10 burgers for a measly $1 seems a far-flung fairytale. But in 1942, Elmer B. and Dorothy Hair Milligan turned dreams into reality when they launched fast-food joint Milligan’s Beefy Burgers in Starke, Florida. It was the Sunshine State’s first fast food drive-thru eatery and it quickly soared to success. “During their first year of business, Milligan’s served over 450,000 beefy burgers,” reports The Jaxson, and by 1964, it was serving up over 5 million burgers per year.
At its peak, the chain boasted 16 sites in Jacksonville, Green Cove Springs, St Petersburg, Orlando, and Fernandina Beach. But things were too good to last. By 1974, all locations of Milligan’s Beefy Burgers shut their doors for good. The chain flipped its final beefy burger, unable to stand up to the fast-food giants Burger King and McDonald’s who had monopolized the scene, joining other defunct burger chains, like Yankee Doodle Dandy, Henry’s Hamburgers, and inventor of the Happy Meal Burger Chef, as a ghost of America’s past.
What went wrong for Milligan’s?
During the 1970s, fast food really took off. Inflation was squeezing budgets, and Americans were on the search for cheap, delicious eats. In 1971, McDonald’s quarter pounder was born, and both the Golden Arches and Burger King continued to expand around the world. In 1972, McDonald’s reported $1 billion in sales. The competition meant that it was just too much of a struggle for the smaller guys, like Milligan’s, to stay afloat.
And yet, all that’s lost is not forgotten. Floridians have taken to reminiscing over the chain’s good ol’ days online. On The Jaxson’s Lost Jacksonville forum, one poster, who worked just two blocks from the joint, described the burgers as “distinctly different” from other fast food chains, with meat cut into squares and sandwiched between square buns with a little sauce and pickles. “For lunch, I would occasionally eat about four,” they confessed.
Another recalled the Great Burgers Wars located near the Fairfax neighborhood location of Milligan’s. “We’d all pile in somebody’s car, go up and buy 100 burgers or so, then proceed to throw them at cars of kids from the opposing high school… the things only cost a nickel or a dime each so must cars always had an ample supply of ammunition… well… unless they ate it.”
The poster summed up the shared nostalgia: “I do miss this little chain, it was the little (hometown) deal.” As Big Macs now cost as much as $7, the stakes (and steaks) are just too high for burger fights, meaning today’s kids are priced out of the intoxicating right-of-passage. Milligan’s sums up a time when community spirit, cheap burgers, and a bit of youthful mischief came wrapped together in a greasy paper bag.
