Burgerville (originally Burgerville USA) is a

privately held A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

restaurant chain A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and southwest

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, owned by

The Holland Inc. ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

As the chain's name suggests, Burgerville's sandwich

menu In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established seque ...

consists mostly of

hamburger A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically Ground beef, beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles ...

s. As of May 2005, all Burgerville locations were within a 180-mile (290-km) radius, mostly in the

Portland metropolitan area The Portland metropolitan area is a metro area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington centered on the principal city of Portland, Oregon. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) identifies it as the Portland–Vancouver–Hillsboro, ...

. The chain had annual revenue of around $75 million in 2010, at which time it had 39 locations and about 1,500 employees. In addition to burgers and fries, Burgerville offers other products such as

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

and

turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

es,

veggie burger A veggie burger is a hamburger patty that does not contain meat. It may be made from ingredients like beans, especially soybeans and tofu, nuts, grains, seeds or fungi such as mushrooms or mycoprotein. The patties that are the essence of a veg ...

fish sandwich A fish sandwich is, most generally, any kind of sandwich made with fish. The term is frequently used to describe food made with breaded, fried fish, which are commonly found in fast food venues. In American English, a ''sandwich'' is any two piec ...

es, and

fish and chips Fish and chips is a popular hot dish consisting of fried fish in crispy batter, served with chips. The dish originated in England, where these two components had been introduced from separate immigrant cultures; it is not known who created t ...

. The chain uses local ingredients, such as

Tillamook Cheddar The Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA) is a dairy cooperative headquartered in Tillamook County, Oregon, United States. The association manufactures and sells dairy products under the "Tillamook" brand name. Its main facility is the ...

, and locally grown

strawberries The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...

in its

milkshake A milkshake (sometimes simply called a shake) is a sweet beverage made by blending milk, ice cream, and flavorings or sweeteners such as butterscotch, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, fruit syrup, or whole fruit into a thick, sweet, cold mixture ...

s and

sundae A sundae () is an ice cream dessert of American origin that typically consists of one or more scoops of ice cream topped with sauce or syrup and in some cases other toppings such as: sprinkles, whipped cream, marshmallows, peanuts, maraschino ...

s. Throughout the year it offers seasonal items such as milkshakes made with

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus ''Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according t ...

s, pumpkin, fresh raspberries, fresh strawberries, and

blackberries The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

, and side orders such as

Walla Walla Walla Walla can refer to: * Walla Walla people, a Native American tribe after which the county and city of Walla Walla, Washington, are named * Place of many rocks in the Australian Aboriginal Wiradjuri language, the origin of the name of the town ...

onion ring An onion ring, also called a French fried onion ring, is a form of appetizer or side dish in British cuisine, British and American cuisine. They generally consist of a cross-sectional "ring" of onion dipped in Batter (cooking), batter or bread ...

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...

fries,

tempura is a typical Japanese dish usually consisting of seafood, meat and vegetables that have been battered and deep fried. The dish was introduced by the Portuguese in Nagasaki through fritter-cooking techniques in the 16th century. The word ''tem ...

-style fried

asparagus Asparagus, or garden asparagus, folk name sparrow grass, scientific name ''Asparagus officinalis'', is a perennial flowering plant species in the genus ''Asparagus''. Its young shoots are used as a spring vegetable. It was once classified in ...

and

Yukon Gold potato Yukon Gold is a large cultivar of potato most distinctly characterized by its thin, smooth, eye-free skin and yellow-tinged flesh. This potato was developed in the 1960s by Garnet ("Gary") Johnston in Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, with the hel ...

es.

History

1969-opened Burgerville in Beaverton, Oregon (2015)

Burgerville was founded in 1961 by George Propstra in

Vancouver, Washington Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County. Incorporated in 1857, Vancouver has a population of 190,915 as of the 2020 census, making it the fourth-largest city in Was ...

. The first Burgerville was located on Mill Plain Blvd in Vancouver, about three miles east of downtown on the southeast corner of Mill Plain and Morrison. The chain uses 100%

wind power Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wi ...

for all of its restaurants and headquarters, and is the largest chain in America to do so. Burgerville uses only

trans fat Trans fat, also called trans-unsaturated fatty acids, or trans fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that naturally occurs in small amounts in meat and milk fat. It became widely produced as an unintentional byproduct in the industrial pro ...

