Rutland). We also had a Bonanza Steak house, Kinfolks (a theme New England fare restaurant) and a fish house the Shanty-on-the Shore which is still operating on Battery street in Burlington.

I was the general manager of Valle’s steak houses from 1972-1980, I managed Valle’s in Springfield Va , Richmond Va, and Tampa Fl.

I left Valle’s after Don Valle passed away

Dennis

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LUMS RESTAURANT menu

19. August 2009 by admin.

LUMS had a great menu that developed over time. It began with such icons as hotdogs steamed in beer with different toppings, frosty schooners of beer, great roast beef sandwich and french fries served in red plastic baskets with waxed paper underliners. Also on the menu were different burgers and sandwiches, one of my favorites was the tuna melt on an english muffin topped with swiss cheese(because I was always trying to loose weight). Later my good friend

Bob Thom introduced breakfast menu to LUMS. A lot of breakfast items were served in ceramic skillets. Bob’s background was with International House of Pancakes. The breakfast menu was an instant hit. Then came along the famous OLLIEBURGER and Ollie Gleichenhaus who was already famous in Miami Beach. LUMS added a few different ways to prepare the OLLIEBURGER from the original one Ollie had at Miami Beach. Later Uncle Miltie (Milton Berle) was the spokeman for LUMS and the frosty schooners of beer. The schooners were a real pain because they chipped around the edges when stored in the mug froster. Along the way the salad bar & dinner menu was added to round out the family restaurant concept. Then the next icon from Friedrich Jahn was Wiernerwauld Chicken. This was a great item but it had to be prepared 24 hours ahead of time . Then in the dessert line LUMS added a great Key Lime Pie.

This site sells the original Ollieburger seasonings and the Ollie fry seasoning. Go to dennisdb61@aol.com to order. We also sell the Wiernerwauld Chicken rub to prep the chickens with and direction to prep the chickens. We have the hotdogs steamed in beer recipe as well as the great roast beef rub and our famous Key Lime Pie recipe that we used at LUMS. All of this can be ordered thru Dennis at dennisdb61@aol.com.

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How John Y Brown met Ollie Gleichenhaus

19. August 2009 by admin.

Miami Beach. Now Brown is determined to make him the Colonel Sanders of hamburgers.

Ollie is hardly the patriarchal

Kentucky colonel type. A 60-year-old native of

Brooklyn, he looks and sounds more like Archie Bunker’s big brother. But his hamburgers are something else: one-third pound of lean meat seasoned with 32 spices and a special sauce. Gleichenhaus, who insults customers and employees with equal abandon, takes his seasoning seriously; he often chastises patrons who unknowingly ask for ketchup or mustard.Actually, Brown’s discovery of Gleichenhaus was not exactly serendipitous. Brown, the son of a longtime politician, retired from the chicken business in part because he wanted to become the Democratic candidate for Senator from

Kentucky this fall, but then former Republican Governor Louie Nunn was nominated for the Senate, and Brown decided that maybe he would wait until 1974. He needed something to do meanwhile, an activity that would still leave him time for political jobs like organizing the telethon that netted more than $2,000,000 for the Democratic National Committee last month. Last August, accordingly, he bought Lum’s, a 340-outlet beer-and-hot-dog chain, for $4,000,000 in cash.Lum’s franchises lost $150,000 last year—partly, says Brown, because “they did not have very good food. I figured that upgrading it would be my first task.” So Brown recruited a platoon of young executives and told them to scour the country until they found the perfect hamburger.A month later they returned with Gleichenhaus. “I told John I was happy, I don’t need this,” Ollie recalls. “Then he told me he’d make me famous, bigger than the Colonel. He said my name would be in lights, on T shirts and plates, everywhere. He hit me in a weak spot.”Lum’s hired Ollie to train its personnel, and it is now testing Ollie-burgers—at a high 95¢ each—in its

Ohio outlets. Gleichenhaus is not entirely sure that Lum’s countermen can duplicate his masterpiece: “Those yo-yos are looking for a short way to make my burgers, but there’s no way other than the right way.” Even so, Brown intends to go nationwide with Ollie-burgers within a year, and has prepared 63 television commercials featuring Ollie in “an Archie Bunker kind of approach.” The rest may some day be history

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Hi, Welcome to LUMS RESTAURANTS!

9. August 2009 by admin.

This blog is dedicated to all the people who made LUMS restaurants an icon in the fabric of American eateries.

I also dedicate this site to our own LUMS group in Vermont & upstate New York. Special gratitude to my wife (Ginny) my brother

& chef (Butch) award-winning chef (Conrad) all who are not with us anymore in this world, And to my friends Terry Spillaine and Bob Thom who made it all possible.

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