Big juicy burger and hand-cut fries anyone? Who doesn’t love a destination drive-in restaurant serving up hot, home-cooked comfort food?

On May 7, the St. Adolphe Drive-in opened its takeout window for the first time and hungry customers arrived in droves.

The new restaurant, located at 445 Main Street in St. Adolphe, is a family-run business with a flare for turning North America’s most popular food items into something wholesome and delicious.

St. Adolphe residents Ryan and Stacie Faucher, along with their children Amanda and Nicholas, couldn’t be more pleased with the community’s initial response to the realization of their long-time dream.

“We opened last Tuesday at 11:00,” Stacie says. “By 11:10, there was probably 20 people standing outside in front of the window and it didn’t slow down from there.”

By the end of opening day, satisfied customers numbered well over 100 and she says business has been steady ever since. For now, they are viewing it as a seasonal takeout business, but they admit that demand will drive the direction they eventually go. Their goal in the interim is to bring a much-needed service to the community while providing jobs for their growing children and other local young people.

But Ryan and Stacie are the faces you’ll see behind the takeout window. Ryan acts as primary cook and Stacie is the self-ascribed “window girl.”

The couple first purchased the vacant restaurant in 2015. Ryan says the dream actually began with his father, a retired bus driver and owner of Faucher Farms, a cattle farm in Oak Lake, Manitoba. He wanted something to do with his spare time that involved the whole family.

“Our burgers are [made of] beef that comes straight from our farm,” Ryan says. “It gives us an outlet for it as well as [the ability to control] what goes into our food.”

Sadly, Ryan’s father passed away before his dream was realized. Ryan eventually quit his job to assist his mother on the farm, but he never gave up on his father’s vision.

The St. Adolphe building underwent major repairs to the roof and exterior, as well as a complete gutting and renewal of the commercial kitchen. Permits were acquired, and the family was aiming for a 2018 start. Then they faced another tragedy with the loss of Stacie’s mother.

They decided to delay until the following spring.

In keeping with the senior Faucher’s plan, Ryan and Stacie have developed a business model they are excited to share with others. As much as possible, they intend to serve local and organic products made fresh every day. Everything is hot and made to order. There’s not a heat lamp to be found in their kitchen.

For Ryan, prep time every morning includes the production of hand-formed four-ounce patties made from organic, grass-fed beef. He also labours over a pot of freshly made chili, which accompanies many of their dishes. Stacie and other employees hand-cut the fries from potatoes they soon hope to source from Kroeker Farms in Winkler. None of these items, they insist, will ever be frozen and carried over to the next day.

“I’m not a fan of food that is made a week ahead of time,” Ryan says. “Unfortunately, when you’re busy and things run out, that’s been our biggest challenge. It’s been a challenge in determining quantities.”

Stacie admits that an order may take a little longer than it would at a fast food restaurant, but in her mind the quality and freshness is worth the wait.

Of course, a burger isn’t a burger without a great bun, so she’s thrilled with the perfection offered by their Harvest Bakery buns, which come from Winnipeg.

“We must have tried a hundred different buns and bakeries to get to the one that we liked,” says Stacie. “For me, I like how this one holds up when you’re eating a burger… If you have, for example, the BBQ Burger that has everything on it with onion rings layered and chili, it holds it. It’s not going to collapse on you and get all soggy. And I like the taste.”

Because Ryan is gluten- and egg-intolerant, the couple has created a burger patty that is free of those ingredients for their clients with food sensitivities. And if you’re still peckish after a stacked burger and chili fries, they also offer soft-serve gelato in 26 different flavours.

“It gives us almost an infinite combination to personalize everyone’s [dessert treat],” says Ryan. “Every gelato is handmade for that person, [but it means waiting] longer than going through the McDonalds drive-thru and getting a cone. But the quality of the product is there.”

The gelato, too, is made in-house daily using whole milk and a powder-based crema sourced from Italy. It’s egg-free and lower in sugar and fat than traditional ice cream. Unlike a lot of other soft serve, they say, this one doesn’t come out of a bag laced with preservatives and other questionable ingredients intended to keep it on the shelf for six months at a time.

“Black Cherry is one of our most popular,” says Stacie. “Cotton Candy for the kids, because it’s bright blue. And also Apple Pie and Cheesecake.”

Their 15-year-old son Nicholas took quickly to the gelato-making process and has since become the family’s gelato master, making up dishes and cones faster and prettier than the rest of them.

All of this food creation happens just beyond the takeout window, in full view of the customer’s discriminating eye.

“We have an open kitchen so everyone can see what we’re doing,” Ryan declares. “We’re not hidden away in the back so that nobody knows what we’re up to. It’s a little bit different and you’ve got to sometimes clue in to the fact that somebody’s watching you make their order. So, to that end, you keep a clean kitchen.”

The restaurant offers a full selection of menu items including burgers, hot dogs, chicken, chili, poutine, onion rings, and salads. Pic-a-Pop is their choice drink, based on its Manitoba roots and the nostalgia it inspires.

And as the Faucher family works together on this new endeavour, they’re grateful for the family time it gives them.

For many years, Ryan worked out of province as the general manager of a beef-processing company, taking him away from the family for two to three weeks every month.

“I basically left the corporate world to raise cattle and flip burgers,” Ryans says with a laugh. “So this was a lifestyle choice for our family.”

For now, St. Adolphe Drive-in will be open from Tuesday to Saturday, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. As the summer months roll in and the days get longer, they anticipate that their hours will adjust accordingly. And depending on community response, they’re also considering the possibility of a winter takeout option, replacing the gelato machine with a pizza oven.

 “We have lots of teenagers that are interested in working [evenings] and weekends and that will fit well into that model,” says Ryan. “Whether we’re open [after the summer season] or whether we open the dining room will be dependent on the demand and on staff [availability].”

Based on the response so far, the Fauchers are thrilled that, if nothing else, they’ve been able to provide a sense of nostalgia to the community by returning the building to its origins as a takeout restaurant. After all, many locals will remember when the location was home to the Pic ‘n Nic.

“There’s a lot of people of our generation that worked here as kids and it’s coming around full circle,” Ryan muses. “They’re looking for their kids to do the same as they did in this place.”