Nostalgia with a facelift: Don’s to serve Boomer burgers in Morristown

Did you ever revisit your childhood playground, and discover to your dismay that it wasn’t really as huge as Yankee Stadium?

For that matter, does the new Yankee Stadium measure up to the one you remember visiting with your dad?

These are the kinds of questions that keep Mike Chutko awake at night as he prepares to open Don’s Burgers and Fries in Morristown within a couple of weeks.

Don’s Drive-In has a storied past: It was a Livingston institution from 1955 until the early ’90s, when Don Roth sold it. Don’s eventually disappeared from South Orange Avenue and Don Roth is gone, too; he died on Thanksgiving Eve two years ago during elective heart surgery.

Yet more than 1,500 fans on the I Miss Don’s Facebook page still debate which was better: Don’s cheeseburgers or pizza burgers. The onion rings and coffee shakes are remembered fondly, too, along with many of the waitresses.

Even Mike’s girlfriend reminds him about the old place.

“She’s been a vegetarian since she was 16. She said the only way she would eat meat again would be to have Don’s burgers,” Mike said, amidst the roar of power-sanders inside the South Street restaurant, which on Tuesday still lacked seating and cash registers.

Talk about pressure!

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But if anyone can pull off this revival, it is this self-described perfectionist. A veteran of more than 20 years in the restaurant business, Mike, 50, has a carefully crafted recipe for success that starts with… Don’s recipes.

“Don was integral to the planning” of the Morristown venture at the time of his death, said Mike, who has known the Roth family for 30 years. His best friend from high school married one of Don’s daughters.

“I’m not normal. I’m a bit of a character. Don was the same way. He saw the good in everyone and always had a laugh and a half,”  said Mike, a longtime Morristown resident and Delbarton graduate. “He was one of the nicest human beings you could ever meet.”

Don was ahead of his time, serving salmon- and bison burgers and low-cal shakes. Mike’s menu will include a veggie burger, salads, and some novel milk shake flavors, including blueberry cheesecake with fresh blueberries.

Mike won’t try to recreate the 1950s, à la the Johnny Rockets chain. No roller skates. No art deco. There will be some nods to the past, however. He is contemplating drive-up service in the rear parking area. And patrons will see a huge mural of the original Don’s, with a black-and-white montage of customers devouring the burgers, just like in the old place. Members of Don’s family are among the pictured diners.

The new Don’s also will keep a tradition of serving only fresh beef, and of charging competitive prices, Mike said. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, when a burger and fries set you back $3.29, Don’s served half a million customers a year and rang up $6 million in annual sales, according to Mike.

He said a burger, fries and shake at the new place will cost about half what you would pay at the new Urban Table, closer to the Morristown Green. The new Don’s fits in the “fast/casual” segment of the dining industry.  You place your order before sitting down, as you would at Qdoba.

“It’s not Urban Table. That’s a dining experience. I’m more of an eating experience,” said Mike, who is shooting for a Dec. 14 opening. “Our niche is our product will be better than everybody’s.”

Mike did not set out to follow a fast food legend. He studied math and computer science at Fairfield University, got an MBA at Fairleigh Dickinson, and followed his father’s footsteps to AT&T.

“I saw what it did to my dad. It consumed him. It was nothing more than a paycheck. I didn’t want to do that,” he said.

Mike opened a Steak Escape restaurant at the Rockaway Townsquare Mall in 1990. He added five Papa John’s pizza franchises in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, and two more Steak Escapes, including one at Newark Airport.

“The airport said, ‘Mike, we want a burger concept.’ My girlfriend said, ‘Why don’t you bring back Don’s?'” Mike recounted.

If Don’s flies in Morristown, he figures it will fly at the airport and elsewhere.  The takeoff has been a little bumpy.

The South Street location, a former bank, required extensive structural renovations. Coupled with his perfectionist streak–Mike spent five years remodeling a mansion in the historic district, and he is painstakingly raising a Great Dane puppy–this restaurant project has taken longer than he anticipated.

He also had to address questions about whether a burger joint belonged next to the stately Mayo Performing Arts Center, opened in 1937 as the Community Theatre and lovingly restored in the ’90s.

Mike persuaded the town historical commission and zoning officials to accept a realization that is obvious to Don’s Facebook fans–namely, that history comes in many flavors.

“Morristown is a colonial town, and this (restaurant) is not colonial in nature,” Mike said. “But it has its own historical aesthetic, to the ’40s and ’50s. They would rather see something of quality that is not George Washington, than faux bricks. Some of them liked the fact that it’s completely different. It’s historic in its own right. Historic doesn’t just mean George Washington.”

Whether the new Don’s goes down in history remains to be seen. If a few hundred Boomers launch a Welcome Back, Don’s Facebook page, he will know he has the right recipe.