The Return of Mr. Nick and His Famous Charburger

How the charburger became a piece of Duluth history

Tony Bennett

If you’re from Duluth, you will probably agree that Mr. Nick’s Charburger is the stuff of legend. Far from being “just a hamburger,” “Charburger” is a sort of secret code word for “joy,” that Northlanders can share with each other. It represents an experience, not just a satisfying meal. It’s a feeling, an emotion in and of itself.

The Charburger story starts a hundred-odd years ago, and Nick Patronas is the teller —the keeper of the Charburger flame, so to speak. His grandfather and father are the ones who started the legend rolling.

“My grandfather started a restaurant business back in the early 1900s, here in Duluth,” Patronas says. “He had a little seven-stool wagon called Nick’s Hamburgers. And then, my dad worked for him. My grandfather died, and my dad was in, like, eighth grade, so my dad kinda took over the wagon.”

Some years passed. In the early 60s, the elder Patronas was struck with a unique idea, at least for northern Minnesota. “He was down in San Antonio, and he noticed drive-ins,” Patronas recalls. “Year-round drive-ins. And nobody in the Duluth area or anywhere in the northern climates had year-round drive-ins before. Remember, there were no McDonald’s, nothing. At one time in Duluth we had, like, 18 drive-ins, but they were like A & Dubs [another storied local burger place] — they opened Memorial Day and closed Labor Day. So my dad started the first year-round drive-in. He named this place Nick’s Burger King. He ran that place for, like, 20 or 30 years.”

And this is where the Charburger was born. “I don’t know where he got the idea,” Patronas says. “But he got a char-broiler, and he started putting burgers on there. 1961, my dad brought in the Charburger.”

Simple as that, and local taste buds were never the same. A number of Nick’s restaurants opened up in the area, and the Nick’s menu became part of the fabric of Duluth history.

When you ask Nick Patronas what it was about the Charburger that turned people into addicts, he insists that it was a combination of ingredients and something else, something intangible. A feeling. Patronas calls it a “warm fuzziness.” It could be that people connect the Charburger to a time when things were more personal, more Mom-and-Pop. For decades, now, people have been able to go into chain restaurants of all sorts with the expectation that the food will taste the same from one location to another. With a place like Nick’s, though, once you found it, it was a club you had joined. It was a recommendation you passed along. And this club, you could only attend your meetings in Duluth and Superior. There was no Charburger in, say, North Dakota. These sorts of experiences are becoming rarer, and when the food goes away, it’s usually gone for good. Extinct.

In 2002, it was believed that the Charburger had gone the way of the dodo, too – when the last remaining Nick’s in downtown Duluth closed up in May of that year, it seemed that was that. Nick Patronas returned to making Charburgers at family gatherings, instead of selling them as part of the family business.

But that isn’t the end of the story, even if it had seemed to be for the last six years. This spring, Patronas and his business partners opened their second of two Aces bars, this one in Superior. This one would have food, and Patronas was put in charge of the menu. Once people heard this, they started making requests.

“Everybody kept on saying, “If you’re gonna take it over, have Nick put the Charburger in,” Patronas says. “After about 10,000 emails and phone calls, they finally convinced me to do it.”

Not that it was a totally tough decision. “I’ve always wanted to put Charburgers back on the menu somewhere.”

By early July, the new Aces had been open for just over a month, and it was more than clear that bringing back Nick’s famous burgers had been a wise move. “It’s absolutely fantastic. Duluth people are coming over, Superior people — it’s mind-boggling,” Patronas says. “Everybody says it’s better than they remember.”

They say “You can’t go home again,” but apparently Nick Patronas is trying to prove “them” wrong. And even those who did time behind the counter of Mr. Nick’s are making their way to the new Aces on 29th to experience what they thought was gone for good.

“The manager who took over Mr. Nick’s for us, he works in a different industry now, [but] he came over with his wife,” Patronas recalls, smiling. “He had a Supreme Char-cheese, and then he had half of his wife’s, and then he ate two more. And he was only gonna have one, okay, and he’s not a big guy, he’s a small guy. He ate three and a half, that night!”

The thing that’s clear is that this particular person that Nick Patronas is talking about, he surely wasn’t that ravenously hungry. It was that he could once again have that burger, and so he did. And then some. The Charburger is back, and it’s a great burger. But it’s also a sense memory brought back to life. And Patronas couldn’t be happier.

Tony Bennett is a Duluth-based writer.

What to Know When You Go

Aces on 29th
2827 Oakes Ave
Superior, WI (715)392-2546
Bar hours:  M-Sa 11am-2am, Su 11am-12am
Kitchen M-F 11am-2pm; 4-9pm. Sa-Su 11am-9pm
Pizza is still served after the kitchen is closed.