Ollie Gleichenhaus

Ollie Gleichenhaus
US Trademark image used in marketing "Ollie's Trolley" restaurants and the "Ollieburger"
Born	Oliver George Gleichenhaus (1911-09-30)September 30, 1911 New York City, U.S.
Died	January 10, 1991(1991-01-10) (aged 79) Miami, Dade County, Florida, U.S.
Occupation	Restaurateur businessman

Oliver George "Ollie" Gleichenhaus (September 30, 1911 – January 10, 1991) was an American restaurateur, best known for his small North Miami Beach, Florida restaurant "Ollie's Sandwich Shop",^[1] located at Third Avenue and 23rd Street,^[2] where in the mid-1930s, he created his signature "Ollie Burger" which he prepared with his secret blend of 23 herbs and spices. Extremely profane and irascible, Gleichenhaus was known to curse at and eject diners who requested condiments like ketchup to add to his "perfect burgers".

Food franchise mogul John Y. Brown Jr., seeking to add a signature hamburger to his then struggling Lum's Restaurant group, purchased the rights to Gleichenhaus's Ollie Burger, his recipes and likeness for a reported one million dollars. Brown also created the "Ollie's Trolley" franchise consisting of small, take-out only restaurants that prominently featured Gleichenhaus's signature hamburger. Gleichenhaus was required to act as the company's brand ambassador and figurehead. His name and image were used as symbols of the company. The franchise was dissolved in the 1980s. Gleichenhaus's secret formula "Ollieburger" and "Ollie Fries" spice mixes are still available. Gleichenhaus died in 1991 in Miami, Florida after open heart surgery.^[2]

Early life[]

Oliver George "Ollie" Gleichenhaus was born September 30, 1911 in Brooklyn, New York, the fifth of Adeline (née Abrams) and Leopold Gleichenhaus's five children. His father was a cloak and dress cutter, working with his brother Isaac at L. & I. Gleichenhaus in New York City.^[3] Gleichenhaus said his mother took him to Florida as a child "for health reasons".^[4]

Ollie's "Ollie Burger"[]

Gleichenhaus ran "Ollie's Sandwich Shop", a small North Miami Beach, Florida restaurant located at 315 23rd Street, the corner of Third Avenue and 23rd. Gleichenhaus said of the restaurant "It was a crummy dive, but it had charisma".^[5] Gleichenhaus would not allow his customers to request any changes to the food he prepared. "My customers ate what I told them to".^[6]

In the mid-1930s, he perfected his signature "Ollie Burger" which he prepared with his secret blend of 23 herbs and spices. He dabbed them on the hamburger patty with a brush, saying "Dab it on. Smell the bouquet, 23 natural organic seeds, we don't grind them, keeps the aromas intact".^[7] He mixed his spice mixture in a salad dressing based sauce and heavily dressed both sides of the Ollie Burger bun with the sauce. He also used the same dry spice mixture as a seasoning on his fresh french fries, naming them "Ollie Fries".^[8]

Gleichenhaus discussing the cheese he selected for his Ollie Burger said "it took me five years to get the right kind. American wasn't right. Gruyere was too chewey. Then I found mozzarella, melts quick".^[7]

The best hamburger in America[]

John Y. Brown, Jr. had purchased Kentucky Fried Chicken from Harland Sanders, built it into an 830 million dollar franchise and sold it to spirits distributor Heublein in 1971. Brown then purchased Lum's Restaurant Group, a 340-outlet beer-and-hot-dog chain, for $4,000,000 in cash. Lum's franchises had lost $150,000 the previous year. According to Brown, “they did not have very good food. I figured that upgrading it would be my first task.” Brown wanted to rebuild Lum's around an exclusive hamburger recipe and set out to find "the best hamburger in America".^[9]

Brown visited the Miami diner in the fall of 1971,^[10] ordering and slowly eating five of the one-third pound Ollie Burgers. Gleichenhaus questioned Brown's intense interest. "I said 'What's with this guy? Does he have a tapeworm or sumpin?'"^[11]

Brown wanted the Ollie Burger and pressed Gleichenhaus to sell him the recipe, saying "Ollie, I'm going to make you rich". Gleichenhaus said "John Y., what do I need rich for? I got security".^[11] Brown brought his family to sample the burgers and they said they loved them. Brown brought friends to the diner, betting them $100 that the Ollieburger was the best burger they had ever eaten. "To a man, Brown's friends left $100 poorer".^[10] A persistent Brown had someone contact Gleichenhaus every day for three months to no avail. Gleichenhaus said he worried "mass production would ruin his burger".^[5]

A winning appeal to ego[]

Finally, Brown appealed to Ollie Gleichenhaus's ego. He told Gleichenhaus that he wanted to make him “bigger than the Colonel ("Colonel" Harland Sanders)”, putting his face and name in lights and his Ollie Burger on plates everywhere. Gleichenhaus said "He couldn't get me on the money angle, see, but when he told me my picture would be all over town like the Colonel's - everywhere you go you see the Colonel - I said 'Gee, that would be nice'".^[11] Gleichenhaus closed the diner and left a sign in the window that read "Gone to be a star - back next week".^[10]

Sold for a million dollars[]

In 1971, Brown bought Gleichenhaus's recipe for $1 million (equivalent to $6,390,304 in 2020), stock in the new company and a ten-year contract for $50,000 a year to appear as the official spokesperson of the Ollieburger.^[12][5][13]

Investors were told that Gleichenhaus and his hamburger recipe with secret ingredients meant that "Ollie would be the Colonel Sanders of hamburgers".^[14] In 1972, "Ollieburger" was registered as a US trademark.

