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Where's my "Action"? I want an "Action."
OMAR: And, action!
-(FOIL RUSTLING) -(DRUMS PLAYING)
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
This one's green. What's going on with this?
OMAR: Meet the Burger Baron superfans.
I invited them here to help me understand
their obsession with the curious,
little fast-food chain
in the heartland of Alberta, Canada.
Is this what you always order?
It's all my favorite things from Burger Baron.
The Mushroom Burger with what I assume
is Campbell's mushroom soup.
I really love the onion rings.
Love the sauce.
Nice, fat, crispy fries.
We just need to be quiet for a minute.
OMAR: Quiet on set.
Lock it down.
I'm eating over here.
Could you describe Burger Baron
to someone who's never heard of it
or been there before?
The broken down, dirtiest... (LAUGHING)
I can't say that, but it's true.
You roll into town and you look
for the dirtiest place
that has a beacon of hope shining on it
with a weird little man.
Go eat that burger.
OMAR: The man on your shirt?
That's right, the dirty little man on my shirt.
What I've noticed about Burger Barons
is that sometimes, they look a bit tatty.
They need a coat of paint.
But they can still put out that darn good Mushroom Burger.
It's like a classic diner burger,
but all of them are gonna be a little bit different
because of the way
they've all drifted apart from each other.
The best part about Burger Baron is the people.
They've always been very polite,
friendly, enthusiastic, and willing to go the extra bit.
OMAR: That looks pretty good. Can I have a bite of that?
-Absolutely. Sure. -Yeah?
Sorry, guys.
We can do this. We're bubbled up.
This is my dad.
-Childcare. -Yep.
OMAR: Actually, that's my father-in-law.
This is my dad.
That's my mom.
And this is the grand opening
of the Burger Baron in High Prairie.
Our Burger Baron.
(MAN SPEAKING)
(APPLAUDING)
The restaurant changed our lives forever.
It moved us up from the working class
to the middle class,
and made it possible for my parents to live out
the immigrant dream in Canada.
That's me in the middle.
As you can tell, I really loved the food.
It wasn't until I got older that I realized
my parents weren't the only Barons on the Prairies.
There were dozens of them
spread around small town Alberta.
And other than that one Mushroom Burger everyone loved,
they didn't seem to have anything in common.
Except for one thing.
All of them, every single one,
was owned by Lebanese immigrants like my parents.
(RHYTHMIC MUSIC PLAYING)
ROCKY: The minute you say you have a Burger Baron,
the first thing anybody will ask, "Are you Lebanese?"
Nobody really knows who the owner is.
The Lebanese people came,
took it, and made it the company that it is.
Is it cultural appropriation?
I don't know. It doesn't say Burger Sheikh,
-so... -(LAUGHING)
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
OMAR: It's one of the most recognizable
and beloved brands in the Prairie Province
of Alberta,
with over 25 completely independent locations
spreading from north to south,
and one in BC.
"The Burger Baron restaurants
"that were and are landmarks across the prairies."
Alberta is known for ranching, rednecks,
jacked-up pickup trucks,
but then there's all these Burger Baron stores
that are run by Lebanese families.
There was people, I'm sure, that thought maybe
we were doing something illegal.
It's almost like the burger mafia.
OMAR: Their penchants for big houses and nice cars
might make the barons look like mafioso,
but if there's one thing this mob isn't,
it's organized.
There is no actual system.
Everybody's kind of doing their own thing
with Burger Baron.
OMAR: Which might explain how it became more of a meme
than franchise.
So what's going on here?
How did a loose network of Arab immigrants
become a cabal of burger impresarios?
It's a territorial business.
My Burger Baron's better than his Burger Baron.
My dad is Burger Baron.
OMAR: Your dad is Burger Baron?
-No, my dad is Burger Baron. -No, my dad.
My dad was Burger Baron
before your dad was Burger Baron.
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
OMAR: It was once an international brand
with more than 100 locations in its history
spread across 11 provinces in the States.
And there was even one in Lebanon.
But the Burger Baron's heyday is no more.
Even before the pandemic turned
the restaurant business upside down,
Burger Barons were closing at a steady clip.
They need somebody to take over the business
who is enthusiastic about it.
