This story is true. Although, I can’t remember who was with me, or exactly when it happened (I am pretty sure it was 2006 or 2007.)
After work, a group of colleagues decided to get an adult beverage. We wanted a bar, a watering hole, a dive, nothing fancy, nothing frou-frou, just a dark place that specialized in beer where we could gossip about our co-workers.
Someone suggested that white building on Burnett, the one with the blue awning. What was it called? We had all driven by it a thousand times, but none of us had ever been inside. It seemed like the perfect adventure.
And so four cars pulled up to Winnie’s Tavern, and a few moments later four cars pulled out . After only making it a foot inside we turned around and left. As one of my co-workers noted “that was a rough looking and sketchy crowd.”
Okay, that’s not much of a story. It would be hardly worth sharing unless something else happened. And something else did.
Once again, who can remember the year? The whispers started either in 2012 or 2013. Friends were talking “Have you been to Winnie’s? They’ve got the best burgers in town.”
There’s a short period in the life of a restaurant, if it’s lucky enough to experience it, when the establishment really belongs to the patrons. It’s their discovery. They’re the keeper of a secret, they’ve cracked the mystery of a hidden place in a slightly out of the way location. But that’s the thing about being on the ground floor, when it comes to stocks or music groups and especially what’s hip around town, the only way any of it has value is for others to acknowledge that you got there first. And so you brag to a friend. Who tells someone else… and so and forth and so on… until your favorite spot no longer belongs to a few loyal patrons but really is now the property of an entire city.
The story of how a bar with a rough reputation turned into one of Wilmington’s trendiest restaurants feels like it happened so quickly, but really is decades and three generations in the making. In 1957, Winnie Hansley Swanson started a drive thru diner on 16th and Dawson. Five years later, she opened a tavern just down the road from the State Port. One served food, the other served alcohol and never the twain shall meet. The diner eventually closed, but the tavern stayed in business. Eventually, Winnie’s daughter, Jenny, took over.
Next time you’re at Winnie’s, take a moment and look at the western facing wall. Staring back at you are pictures of these two ladies. What you won’t see is the third generation. You see, in time Jenny retired too and passed the business on to her daughter Wendy.
She deserves a lot of the credit. It’s been told to me by waitress after waitress over the years. Wendy was the one who decided to focus again on the food side. They also say she is a social media genius, and one of the first to figure out how to market a business on Facebook.
But the highest compliments are not from the words of the employees, but from their excitement. Even if they’ve only been working here a few months they’ve learned the history of this place and are truly thrilled when people ask to hear the story.
“It will be a 20 minute wait,” we were told on Friday night when a group of neighbors showed up at dinner time. “That’s okay,” my friend, Shelly, told the hostess, “We’ll wait.”
Like many of us, Shelly is a transplant. She moved from Iowa three years ago. She bought a condo in midtown. Winnie’s quickly became her place. “A group of us were out on my front porch. This was right after I moved. We were talking about restaurants around town. They mentioned several places, but when someone said ‘Winnie’s,’ they all started salivating.” My friend chuckles at the memory and then quickly adds, “When a group of people are drooling in front of you, that sounds like a place you have to try.”
Shelly is the reason for tonight’s meal. She has just returned from a month back in Iowa. Our neighborhood group has missed her. It’s her pick and it just so happen she’s having a burger.
Oh, there are other things on the menu. You can get chicken tenders, or a plate of fish and chips. But in fairness, they are not known for those items. The buzz is all about the burgers, and consistently in poll after poll, as the sign on the front door proclaims, Winnie’s has been voted the best burgers in Wilmington.
They have one option called the “station wagon burger,” another called the “impossible burger.” The “trailer park burger” was featured by chef Guy Fieri on his Food Network program. They’re all delicious, but tonight Shelly will be eating the “BBQ bacon cheeseburger”- a half pound patty with cheddar cheese, grilled onions, smoked bacon, an onion ring and all of it is covered on top with Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce. “You have to make it clear,” she instructs me after reading the first draft of this story, “that I only ate half that night and took the rest home with me…. and scarfed that down the next day.”
Winnie is transitioning again. No longer a dive bar, no longer a secret, it is moving very quickly to the status of a local institution. It only took 63 years to get there. From Winnie, to Jenny, to Wendy, that little white building with the blue awning, just down from the State Port, is truly a Wilmington treasure… uniquely our own.