Husky Burger celebrates 50 years at Alaska State Fair

PALMER — Joe Lentz can tell you the morning and afternoon weather at the Alaska State Fair for the past 49 years. He has it all written down in a weather log he’s kept since 1962.

Lentz uses his the weather journal to guesstimate how many hundreds of hamburger patties, dozens of buns and cases of Pepsi he’ll need each day.

“If there is a crowd here and it begins to rain, they don’t leave,” he said. “But if the wind starts to blow they leave like rats on a sinking ship.”

Husky Burger marks its 50th anniversary serving hamburgers, hot dogs and cheeseburgers to hungry patrons at the Alaska State Fair Thursday when the fair opens.

A lot has changed in the five decades since Lentz opened the hamburger stand at the fair as a fundraiser for a local Boy Scout troop earning money to attend a conference planned for Explorer Scouts at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

For one thing, back then the fair was four days long, instead of two weeks, Lentz said. And the only options he offered customers were a Husky Burger or Husky Cheese.

So what’s been the biggest change at Husky Burger in the past 50 years?

“Now we offer bacon on the burgers,” Lentz said.

After operating the Husky Burger stand at the fair for a couple of years, the Boy Scouts called it quits, but not the Lentz family.

On Friday, the family said they can’t imagine doing anything else during the fair.

“It’s all we’ve ever done this time of year,” said son Paul Lentz, the second of the Lentz’ three sons. “I like the event. There’s people I see here that I don’t see otherwise. And we make money.”

When Paul, who was 1-year-old when Husky Burger started, started cooking burgers they cost $1.25 and he could barely see over the counter. He still cooks there during the week, but now a Husky Burger costs $5 and a Husky Cheese is $5.50.

Paul said he’s missed a few fairs over the years, but guessed he’s worked at least 35 of the past 50 years in the same log cabin the family has leased from the fair since 1966.

Joe Lentz said the family used to spend long days pressing Husky Burger patties by hand before placing each one between two pieces of waxed paper.

But as the number of Husky Burgers sold each year has increased, the family could no longer keep up with the demand and switched to using an automated hamburger-pressing machine with its own custom 5-inch patty plate.

Now Husky Burger contracts with Three Bears Alaska to mix a custom blend of beef and suet. Then Three Bears uses a patty-making machine Husky Burger owns and its custom stamp to press out thousands of patties.

“That was one of the biggest hassles,” Joe Lentz said. “Those guys really work well with us, and take a lot of the load off.”

These days, about 90 percent of the burgers sold are Husky Cheese and 10 percent are Husky Burgers, he said.

At the Husky Burger log cabin on the fairgrounds they sell hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, candy bars and Pepsi products. They also serve breakfast from 8 to 11 a.m.

The family also operates a mobile Husky Burger truck at events like Friday Fling, which ended for the season Aug. 19. The mobile Husky Burger offers customers fries with their burgers, but Lentz said there just isn’t room in the log cabin at the fair for a deep fryer.

Parked behind the booth is the Husky Burger support vehicle — a retired ambulance stocked with generators to power the mobile Husky Burger, freezers and storage for 130 dozen buns.

“With this, we can park anywhere and open up shop,” said Gerry Lentz, Joe’s wife of 20 years.

Joe credits her with the idea to add a “deluxer” position as a way to improve efficiency.

Cashiers take orders and mark them on a Husky Burger wrapper and then place them in the in basket to be filled. The cook makes mostly cheeseburgers and the “deluxer” person then builds each burger as ordered with lettuce, tomato or bacon and places the burger in the wrapper.

On busy shifts, Gerry Lentz said as many as four cashiers take orders and pass them back to the cook. Each cashier has their own color of pencil to mark down orders and orders are filled and returned down a shoot of the same color so cashiers can easily tell which are their orders and pass them back to their customers.

“And nobody is standing around when it’s like that,” she said of peak times when as many as nine work inside the small cabin.

Gerry Lentz said for the two weeks during the fair, it’s not unusual for Joe to arrive at the log cabin at 7 a.m. and work there until midnight or later. Though she says she tries to leave earlier, Gerry Lentz said it doesn’t always work.

“We both started this when we were younger,” she said.

Though it wouldn’t be possible for them to keep these hours and work so hard year-round, Gerry Lentz said the family still enjoys closing out their summer this way.

The Lentz family said they weren’t surprised by the results of an Aug. 5-19 frontiersman.com poll that asked readers “What’s your favorite part of the Alaska State Fair?” Of the 847 votes in the poll, 475 people selected the answer “Fair food you only eat once a year.”

“A lot of people we meet during the year say they have specific items they come to the fair to eat,” Joe Lentz said.

And there are friends he’s known for years from Fairbanks and the Kenai Peninsula who he only sees at Husky Burger during the fair, he said.

“We get lots of old-timers who come here looking for him,” Gerry Lentz said of her husband.

Last year a nephew was married at Husky Burger during the fair. Over the years, Paul Lentz said he’s fed a lot of the state’s governors, former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and even movie star Jack Palance before his death in 2006.

When asked, several Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman readers shared their favorite Husky Burger memories on Facebook.

“They have a great breakfast,” wrote Annie Johnson. “I go there every year for my birthday breakfast. Love Joe, Gerry and the crew.”

Harriette Gartrell wrote, “I love the Husky Burger. Not to mention the awesome people who own it. It’s always our place to meet if we get separated. Always eat there every year.”

Grey Wolfe recounted his brush with a modern-day Alaska legend there one year.

“I was wandering around the fair with my friends and stopped at Husky Burger. The lady in front of me seemed to be ordering about everything. When she got her order, she turned and saw me staring,” Wolfe said. “She said, ‘You did not see me with all of this.’ It was Susan Butcher and I felt so cool to actually get to meet her. And it all happened at Husky Burger.”

But a note from Sean Michael Williams takes the cake. “Last summer, my wife and a friend were in line for a Husky Burger at Friday Fling. A lady stood near the window, intently staring at the other patrons’ food. When my wife got up to the window to order, the lady asked if they liked the food here. ‘Yes,’ they replied, ‘the burgers are great.’ The lady replied, ‘Them burgers do look good, but I can’t understand why y’all would want to eat them beautiful dogs,’ then walked away.”

Husky Burger is located in the fourth log cabin across from the Midway rides.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or at 352-2268.