This Burger Baron will not be passed down to me.
-I can guarantee you that. -(LAUGHS)
Or my brother.
I am sure they will die off.
Twenty years from now, maybe we'll have one left.
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
OMAR: With the rise of big-box chains
and foodie culture,
and a second generation chasing their own dreams,
is there really a future for the Burger Baron?
-(SWITCHES CLICKING) -(EQUIPMENT HUMMING)
OMAR: Kelly Saab interview, take one.
(MUSICAL TONE SOUNDING)
So you're gonna be looking at...
Looking at me.
There we go, man.
OMAR: Kelly Saab interview, take two.
I'm the owner of the Burger Baron
in Rocky Mountain House.
I got this business around 2015.
We went through a rough road due to the economy,
-recession, neglection. -CUSTOMER: Thank you.
And it wasn't in great shape
so I had to work it out all the way from scratch.
I graduated in Beirut in hospitality management,
and I worked in different places down there,
but this business needs
sort of a stability in the country.
(LOUD SHOT BANGING)
When the war started,
we were just in the middle
of the peak time of the night at the nightclub.
REPORTER: After years of calm,
Israel assaulted the Lebanese capital
with air missiles in retaliation for a guerrilla attack
that killed eight Jewish soldiers.
KELLY: Everything was just gone in seconds.
One of my cousins
knows some people that live in Edmonton,
and they have a couple of successful restaurants
and they were hiring people from overseas.
They got my number and then they contacted me,
and we did all the paperwork needed,
and I got approved.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
OMAR: Little did Kelly know he'd been invited
to learn the trade secrets of the Lebanese burger mafia.
It was basically destiny that one day
he would have his own Burger Baron.
Why do you think it's Lebanese dominated?
It was owned by maybe two, three brothers
and some cousins
or friends opening their own in different towns.
And that's how it's turned to be all Lebanese.
OMAR: Kelly's not wrong.
It did start with two or three brothers,
and some cousins, or some friends.
And they were immigrants, just not Lebanese.
They were Americans.
Irish-Americans, named the McDonnells.
That's McDonnell.
TERRY: My name is Terry McDonnell.
I'm the son of Jack McDonnell
who started the Burger Baron in Canada.
I've heard different stories about "They've started it."
It infuriates me.
It's just not true.
It's not even close to it.
It's just an out-and-out lie, and I don't like it.
That's not the case. My dad started that. Period.
He had a lot of different businesses
over the years.
When I was very little,
the family went up to Alaska,
and he was building homes for the government.
He had a lumber yard in Great Falls.
He was always on a new idea.
There was a place in Great Falls, Montana,
called the Burger Master.
It was my dad's inspiration.
And he went and talked to them about it.
He said, "I want to do something in Canada.
"Would you guys show me how to do this?"
He spent a couple of weeks with them
and just learning the ropes,
and then decided to move from there to Calgary.
JUDY: The fast food era goes back a long way.
It was when the car became important.
Not just one car in the family, either,
but two cars, more cars.
That's what drove the fast food era.
It was easy.
It was relatively inexpensive to get burgers for everybody,
and everybody could find what they wanted.
I mean, find me a child that doesn't like French fries.
We all love French fries. And burgers.
OMAR: By 1957, a new McDonald's was opening
every two weeks in America,
more than tripling from just the previous year.
On track to have 100 golden arches up
by the end of the decade,
Jack saw an opportunity
to build the McDonald's of the north.
There weren't a lot of fast foods up there, then.
When he first built the Burger Baron in Calgary,
the first one,
he went to a sign company and said, "I've got this place,
"the Burger Baron, and I'm gonna need signs."
And the guy said,
"Well, do want me to design one for you?"
And Dad said, "Yeah, by all means."
So he then drew up the Baron,
the little fat guy, colorful, smiley-faced Baron,
and stuck with it.
OMAR: Jack was so confident that he had the next McDonald's
that he simultaneously built a second location
200 kilometers away in Lethbridge
and brought his brother Mandy up from Montana to run it.
They opened them on the same day.
TERRY: They had a five or six-speaker system.
(WOMAN OVER PA SYSTEM) May I take your order?
And then, past that,
was another six or seven capacity
in the lineup for cars.
It would have been two or three-blocks-long, at least,
until they closed at midnight.
It was neat to know
that this was happening to our family,
this, uh, big success.
OMAR: Jack invited more relatives up
to run his burger joints.
And when he ran out of family members
to go into business with him,
he took his next big step.
TERRY: The financial statements were so strong,
it was just easy to sell franchises.
In the '50s and '60s, it really was.
Everybody knew the Burger Baron.
-(STADIUM NOISES) -OMAR: It was a phenomenon
with its own championship baseball team,
race team, beauty pageant contestant
-and quite possibly... -(WHISTLE)
...the world's biggest burger on order.
TERRY: The sauce, that was one of the secrets.
He didn't give it out to anybody,
not even the franchisees.
They would supply each of the restaurants
with the Baron sauce,
and so the recipe wasn't on the can.
OMAR: With McDonald's still a decade away
from opening in Canada,
Burger Baron might have been
the fastest-growing restaurant chain in the country.
In just over three years,
it grew to have 30 locations
in six provinces and two states.
But not everyone wanted a Burger Baron
in their backyard.
MAN 1: We'd hang around there
and see if we could meet ladies,
or there'd likely to be a fight
or something you could watch or get in, so...
We had an opportunity to meet The Who
when they were on a tour.
And we wound up taking Keith Moon
and the road manager of The Who
out to the Burger Baron.
We were kind of long-haired hippies
and these two carloads
of what we called "Grease-balls" came in,
and for some reason, Keith Moon wanted
to go pick a fight
with these two (LAUGHING) carloads
full of these local guys.
"This is not a good idea." (LAUGHING)
Maybe in England,
but if we try that, we're gonna get stomped out.
(LAUGHS)
OMAR: Whether it was litter or toxic masculinity,
people were quick to forget about all that riff-raff
once they had a taste of Jack McDonnell's
secret Mushroom Burger and sauce.
The company introduced it on Valentine's Day, 1961,
and it was love at first sight.
JUDY: The first time I wrote about Burger Baron,
I had been given an assignment
to go out and gather up three or five burgers,
bring them back to the Journal,
and we would test them for quality.
So off I went in my little Ford Pinto.
I would have had maybe a McDonald's burger,
likely an A&W,
and I needed one more.
So, whatever burger joint I drive past, that's it.
It happened to be a Burger Baron.
And I sailed in and ordered the Mushroom Burger,
and the Mushroom Burger won, hands down.
I have to say, it was the sauce.
That mushroom sauce is important.
It's iconic.
First time I tasted that mushroom sauce,
I was eight years old again,
back in my mom's kitchen,
and I can see her opening that can of mushroom soup.
I'm mad for these Mushroom Burgers.
TERRY: My father made mistakes,
and some were big ones.
Number one, moving way too fast.
Number two, training staff.
He didn't train the new franchisees well enough,
and the franchisees
didn't train their staff well enough.
And that was a big problem.
There is a company that we call a franchisor.
So they're the ones who have the secret processes
or the trademark or what have you.
And they sell the rights to use those to a franchisee.
And the franchisee then gets to use
the secret processes.
Maybe it's the secret Mushroom Burger recipe,
they get to use the logo.
And in exchange for that,
they have to pay either a regular fee
or usually part of their profits to the franchisor.
And they also have to maintain certain standards.
The restaurants weren't run properly.
The franchisees would add menu items.
Then you get a lot of menu items and then the speed goes down.
Quality isn't the same.
OMAR: Jack had lost focus on the two things
that made it an immediate success.
Good food and fast service.
He invested all his energy into the brand,
co-signing on expansions in major cities
with franchisees who couldn't afford it on their own.
All because he wanted to beat the other big chains
to the punch.
Betting on making Burger Baron a household name,
Jack put his last chips on two Montreal locations.
And when they went down,
Jack was on the hook with creditors.
ANNA: The Burger Baron companies
had gone through a bankruptcy process
and voluntary liquidation under the Companies Act.
TERRY: I don't remember any legal matters.
When they divorced,
Mom and my sister and I moved to Lethbridge.
So, I assume that's when it was all starting.
Maybe he was embarrassed or ashamed.
You know, everything was falling down.
With the franchise, it had intellectual properties
such as the little Baron.
And the name, of course.
Those are intellectual properties
that you protect.
And without protecting it,
people are gonna try and use it.
You have to sue to enforce intellectual property.
But if the company that has the right to sue
for trademark infringement, no longer exists,
and that IP hasn't been transferred
to some other entity,
then you're in a situation
where everybody can use that IP,
and there's nobody who is going to be enforcing
their right to exclusive use of that logo or that name.
In fact, at that point,
Dad gave all of them the recipe to the sauce,
and he didn't charge 'em any franchise fees anymore.
Without that recipe,
they'd all've been in a lot of trouble.
OMAR: By finally sharing his secret processes
with the other Barons,
he'd given them legal permission to keep the brand alive.
But in the mid '60s,
as McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's
prepared aggressive expansions into Canada,
the writing was on the wall.
The chain couldn't survive
without someone who cared about it as much as Jack.
It needed a white knight in shining armor,
but it got a brown knight instead.
(RUDY SPEAKING)
FILM NARRATOR: Six thousand feet above sea level,
in the land of Lebanon,
stand the world-famous cedar trees,
the emblem of the country
and one of its most precious relics.
(RUDY SPEAKING)
OMAR: The Middle East's Paris was starting to unravel
as the country struggled with influxes of refugees
and rebel factions.
Rudy and his younger brother Sal
wanted out before things worsened.
But most of all, they just wanted to go
to the Western Promised Land.
SAL: I thought the West
is the exact perfection of humanity.
This is how strong Hollywood is.
OMAR: The brothers' only connection to North America
was an uncle in Saskatchewan
who'd migrated decades earlier in the 1920s,
following thousands of other Lebanese
in the North American prairies,
living as homesteaders, fur traders
and, most of all, peddlers.
They had small carts drawn by horses.
They were selling different kinds
of grains, cloth
and trinkets of all kinds.
That Levantine ethic emphasizes independence.
It's an ethic that emphasizes capitalistic enterprise.
They went into business for themselves.
OMAR: For the Lebanese prairie peddlers,
the destination was always the same.
They worked until they saved enough to open
a permanent business,
and start bringing family members
out west, from Lebanon,
a process of chain migration
that created some of North America's
oldest Arab communities today.
One of the things I found really interesting
about Lebanese people
who've been in the province over 100 years,
have been integral
to a number of different communities here.
And it shows some of the challenges
that not only they,
but other immigrant communities have faced
in terms of providing
for themselves financially, right?
I mean, you look at the history of restaurants on the prairies,
and you see immigrant groups who have been excluded
from more mainstream routes to financial success.
Starting with Chinese restaurants,
Lebanese restaurants.
How many small towns have little Greek restaurants?
(RUDY SPEAKING)
When I came to Saskatchewan, and I said to myself,
"What the devil am I doing here?
"There's nothing like what I saw in the movies."
And it was like you would...
A heavy heart, like you wouldn't believe.
He worked with my uncle for a while
and I only stayed there for about three months.
When I came to Calgary, I felt better,
but not that much better.
It was the first job in Winnipeg
just as a worker in a restaurant.
It used to be famous
with the spaghetti and meatballs.
Two Greek brothers.
That was in Calgary.
I had two partners, and I was a third partner.
And when I was in Calgary,
there was a manager of Safeway,
and he told me there was a Burger Baron for sale
in Edmonton.
-So I came right away... -(OMAR LAUGHS)
OMAR: Really? RUDY: I didn't hesitate, yeah.
When you were in Calgary,
you must have loved Burger Baron.
I'd never tried it before.
OMAR: You never tried it before you bought it?
I heard about it.
-It's a busy place. -(OMAR LAUGHS)
All I cared about...
He says he was taking about $100,000 a year.
You didn't need to taste the product
because the product was obviously...
No, the business was good, that's...
OMAR: The money was the product.
This is the first Burger Baron I bought in 1964.
In these days, I was making $1,000 a day.
When I would put the Mushroom Burger for sale,
(STAMMERS) it's a line-up to 75th Street,
from 60th to 75th.
And they got the police directing traffic.
-You know? -(OMAR LAUGHS)
Did you have to pay the police for that?
You just paid them with burgers.
-Just free hamburgers. -Yeah. Free hamburgers.
OMAR: Rudy initially didn't know
he'd bought into an orphan franchise
of a company in collapse,
but he couldn't have been happier
with the realization.
It meant he was free to expand and do as he wished.
Change the logo,
make up new burgers pandering to local pride,
or possibly concoct a story
about inventing the chain two years before Jack McDonnell.
This is... Is not a Burger Baron.
OMAR: This shouldn't say Burger Baron?
RUDY: No.
MAN 2: I thought my father was the inventor
of Burger Baron until I was 15 or 16.
I realized, well, maybe
there's another side of the story.
My name is Jamal Kemaldean.
I am the son of Rudy Kemaldean,
AKA The Godfather.
He always wore a three-piece suit to the restaurant.
And that had a lot to do
with him growing up from humble beginnings.
He grew up watching the big movie stars.
Cary Grant and Dean Martin, the singer.
They always had nice suits, cigar, wine.
And that explains why he likes suits,
cigars and wine so much these days.
And then he always had the big cars,
the big Cadillacs
with the Continental Kits, gold-plated trimming
all over the place,
and they called my father The Godfather growing up.
OMAR: And like a true Godfather,
Rudy worked hard to recruit the right people
to help run his empire.
RUDY: That's Fauzi. The tall, skinny one.
FAUZI: I came here in '69 to go to university.
He had to go to Lebanon for a few months.
He asked me just to do very little things
like deposit the money,
pay the suppliers and the girls.
So I thought to myself,
"I'll work and save some money
"and get back in university."
That didn't happen because you get a bug
with this kind of business, you know. You love it.
OMAR: The Kemaldean empire
got help from Alberta's newly discovered oil reserves,
and a wave of Canadians racing west
to cash in on a middle-class dream.
But another global event would soon spread that empire
beyond anyone's imagination.
My name's Nazem Kamaleddine.
I came from Lebanon back in 1976.
It was a civil war. We had applied
to come to Canada just before that broke out,
and then it didn't get approved until after the war started.
It was my family and my cousin
Khaled Kamaleddine's family.
OMAR: Their uncles, Rudy and Sal had pitched in
to get all their immediate relatives
to safety in Canada,
six families in all.
But the danger was highest
for young males like Nazem and Khaled.
Militants representing the minority Druze faith
were recruiting teenagers to help fortify Mount Lebanon
against other religious factions,
turning them against friends and neighbors.
Lebanon is divided by religious groups.
The Maronites, the Sunni Muslims
the Shia Muslims, the Druze.
And the political system tries to appeal to different groups.
They established an unwritten constitution,
that the President of the country
will always be a Maronite,
that the Prime Minister of the country
will always be a Sunni Muslim, and so on.
So, whenever you have a system
that is based on religion,
some groups may feel aggrieved.
My best of friends, they were Christian.
My best friends, they were Muslim.
We lived together in that area, you know.
And suddenly, each one had to disappear.
We lose friends from school, maybe three or four of them.
I was close friends with you in school.
They just died in the war, you know.
Your only way out is the water.
So we had to leave on a boat to Cyprus.
(WAVES SPLASHING)
It was in the evening, sometimes,
and the boat was supposed to be 100 people, max.
But there was over 250 on that boat.
I remember sitting on the deck
outside,
and water was coming in from the sea.
-(COAST GUARD SIREN BUZZING) -We got stopped
by the Israeli boats.
(COAST GUARD SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY)
Palestinians were in there,
and they were just ripping up papers
and throwing them in the sea.
KHALED: After we got to Cyprus, I said,
"Why are there no bombs here?" I was young.
I thought to myself the war was all over the world.
I missed my friends, I missed my family.
I tried to leave, to go back to my friends and that,
but somebody, they catch me and my family
and they got me back.
So they took my passport, everybody's passport,
and they kept it with them so you can't go nowhere.
OMAR: More than a dozen close relatives
awaited them in Cyprus,
along with their uncle Sal,
who was helping prepare the family's exodus.
But they quickly learned
the sectarian conflict
had followed them across the sea.
