It’s not even 11 a.m., and Crown Burger is already swamped, thanks to a bus
full of people who pulled into Crown’s drive-through on South Colorado
Boulevard and ordered 35 cheeseburgers, 10 fries and 10 onion rings to go.
Relayed back to the kitchen, the Thursday-morning order sets off a zinging
metal-on-metal sound of spatulas flipping three dozen burgers on a vast,
flat grill; fries and rings sizzling in oil; and seven workers in all, some
with Greek accents, yelling instructions and various order confirmations to
each other. At the end of the food chain, two workers stuff the finished
products into plain white paper sacks with napkins.
Crown Burger owner George Brokalakis and his wife, Stella, stood moments
earlier in the eye of the storm: George flipping burgers in the back kitchen
with three other cooks, and Stella at one of the two cash registers out
front taking orders from customers trickling in through the front door.
Within a few minutes the unexpected bus order is under control. There will
be another rush at lunchtime and a crowd will fill all but three of the 25
booths inside Crown Burger, but that’s at least a half-hour away.
For now, the short, bald, 56-year-old Brokalakis wears a look of relief.
Given the frenzy of business he’s just dealt with, it suddenly seems odd to
ask Brokalakis how much business McDonald’s has taken away from him since
the golden arches took root across the street six years ago. That place at
the corner of Colorado Boulevard and East Evans actually is a Conoco gas
station and a McDonald’s in one, a filling station for both automobiles and
people, which seems a fitting partnership given that McDonald’s offerings
sometimes have been decried as mere fuel, as opposed to food.
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