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Legionburger fair sellout makes for meatless Friday
With more than a dozen people standing in line and still another full day of the Putnam County Fair remaining, the Legionburger stand did something it had never done in 53 previous years.
It ran out of Legionburgers. Ran. Out.
With that unmistakable aroma of sizzling onions and beef on a steamy grill still wafting over the southwest corner of the fairgrounds Thursday evening, the men and women of Greencastle American Legion Post 58 served up their last Legionburger of the 2018 fair at about 7 p.m.
“It’s unprecedented,” Legion member Richard Coffin, finance officer for the SAL (Sons of the American Legion), said. In more than 50 years of selling Legionburgers, nobody could recall selling out the whole Legionburger supply.”
Coffin theorized that the sellout was the result of a perfect storm of ideal conditions -- good weather, the number of people who came out to the fair this year and an improving economy as the recipe for “a great thing for us.”
Bob Tyler, finishing his stint in charge of Legionburger sales with closing of the stand, agreed.
“Orders were up, the crowd was up, the weather was excellent and there were less food vendors, so we had less competition,” Tyler said as he loaded up the last of several 50-pound bags of onions left over from the 11 ordered for the week.
The Legionburger patties themselves are a special order product, Coffin explained, “so you can’t just order and get them right away.”
“We have to order months before the fair,” he said, “so you can imagine what a guessing game that is before the fair with the weather and all.”
Coffin said the customers in line when the Legion booth ran out were “very gracious” when the announcement was made. Hungry Legionburger fans were lined up back to the road south of the stand, he said, when the last burger left the building.
So who was the lucky Legionburger devotee?
“You know, I don’t know,” Coffin said. “It was not a Legion member, we made sure of that. It wasn’t one of our members getting the last one.”
Coffin said he could see the handwriting on the wall earlier in the week, especially after one of the local factories special-ordered more than 2,000 Legionburgers to feed its people during a shift change Wednesday. Legion members were on hand cooking burgers by 6 a.m. to meet that demand.
“Wednesday was such a great day,” Coffin said, noting that the stand sold 3,000 to 4,000 burgers just in walk-throughs that day.
And on the first night of the fair, Friday after the parade, the stand more than doubled its output of 2,000 burgers from the same night a year ago.
“I had a little bet with Dave Hollis, our Legion commander,” Coffin added after Hollis had suggested the stand might run out sometime Friday afternoon. “I told him we’d run out sometime on Thursday.”
Which they did, of course.
So did they bet a Legionburger?
“Since we sold out, it couldn’t be a Legionburger,” he laughed. “It was just a friendly wager.”
But it was a sure bet that this was one of the best sales years ever, if not the best.
Coffin wouldn’t disclose sales figures for this year but in a Banner Graphic story from five years ago, Post 58 members reported selling 53,000 items (burgers, fries and drinks in total) in 2013 with Legionburger sales alone estimated at 30,000 that year.
“The main thing,” Coffin said, “is we so much appreciate the support people continue to show us.”
And in turn, Post 58 supports veterans, troops and their families, Beyond Homeless and other local programs, Comfort Warriors, the USO of Indiana and the Otis R. Bowen Vet House, which is much like the Ronald McDonald House but for families of veterans undergoing surgery at Roudebush Veterans Hospital at Indianapolis. Just to name a few.
Already hearing from fans who missed getting their Legionburger fix this fair, Coffin said they need not despair.
“The saving grace is we will again have Legionburgers in conjunction with the Berry Street Festival the first Saturday of October, as well as in May for Armed Forces Day,” he said.
In the meantime, Coffin waxed poetic about the sellout.
“I summarize it the way Col. (Tom) Parker always said about Elvis,” he said. “‘Never give the customer everything they want. Always leave them wanting more.’”
Yep, so you want a Legionburger now, don’t you?