Most people ask if Blaine (aka Zippy) and I have always had dreams of owning a hamburger joint. The answer is "heck no!". The bottom line is that Zippy was recently unemployed and recovering from a ruptured Achilles injury with way too much time on his hands. He was dying to do something but with no real insight into what that "something" was.

He started poking around on the web - toying with the idea of buying an existing restaurant. He looked into a pizza place and we got very excited at the prospects of that and how we could make some fabulous pizzas - but then low and behold a little tiny teriyaki place came up for sale just a mile away from our house! Heck, we drove by that place all the time. Blaine met with the seller, we started trying out all kinds of teriyaki places in West Seattle, trying to figure out what our angle would be - how could we make Zippy's Teriyaki different and special? "What?!", you say. "Zippy's Teriyaki?! You mean you were going to open a teriyaki place?!" Yes, it's true. Initially, our plan was to leave the business intact and sell teriyaki. After meeting with the owner several more times, it becomes vividly apparent that there are about a million other teriyaki places in West Seattle and really, it wasn't doing so well anyway.

After looking at the grill and the fryer that we'd just purchased with the business, there was simply no way we couldn't put that to good use. So that's when the burger dream was born. From that moment on, we have never looked back. We have always had the original idea of grinding our own meat. For a time, we did entertain the idea of using pre-ground beef. We tasted so many burgers (from your basic meat all the way to Kobe) we both got physically ill. After finding out that all burgers that are pre-ground and formed are frozen, and in our opinions - far inferior tasting, we went back to our original plan of grinding meat on our own. It would be more expensive, of course, but we felt that there is absolutely no comparison. We are so happy we stuck to that plan.

Another one of Blaine's initial thoughts of employment was to open a little soda shop in Pike Place Market. He wanted to be able to offer a variety of local sodas. Unfortunately, (or is it fortunately?) the market turned him down. Now, at Zippy's he is able to fulfill that dream as well!