-free

canola Close-up of canola blooms Canola flower Rapeseed oil is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. There are both edible and industrial forms produced from rapeseed, the seed of several cultivars of the plant family Brassicaceae. Historically, i ...

oil and sends 7,500 gallons per month to be transformed into

biodiesel Biodiesel is a form of diesel fuel derived from plants or animals and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made by chemically reacting lipids such as animal fat (tallow), soybean oil, or some other vegetable oil with ...

. In 2004, Burgerville switched to range-fed beef raised without hormones and antibiotics. In 2007, it began composting

food waste Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about o ...

which is expected to result in an 85% reduction in waste and $100,000 annual savings. In September 2009, after complaints from bicycle commuters, Burgerville began allowing bicyclists to order using its

drive-through A drive-through or drive-thru (a sensational spelling of the word ''through''), is a type of take-out service provided by a business that allows customers to purchase products without leaving their cars. The format was pioneered in the United ...

windows . The

fast casual restaurant A fast casual restaurant, found primarily in the United States and Canada, does not offer full table service, but advertises higher quality food than fast food restaurants, with fewer frozen or processed ingredients. It is an intermediate concep ...

chain was named by ''

Gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...

'' magazine as having the freshest fast food in the country in 2003, with offerings such as a salad with smoked salmon and Oregon hazelnuts. As of August 2007, their slogan is, "Choose Fresh, Local, Sustainable. Choose Burgerville." Also in 2007, Burgerville was awarded with the "Better Burger" award at the 1st Annual Food Network Awards. In January 2008, Jeff Harvey accepted the position of President and CEO of Burgerville after Tom Mears, the former holder of the titles stepped aside, and became Chairman of the company. In October 2018, Burgerville disclosed that it had suffered a data breach by the Fin7 hacking group of all customer credit and debit card information processed from September 2017 to September 2018.

Burgerville Workers Union

In April 2016, Burgerville workers organized and formed a

labor union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

, the Burgerville Workers Union, with support from Portland

IWW The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

, among other groups. The company opposed the union organizing effort and sought to discourage workers from joining. In 2018, the workers of one Burgerville restaurant in southeast Portland voted 18-4 in an NLRB-administered election to form a labor union; the vote compels the company to officially recognize the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU) and to

collectively bargain Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The i ...

with it. The BVWU is the only fast food union in the United States with federal recognition. The union has demanded a $5 an hour increase in wages for all workers, fair scheduling, improved health care, and parental leave. In October, 2019, the workers union was preparing to

strike Strike may refer to: People *Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

following a breakdown of negotiations with the company over the previous 18 months. The company had offered an increase of $1 per hour for all employees to $13.50, six months ahead of when Portland's local minimum was set to increase to $13.25. As of October 2019, five Burgerville locations have held successful union drives.

Locations

Caution Last Burgerville for 24,800 Miles

As of October 2016, Burgerville had 47 locations throughout Oregon and Washington. On major highways leaving Burgerville's reach, there is usually a

billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

resembling an overhead highway warning sign alerting drivers that there will not be another Burgerville location for approximately another 24,700 miles (39,750 km), which is the distance to the next Burgerville should one continue around the globe in that direction. The distance reported on each sign varies depending on the actual location of the billboard.

References

External links

*
Burgerville Workers Union

August 2004 story on Burgerville
from ''

The Splendid Table ''The Splendid Table'' is a weekly radio program about food hosted by Francis Lam. The program began in 1997 on Minnesota Public Radio, and was originally hosted by Lynne Rossetto Kasper until her retirement in 2017. It is produced and distrib ...

'' {{authority control Restaurants established in 1961 Fast-food chains of the United States Fast-food hamburger restaurants Hamburger restaurants Fast-food franchises Companies based in Vancouver, Washington Regional restaurant chains in the United States Culture of the Pacific Northwest Cuisine of the Western United States Localism (politics) Restaurants in Oregon Restaurants in Washington (state) 1961 establishments in Washington (state)

History

Burgerville Workers Union

Locations

See also

References

External links