Scaling the recipe[]

Gleichenhaus worked with Lum's for over six months working to standardize his recipes within the restaurant chain.^[10] Gleichenhaus insisted his hamburgers had to be cooked "on a gas fired grill" and cooked to just medium rare. He insisted when a hamburger was cooked to well done, "...then they're lousy. That's what I gotta watch. Somebody wants it well-done, I tell 'em they should order a hot dog. If they say they can't stand looking at pink meat, I tell 'em to close their eyes". He also said he had to keep his eye on the buns. "They've got to be at least ten percent egg and have a little honey. After all, when you're wearing a $300 suit, you don't put on sneakers to go with it".^[5]

He kept his seasoning recipe secret, having one half of his spice mix blended in Baltimore and the other half in Chicago. He said the two mixtures were combined "somewhere else". Gleichenhaus said the resulting mix of 23 spices was "better than Chanel No. 5".^[2]

Mass-producing Gleichenhaus's spicy sauce required extra effort. "Six months they took to make my formula. I sent them gallons of the stuff before the chemists could even come close and the spice companies said they'd never seen anything like it."^[15] Paramount Foods Inc. in Louisville, Kentucky manufactured the sauce to Gleichenhaus's recipe.^[8]

Gleichenhaus had always cooked his Ollie Burgers to medium rare and used his years of experience to know when they had reached that point by feel. "How many got this touch?" he asked. "It's a science, a feel". The answer was found in a Louisville, Kentucky test kitchen. A special grill was developed that cooked both sides of the burger at the same time, to the exact desired doneness and temperature.^[6]

Lum's Restaurant[]

Gleichenhaus was unsure Lum's cooks could duplicate his masterpiece, saying “Those yo-yos are looking for a short way to make my burgers, but there’s no way other than the right way.”

Brown first introduced the Ollieburger nationally as a signature item on the Lum's Restaurant group menu. 63 television commercials featuring Gleichenhaus in “an Archie Bunker kind of approach" were created and broadcast to build Gleichenhaus's image throughout the US.^[16]

In 1974, it was reported that the Ollieburger had captured a 15 to 20% share of Lum's Restaurant food sales while their mainstay hot dog sales had fallen 6 to 7%.^[17]

Ollie's Trolley[]

Ollie's Trolley restaurant design line drawing

While Brown had employees scouting America for the perfect hamburger for Lum's, Brown and his family went skiing in Aspen, Colorado. On a lift to the top of the mountain, Brown spotted a small trolley down below, selling popcorn. It reminded him of the trolleys in Louisville during his childhood. He said "Well, it was just sort of cute".^[18]

Brown decided that, while selling Ollieburgers at Lum's, he'd also sell them from small, stand-alone replica trolley cars. Brown then made the Ollieburger the centerpiece of his new streetcar-themed "Ollie's Trolley" fast food chain, where “the world’s best hamburger” was served up in bright yellow and red replicas of old-fashioned trolley cars. With just one door in and one door out, Ollieburgers were sold as take-out only. The 20 by 12 foot^[8] "trolley car" stores barely held three or four customers at a time who entered, placed their order, waited in line and left with their food order in a paper sack. Brown planned to place at least one of these tiny streetcar restaurants in every city in America.

While burgers were the star, Ollie's Trolley also offered hotdogs, chicken sandwiches, milkshakes and spice-coated French fries named "Ollie Fries".^[19]

Secret "Ollieburger" and "Ollie Fries" spice recipes[]

Over the decades, nostalgic fans of Ollie's Trolley have tried to replicate Gleichenhaus's secret spice formulas. The internet is full of so-called "authentic" recipes that rely on spurious ingredients never mentioned by Gleichenhaus such as Heinz 57 Sauce, crushed beef bouillon cubes and the like. These incorrect spice recipes often offer "proof" of their authenticity, saying "The recipe is 100% authentic. I know because I have already tried it".^[20][21] For many years, Gleichenhaus only mentioned using pure spices that were unground, used in their full form for intense flavor. He never referred to using bouillon cubes and cider vinegar. Authentic Ollieburger spices and other spice blends used by the now defunct Lum's Restaurant group are still available.

End of the franchise[]

By 1974, it was reported there were fifty-six Ollie's Trolleys in seven states. Twelve stores were located in Louisville, Kentucky.^[22]

Despite positive test market feedback, some found Ollieburgers too spicy and too salty. The Ollie's Trolley park, walk-in, take-out-only concept also proved to be a problem as many fast food rivals began adding more convenient drive-through windows.^[18]

In 1982, John Y. Brown said "that venture (Ollie's Trolley) collapsed".^[23]

Humble in success[]

Gleichenhaus kept a keen sense of humility even though he had suddenly become a millionaire, a corporate spokesman and had appeared in countless parades, store openings and local and network television interviews and shows.^[7]

In 1972, it was reported that Gleichenhaus would visit his old and by then closed shop of 37 years and simply sweep the sidewalk because "he missed it".^[10]

Describing his recent success in 1976, he mentioned he still lived in Miami Beach, but had moved to an apartment with a swimming pool. He said "And I got what I wanted most: two bathrooms in my apartment. To me, that's the epitome of success".^[5]

Death[]

Gleichenhaus died in Miami, Florida on January 10, 1991 after open heart surgery.

References[]