New owners on the grill in Airway Heights

Proprietor of Cheney Zip's joins store manager in opening revamped location

By RYAN LANCASTER

Staff Reporter

Last Wednesday, the night before the grand opening of his newly remodelled Zip's Drive-In in Airway Heights, owner Curt Griffin had a hard time sleeping. “I had nightmares about having no customers,” he said.

But his insomnia proved to be unwarranted. With roughly 500 register transactions that day, business was off to a booming start. “It's just been crazy, which is very good,” Griffin said.

Griffin has been in the restaurant business since 1979, when his parents bought the Zip's location in Cheney. He purchased it from them in 1995 and has since made it his own, bringing on a full breakfast menu, 24/7 service and The Eagle Burger, in recognition of nearby EWU.

His partner in the Airway Heights venture is longtime Cheney Zip's manager Tony Abel, who was first hired by Griffin's parents in 1991. Abel took a break from burgers to work construction in 2003, but came back two years ago. “I was working a lot of hours, wasn't making a lot of money and it was just a tough racket,” Abel said of his previous trade.

Griffin jokes that when he heard about the opportunity to buy a second Zip's location in early September he leapt at it largely because “it meant that Tony was going to be with me forever” as co-owner and operator of the new location.

The Airway Heights Zip's was first opened in 1987 and closed this August when the previous owner decided to get out of the business. The building's façade was remodeled three years ago, but when Griffin bought the property he decided the interior could use a redo as well. “It needed a major face lift, it was tired,” he said. “Plus, we wanted people to see that we're serious about this…We're here for the long haul; not just a five or 10 year deal, we'll probably be here for 30 years or more.”

Like the Cheney Zip's, Griffin and Abel plan to tailor their Airway Heights location to the customers. The drive-through has two windows to accommodate the steady stream of commuter traffic on Highway 2.Breakfast will be served starting at 6 a.m. and there's a new burger in the works, dubbed “The Refueler,” in honor of nearby Fairchild Air Force Base.

“As we were remodeling, the refueling guys were flying over just about every day,” said Griffin. “Food refuels you; we thought it was a good fit.”

Since 1953, when Robert “Zip” Zuber built his first Zip's in Kennewick, Wash., more than 36 locations have opened across northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Griffin said he's seen more new Zip's stores in the last five years than in the 25 previous years combined, most launched by current owners like himself who are looking to expand into other areas.

Zip's stores are privately owned, not franchises, so there are few rules telling owners what they can or can't do with their restaurants, said Griffin. “There's no legal piece of paper that says you have to sell a Papa Joe or you have to sell it at this price,” he said. “It's all done because it's in your best interest.”

This sets the guidelines for a hands-on management style which allows Zip's owners to cater to their own markets and have more direct control of how the stores are run. That's one reason you might meet Griffin behind the counter in Cheney or, since last Thursday, see Abel flipping burgers in Airway Heights.

“We just know historically that when an owner stays at his own store, those are the ones that do the best because you have a thumb on it; you don't have an overworked, underpaid manager,” Griffin said. “Nobody's going to work as hard as the owner.”

Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected]