Remembering Wetson's, Long Island's original burger-and-fries chain

Nothing will ever taste as good as it did in childhood. Burger or birthday cake, milkshake or chocolate milk, french fries or English muffin, we’ll always remember the sensation of that first bite.

And for many, the memory of that first bite harkens back to Wetson’s, the Valley Stream-based fast-food chain that from 1959 till the mid-1970s beckoned us with its rooftop orange circles — long before national burger chains had done more than establish a bare foothold here.

"We hadn't heard of Burger King or McDonald's," recalled journalist Susan Konig, 61, who was raised in Port Washington and now lives in Great Neck. But there was the Wetson’s in Roslyn, at 1045 Northern Blvd., where her parents would take her and her two younger siblings. On weekends, "If we had to go to the hardware store or somewhere else boring it was kind of the unspoken agreement that we would go to Wetson’s afterward."

As a kid, Konig would order "always a double cheeseburger, fries — the fries were spectacular — and either a chocolate or strawberry shake. We were all in heaven in the car eating" in those days before fast-food indoor seating became common.

Hicksville native David Stephens, 67, "grew up eating at Wetson’s," he said. "My first memory is with my father — I was maybe 5 years old. We went there often. Really delicious 15-cent hamburgers and 10-cent french fries. The prices gradually went up," the New York City resident said, "but the food was very good quality and affordable."

That same Hicksville Wetson’s, at 490 Old Country Rd., "had been my introduction to fast food when they opened there" on May 16, 1964, remembered Edward Smith, 68, now of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Later, "When we were in high school in the mid-'70s, we'd go on our bikes," by which time "a burger was 19 cents, a cheeseburger 29 cents."

Wetson’s was the brainchild of Herb Wetanson, whose father, Carl, had gone from running a Broadway theater’s candy stand in 1929 to catering excursion boats around Manhattan and on Long Island Sound. Cornell University alumnus Herb grew up in the business, and found inspiration upon seeing a McDonald's on the West Coast. The burgeoning car culture of postwar suburbia and the Space Age zeitgeist of streamlined efficiency had made it a model for all such restaurants to come.

"My father bought a defunct doughnut shop and turned it into the first Wetson's with a loan from my grandmother, his mother," said Greg Wetanson, of Huntington, who with his son Stuart and the 88-year-old Herb owns the family-run Dallas BBQ and Tony Di Napoli chains in New York.

That first Wetson’s opened July 16, 1959, at 3946 Hempstead Tpke., in Levittown, on the site of the former Downyflake Donuts. Herb, just 21 years old, quickly brought his 18-year-old brother, Errol, into the business, and their father, Carl, as well. A second Wetson’s opened June 30, 1960, at 130 Sunrise Hwy. in Valley Stream, and a third a year later, on Sept. 9, 1961, at 1732 E. Sunrise Hwy. in Bay Shore.
By the end of 1963 there were nine on Long Island. The chain, sometimes with the signage Wetson’s Superburgers, eventually grew to 72 stores here and in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut and upstate.

Wayne Zurl, 80, formerly of Uniondale and now of Tennessee, worked as a teen at a competing local chain, Big Steer. "The owner, Lee Tuttle Jr., was a good friend of Errol Wetanson," he recalled. "Anytime one of the stores ran out of or was low on some ingredient, one of the owners would call the other and ask to borrow what they needed. I often accompanied the Big Steer manager in his 1957 Cadillac convertible with hamburger rolls, beef patties or potatoes" to a Wetson’s nearby.

Early on Wetson’s offered tuna fish sandwiches on Fridays, the day many Catholics of that era eschewed meat. Over the years it added chicken, fish-and-chips and breakfast to the menu. It first advertised its Big W — two all-beef patties on a toasted triple-deck sesame-seed bun with lettuce, dill pickle, a slice of "country cheddar-blend cheese ... and Wetson’s famous dressing," according to one ad — in September 1968, not long after McDonald’s had rolled out its Big Mac nationally that May.

Weston’s introduced its clown mascots, the couple Wetty and Sonny, around 1970. The performers were "one guy and his girlfriend," said the still-active Herb Wetanson, who grew up in Woodmere and now lives in Southampton. None of the Wetansons remember the performers’ names, but Herb did recall they were the only ones to play the characters.

McDonald’s and its ilk finally doomed Wetson’s. A McDonald’s had existed on Long Island since 1958, with a still-extant Islip store, and there were seven here by mid-1964, but the chain began its serious incursion after its 1972 beachhead in Manhattan did gangbusters business.

"The General Motors of hamburgers came East," Herb Wetanson said. "The smaller operators around the country, the entrepreneurs who had a [local] chain, couldn't do combat with the major people who were on nationwide television." That, combined with rising costs due to 1970s inflation and a gas shortage that diminished store traffic, spelled the end.

Wetson’s, which had begun trading over-the-counter in May 1969, remained profitable until 1972. In May 1974, it filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. In November of the following year, the hot dog chain Nathan’s Famous acquired it, and continued operating the 29 remaining stores, including five on Long Island — gradually converting them to Nathan’s or closing them entirely.

That demise touches people to this day. "Christmas Day morning, 1972," begins Don Coburn, 73, formerly of Seaford and now of Delaware. "My godfather convinced my troubled mother to go to the drunk tank at Freeport Hospital. Later that day after seeing her, I went to Wetson's on Sunrise Highway in Freeport and had one of the best meals I ever had — two double cheeseburgers and fries — because such a burden on a 19-year-old only child was lifted, if only for a short time."