o Origins: The Holland Creamery was founded in 1922 in Vancouver by a Dutch immigrant named Jacob Propstra. It later evolved to a landmark restaurant at the corner of Main Street and McLoughlin Boulevard. Jacob’s son, George, opened the first Burgerville USA restaurant in 1961, in Vancouver Heights.
o Location: Burgerville and its parent company, Holland, Inc., are headquartered at 109 W. 17th St., Vancouver. The company operates 40 restaurants in Oregon and Washington. Its newest location, at Portland International Airport, opened in May.
o Employees: About 1,300 total, including 36 at Portland International Airport.
o Sales: The company is privately held and does not disclose sales figures.
Travelers who visit the Burgerville inside Portland International Airport get more than just fries and shakes with their burgers — they also get a taste of the future of dining at the Vancouver-based chain.
Since opening its Concourse D location in May, Burgerville has used its newest venue as a petri dish, experimenting with different ways of serving customers.
o Origins: The Holland Creamery was founded in 1922 in Vancouver by a Dutch immigrant named Jacob Propstra. It later evolved to a landmark restaurant at the corner of Main Street and McLoughlin Boulevard. Jacob's son, George, opened the first Burgerville USA restaurant in 1961, in Vancouver Heights.
o Location: Burgerville and its parent company, Holland, Inc., are headquartered at 109 W. 17th St., Vancouver. The company operates 40 restaurants in Oregon and Washington. Its newest location, at Portland International Airport, opened in May.
o Employees: About 1,300 total, including 36 at Portland International Airport.
o Sales: The company is privately held and does not disclose sales figures.
The airport restaurant has no order counter, for example. Instead, customers stand shoulder-to-shoulder with employees who take their orders and tap them into handheld tablets.
And while Burgerville isn’t quite ready to knock down the counters in its other 39 restaurants, elements of the airport venue are beginning to ripple into the chain’s other locations.
The idea for an airport-based pilot project started a couple of years ago, when the Port of Portland announced its search for new restaurant tenants at the airport. Burgerville’s chief operations officer, Janice Williams, had just announced a corporate leadership agenda that focused on what she called “memorable, authentic service.”
Beth Brewer, Burgerville’s chief of transformational learning and development, said the company recognized the airport setting as a possible opportunity that aligned with that overarching corporate goal.
“When we fly, we’re all traveling for different reasons,” Brewer said. “Some of those are very stressful reasons, some are very joyous reasons. All of them merit a very high level of service.”
Great customer service isn’t always associated with air travel, but Brewer said the Port of Portland is unusual in its commitment to customer service.
Portland’s airport was named “America’s Best Airport” in the 2013 and 2014 Travel+Leisure readers survey.
“The timing was perfect, and … so we thought, ‘Let’s have this restaurant be a prototype,” Brewer said.
The company began interviewing travelers and customers to hatch ideas for the new restaurant. “When you build something from nothing … you don’t have the constraints of habits,” Brewer said.
Milkshakes & security
At first, the company planned to occupy a location outside of the Transportation Security Administration security area. But in interviews, travelers kept bringing up the company’s signature milkshakes. To accommodate travelers who wanted their shakes to go, Burgerville switched to a site that is inside the security checkpoint, so fliers would not have their milkshakes and other beverages confiscated.
In keeping with their commitment to service, that means Burgerville employees often find themselves delivering food to customers on the other side of security.
When plans were being drawn for the new restaurant, Brewer said it was important to “remove barriers to service.”
To allow for easier access to customers, that meant knocking down at least part of the counter that had separated fast-food workers from customers when a Wendy’s occupied the site.
The designers suggested removing the counter altogether. “It’s pretty radical to take the counter out,” Brewer said.
It’s also confusing to some customers, at least initially. So the company worked to hire extroverted employees who are comfortable approaching tentative customers.
At a hiring event in January, applicants had to answer questions such as “If you were going to give a pep talk, what would that pep talk be?”
“We identified folks who were really inclined to reach out and talk to someone,” Brewer said.
The company also needed especially responsible employees to staff a restaurant that requires workers to undergo TSA security checks prior to entry.
“In a standard Burgerville, if (employees) forget their name tag, we can print another name tag,” Brewer said. “These folks, if they forget their badge, they can’t get to work.”
Finalists for the jobs went through 30 minutes of training by a local improv group, On Your Feet.
Employees’ improvisational spirit has helped the airport restaurant live up to its goals of providing excellent service, Brewer said. When flights are delayed, the airport Burgerville stays open beyond its normal 5 a.m. to midnight hours, to make sure travelers have a place to eat.
In one case, a late-night extension ended with employees playing Chinese Checkers with a group of stranded travelers. Brewer said some guests coming back “three or four times before their flights leave.”
Burgerville workers have even been known to deliver food to a gate to accommodate travelers rushing to catch a flight.
The company has developed a new “guest engagement” training curriculum for its employees based on the airport hiring and training process.
Retaining employees
According to the most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover program, the turnover rate for employees in the restaurants-and-accommodations sector was 62.6 percent in 2013, up slightly from 61.0 percent in 2012.
“In comparison to the industry average, overall, Burgerville has a very low turnover rate of employees of only about 23 percent,” said Sara Perrin, a spokeswoman for Burgerville.
PDX Burgerville employees “are paid similarly to those serving in our other 39 restaurants, and all our crew members have terrific benefits including schedule flexibility, accessible health care, scholarship opportunities, personal and professional development,” Perrin added.
Brewer said several of the site’s original employees have been promoted, both within the restaurant and into corporate management.
The tablet technology used to take orders at the airport restaurant has been vetted and introduced at many of Burgerville’s other stores, too.
Since opening, the airport restaurant has started selling beer and wine.
Not every experiment has been successful. The airport restaurant features a ‘Grab N’ Go’ case of fully prepared foods for sale that are not available at other Burgerville locations. The restaurant struggled with the presentation of a charcuterie offering, and eventually scrapped it altogether.
The airport location offers Burgerville a chance to introduce far-flung travelers to the local restaurant chain, which prides itself on using local, seasonal ingredients.
Conveying that ethos to customers who aren’t familiar with Burgerville — and who perhaps don’t share the values of so many customers in the Pacific Northwest — posed a challenge to the company.
“Part of how we do it is through the images on the menu board,” Brewer said.
The company also invested in storytelling training for its airport employees. Burgerville’s seating at PDX is located just outside the actual restaurant, but employees spend quite a bit of time roaming around that area, too, offering samples and chatting with guests.
At least one of Burgerville’s products is making its way around the country. Burgerville partnered with Hydroflask, a company in Bend, Ore., that sells insulated water bottles and growlers, to introduce a $24.99 stainless steel container that keeps milkshakes cold during cross-country flights.
Brewer wouldn’t provide sales figures for the containers but said they are “fairly popular.”
“We’ve re-ordered a couple of times,” she said. “And they’re available in a variety of colors now.”
