Wip it. Wip it good!

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/07/2021 (1546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Everything old is new again.

This summer marks the 100-year anniversary of the carhop, a fleet-of-foot person tasked with fetching food to those who’ve opted to eat in the comfort of their vehicle. The owners of North America’s first drive-in restaurant, Kirby’s Pig Stand in Dallas, Texas, reportedly came up with the job title in 1921, after recognizing sales of automobiles wouldn’t be decreasing, any time soon.

A century later, cousins Dean and Trif Lambos, owners of the venerable Dairi-Wip Drive-In at 383 Marion St., founded by their uncle and respective fathers in 1958, have resurrected the notion of a carhop, not so much as a nod to the past, but more out of necessity.

“When COVID first hit in March of last year, we kind of looked at each other, wondering what the heck we were going to do,” Dean says, explaining because their glassed-in, vestibule — the space customers ordinarily enter to place takeout orders for Greek-style burgers, fries and milkshakes “in a bag or a box” — was already a tight squeeze, it would have been problematic to allow more than one person in at a time while also observing physical distancing protocols.

“So instead, we decided one of us would serve as a full-time carhop by taking orders in the parking lot and running the food back out when it’s ready,” Trif interjects, seated on a wooden bench just outside the staff entrance. “It’s worked out really good; so good, in fact, that a lot of people have told us they hope we keep it up when things return to normal, or whatever normal is going to look like when this is all over.”

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Before he retired last year at the age of 79, Mike Lambos, Dean and Trif’s uncle, would often joke with customers who’d comment on what a prosperous business he, his brother Jim, Dean’s father, and cousin John, Trif’s dad, built for themselves from scratch. Informing them he only has a Grade 4 education, Mike, the youngest of the three, would add with a wink, “Just imagine how much more successful we’d be if I’d stayed in school till Grade 5.”

Mike, Jim, and John, all in their early 80s, grew up together in Niata, a village in southern Greece, near Sparta. They were still teenagers when they left their homeland for Winnipeg — sans parents — in the mid-1950s, in search of a better life. It didn’t take the trio long to find employment once they arrived here. John caught on as a busboy at the newly-opened Hy’s Steakhouse & Cocktail Bar on Kennedy Street, Jim worked at a candy shop across from the downtown Bay store while Mike shined shoes a few blocks away on Garry Street; that is, when he wasn’t moonlighting as a cook at the late, great Big Boy Drive In Restaurant on Portage Avenue, well-remembered for its namesake burger, the Big Boy, the inspiration for the Dairi-Wip’s fat boy.

Mike was 17 years old in 1958 when an existing, ice-cream stand next door to an auto-repair shop, Crawford Motors, hit the market. Mike has repeated the story dozens of times of how he attempted to buy the place on his own, but was rebuffed by a bank manager owing to his youthful age. That’s OK, he replied. He returned the next day with Jim and John in tow, both of whom were ready, willing and old enough to sign the necessary paperwork. Just like that, a burger match made in heaven, err, St. Boniface was born.

During their first decade in business, the three operated out of a seasonal “shack,” close to the sidewalk. That site was razed and converted into a parking lot in 1968, at which point they reopened in their newly-built, year-round digs, three times the size of its predecessor. That was also the year they erected their two-storey-tall, neon Dairi-Wip sign, as much a Winnipeg-foodie landmark as the Bridge Drive-In’s giant ice cream cone or Salisbury House’s “little red roof.”

Dean and Trif were in their teens when they began pulling shifts at the Dairi-Wip on a part-time basis, back when the grill stayed hot until 3 a.m. on weekends, to cater to the hungry hordes that would pour out of the neighbouring Marion Hotel at all hours of the night. It didn’t take long for the duo to twig into what an institution their dad and uncles’ locale already was.

“I don’t know how many times we’d be serving people, ex-pat Winnipeggers, who’d comment how their plane landed 20 minutes ago, and this was their very first stop, before they even went home to see their parents,” Dean says with a chuckle.

“Or the ones who’d call and ask if we shipped to Toronto or Vancouver,” Trif pipes in. “One time a person from Calgary ordered 24 frozen, cheeseburgers. We were like, how do you even eat that and they said not to worry, that was their ‘problem.’” (Recall the documentary Super Size Me, which saw a fellow eat nothing but McDonald’s fare 30 days in a row? Dean cites one person — “no bigger than you or me” — who showed up at the Dairi-Wip every day for a month straight, always ordering the identical thing: three double cheeseburgers with the works.)

Dean and Trif both went on to other things in their 20s and 30s but when Mike, John and Jim began cutting back on their hours about 10 years ago, each returned to the fold. “It’s a bit like the Hotel California over here,” Dean points out, “in that you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

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A couple things have changed under the current regime’s guard. Poutine was added to the menu a few years ago, around the same time a three-piece chicken dinner was dismissed. Also, the Wip has joined what Trif jokingly calls “the modern world,” in that you can now get a fat boy and “chips” delivered to your doorstep via Skip the Dishes. For the most part, though, it’s business as usual, they agree. That includes the interior decor, in particular, a framed photo of John and Robert Kennedy that has adorned a wall behind the cash register since the Nixon administration.

“That’s just a page one of the guys snipped out of an old Life magazine and had framed,” Dean says, gesturing toward the illustration-in-question. “A lot of people have offered to buy it, including one person who said he’d give us $2,000 for it. I told him as much as we’d like to take his money, it’s been a bit of a good luck charm around here, so there’s no way it’s going anywhere.”

Something else that isn’t likely to change any time soon are the iconic, red-and-white striped containers Dairi-Wip chili burgers arrive in. Years ago, when their supply was running low, Mike, John and Jim bought “tens of thousands” from a Chinese restaurant chain that had gone out of business.

“Our dads and uncle literally filled their basements with them, they were so cheap,” Dean says, shaking his head. (We think he means the cups were cheap, not his relatives.)

Given the Wip has been around over 60 years, it isn’t surprising there have been a few memorable moments along the way. Like the time Belinda Carlisle, soon to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of new wave band the Go-Go’s, showed up for a bite, after an August 2015 performance at Club Regent Casino. Or the afternoon a person ordered a five-patty fat boy, still the house record, which he proceeded to polish off at a wooden, picnic table that has served as the spot’s “patio” almost since the get-go.

Also, the multiple occasions wedding parties have pulled in, pre-nuptials, to snap pictures around the sign, all the while chowing down on cheese dogs and fries with gravy. (Our advice to brides dressed all in white: hold the mustard.)

“We also get tons of people who show up with plastic containers, as big as four litres, asking us to fill them with chili,” Trif says, pointing to his noggin when asked where the recipe is kept. “They tell us how they take it home or to the lake and slather it on spaghetti or whatever. That’s a nice, little compliment, for sure.”

The “old guys” may be gone, but they’re not forgotten, Trif continues. They usually pop by once or twice a week to ask how business is or to see if he and Dean need a hand peeling potatoes or shaping patties. On a typical Friday or Saturday, the Dairi-Wip easily goes through 200 kg of potatoes, and at least an equal amount of ground round.

“They’re very happy they retired — they all say they should have done it 10 years earlier — but at the same time, the store remains a big part of their life,” Dean says. “They built a really great business together, one that has provided three families with a very good lifestyle, and I think I can speak for Trif, too, when I say they taught us that hard work and dedication to the job pays off in the end. We’re still not sure if there will be a third generation taking over from us but everything we and our kids have now, we owe to them.”

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric restaurants and businesses.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca