The Damburger business on Placer Street in downtown Redding is looking for a new owner. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
A cherished Redding institution is up for sale.
Damburger – the longest continually operating restaurant in Shasta County – is on the market with a $1.2 million asking price.
Longtime Damburger owners and sisters Julie Malik, 54, and Nell Cox, 52, say the time has come to let someone new carry on the burger legacy.
“We’ve been talking about (selling the business) for a couple of years because we have gotten to the point where we know our kids don’t want to take it over from us,” Julie said. “We feel like we have time to explore other things in our lives right now at this age.”
“We would love to see some younger, more energetic people come in and give Damburger all the love and attention that we have given it all these years,” she said.
Nell said the four words the community wants to hear:
“Damburger is not closing,” she said.
Damburger co-owners and sisters Nell Cox, left, and Julie Malik have listed their beloved hamburger institution for sale. The asking price is $1.2 million and it comes with a beer-wine ABC license. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
What’s more, Julie and Nell are looking out for their loyal customers. They’re not going to sell to just anybody. The new owner is going to have to keep the Damburger tradition going.
“We’re going to be very choosy,” Julie said.
“We will train the new owner and make sure everything is good before we hand it off,” Nell said. “We would like most of the staff to stay on.”
Burgers began with Shasta Dam construction
Damburger’s history is well-known. Its roots are documented on the laminated menu that sits folded on the indoor and patio tables.
As the story goes, 18-year-old Bud Pennington founded the stand in 1938. The young entrepreneur set up a tent near the hiring hall where workers were enlisted to build Shasta Dam. For 25 cents, you could get a Damburger, a slice of pie and a cup of coffee.
Original Damburger owners Babe and Bud Pennington pose for a photo with longtime employee Marge Thayer. (Courtesy of Damburger)
Pennington and his wife, Babe, kept Damburger going for 40 years with a couple of moves downtown before settling in its current Placer Street location in 1962.
They retired in 1977 and sold the business to Mike and Vicki Carr, who 18 months later sold it to Julie and Nell’s parents, Ron and Kathy Dickey. The Dickeys kept it going for 26 years before their two daughters took over running it in 2005.
“Our Dad passed in 2013 and then we bought it from our Mom in 2018,” Nell said.
Damburger will turn 87 in November after the two sisters and their parents owned it for a combined 46 years.
“We have 13 more years until we turn 100,” Nell said. “We intend for Damburger to get to 100.”
The two sisters said it wasn’t an easy call to sell the business, especially since Nell was 6 when her family took it over.
“It was a really long, emotional decision for us,” Nell said. “We feel very good and positive about it. But, obviously, it comes with a lot of emotions of letting go of something that’s been very important in our family for so long,” she said.
The staff, which includes longtime manager Marla Rodney, still use an ice cream scoop to form balls of hamburger that’s placed in a tortilla press to make patties. Rodney has been at Damburger nearly 30 years after starting there at age 18.
A Damburger with “The Works” and fry sauce rests next to the menu. “The best hamburger by a dam site,” is the restaurant’s motto. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
Why no tomatoes?
Damburgers are known for their crispy edges, optional house-made fry sauce and consistent taste.
“We have people come in that haven’t been here for 10, 20 years and they say it tastes exactly the same,” Nell said. “They’re not disappointed when they come back.”
Then there are the regulars who don’t have to mention their order anymore. The staff already knows their favorite meal.
“Sometimes your food is already on the grill when you walk in,” Julie said.
One tradition at Damburger is the absence of tomatoes.
Why?
“Honestly, just because we never have,” Nell said.
“I feel that more people say no to tomatoes than get mad that we don’t have them,” Julie said.
Still, she said customers are free to bring in their own homegrown tomatoes and “we’ll put them on the burger for them.”
Damburger memories
Faithful customer Chris Haggard said he loves Damburger so much that he and wife, Christine, make regular weekly trips from Anderson.
“We’re here every Tuesday and then we come back again on either Friday or Saturday, so we’re here two times a week usually,” Haggard said. “It’s sort of our comfort place.”
Haggard said he’s been a customer since 1978, long before Julie and Nell owned the place.
“They were little girls when I first started coming here,” he said. “Their parents hadn’t bought it yet.”
He remembers when the next-door barbershop used to sit where Damburger’s expanded dining room is now.
“The barbershop moved over. And for the longest time, you could still see the spots on the floor where the barber chairs used to be,” he said.
His favorite order is single cheese original (burger) with mayo. His wife gets the same thing, only with grilled onions.
“My wife and I and our kids and grandkids, and everybody comes here. It’s kind of a tradition,” he said last Tuesday morning.
Damburger regular Chris Haggard of Anderson usually visits the Redding eatery with his wife at least twice a week. He said he’s been eating Damburgers since 1978. Photo by Mike Chapman for A News Cafe.
Haggard, 63, said Julie and Nell last year clued him in about the pair wanting to sell so he would hear it from them first.
“I don’t want it to change. I hope as long as I’m alive, it’s the same thing,” he said of the stand.
A lot on the line
“They (Julie and Nell) just have worked so hard for so long and done such a great job, they deserve to cash out and retire,” said their listing agent, Cameron Middleton of the House of Realty in Redding.
Middleton, an experienced Realtor who’s been part of multiple business transactions in the past, has a lot riding on his shoulders. He says it’s more than just the sale of a business.
“I definitely take this one quite seriously. It’s one of my favorite spots,” he said.
Relatively new to the menu, Damburger sells beer, cider and seltzer so its beer and wine ABC license comes with the sale.
Like many in the community, Middleton has fond memories of the eatery.
“This is the longest-operating restaurant in Shasta County and the first place I ever ate solid food,” he said.
Middleton said there’s family stories of the Damburger crew making up a batch of mushy fries that he could have as a baby.
Now, Middleton’s 7-year-old son is part of his family’s fourth generation who’s visited the eatery as a baby too. It’s also one of the first places Middleton’s child had solid food.
Julie and Nell have told Middleton they want a buyer who’ll keep it status quo.
“They want to see somebody that’s really going to carry on the tradition of Damburger,” Middleton said. “It’s a very successful, profitable business that everybody in the community loves.”
The sisters said that while their business is for sale, the building remains owned by their next-door lawyer neighbors.
Middleton said Julie and Nell are very much aware of the role that Damburger has played in Redding’s and Shasta Dam’s past.
“They’ve not been just business owners, but caretakers of something important to a lot of people in this community,” he said.
Nell said most customers are surprised but also understanding when they learn that Damburger is on the market.
“Most of them are happy for us to be able to explore other things. And we reassure everybody that we’re going to do our best to find the best possible owner to take it on,” she said.
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