Our visa was in a Canadian embassy,
and the lady was Lebanese,
the one who takes people in and out.
Christians? Right away, go.
Druze, Muslims?
You're not refugee, you have to bribe.
And we said, "We have no money, how we can go?"
My uncle went to the embassy and talked to the council.
If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here.
My father and uncle
brought a lot of people from overseas,
mostly family, maybe 25 people.
They all stayed at our house
and I really remember enjoying all the action
and all the parties he'd have there,
sometimes over 100 people.
With every drink of water,
with every bite of food you'd eat,
it was always on my mind how to get back.
My heart was there,
and my mind was there,
but my body wasn't.
I didn't go to school here.
We had to work
and support the family, support the house.
And, of course, Mom and Dad couldn't speak the language,
so we are the main supporters, me and my brothers.
I've been with Burger Baron since I was 13 years old.
And I worked with Uncle Sam,
and my brother used to work with Uncle Rudy.
And then we finished from one place,
we'd go to close another place.
Everybody was helping everybody.
Every one of them have a Burger Baron, you know?
If not him, it will be his son.
Or not his son, his daughter.
The Burger Baron gave lots of opportunities for us.
OMAR: Rudy's apprenticeship wasn't just for close relatives.
He gave away the company's trade secrets
to anyone who asked,
and encouraged them to do for their families
what the Burger Baron did for his own.
(JAMIL SPEAKING)
OMAR: It wasn't just the Burger Baron
that immigrants co-opted.
Based on the Kemaldean success,
a suite of Arab-owned diners had cropped up
under some crafty names
like Wemby's, Dairy King,
B&W Dairy King, and the Big M.
Though, that one didn't last long
after the bigger M sued.
All, of course, had their way
with the Mushroom and Baron Burger recipes.
BAHA: With Burger Baron,
there was a great deal of prosperity
that occurred in the community
as a result of selling fast food
for people who need it,
and people were needing it at that time.
My first restaurant, I opened in Lebanon,
before I came to Canada.
It was in 1981.
It was Lebanese food.
I ran that place for only one year
because Israel came to Lebanon in 1982.
There was a war where my restaurant is,
and lots of damage.
All the bullets and the bombs.
Everything gone.
There was a bomb in our building,
and we were down in the basement,
and the bomb comes in the building and collapsed
on us with our kids.
They were four years and seven years.
(JIM SPEAKING)
Indirectly, you are in the fight.
The situation puts you in a spot
that you have no choice.
You play the survivor game.
And that survivor game, sadly,
it's religious in the country.
And the political point of view,
they manipulate it that way,
and they made us as an enemy against each other.
Against the people I grew up with.
When you leave the house,
when you say bye to your mom and dad,
(CLEARS THROAT)
it almost feels this is the last time
you are saying bye to them.
It is tough. I cannot.
Fuck, you brought me back a long time.
We were hanging out, playing cards.
All of a sudden,
one big bomb came into the window.
Killed two or three people in the same basement.
(SIRENS WAILING)
When it hit the wall,
the wall, it crashes and threw out some stones.
It came to my side.
It went underneath my skin.
If it was only two feet this way,
it could have gone through me.
When we came here, our target was to go to school.
I was gonna go for dentistry.
I had in mind to become an engineer.
I couldn't get the marks to go to university.
Every Lebanese guy we knew was in the restaurant business,
or we'd go visit them in their house,
and they'd go to the business,
and then everybody has a Burger Baron.
And we thought, "Okay."
OMAR: Twenty years after the company
was bankrupted and orphaned,
the Burger Baron had made a comeback.
All thanks to this one man.
Rudy never demanded royalties or kickbacks.
All he asked for in return was quality control.
That might have been too much to ask.
I got a uniform to my staff,
a very nice uniform, complete outfit
and cost me, at that time,
almost $3,000 just for the uniforms.
They put it on as long as I'm around.
If I leave the place, they take the uniform off.
Once they see me driving in the entrance,
they run and put their uniform on.
The Canadians, they kept it on, always.
If I'm in there, or not.
So, that's the difference.
OMAR: Do you think it would have been easier
for you to get them to follow the rules
if they weren't Lebanese?
Of course.
Canadians or anybody, strangers, they do better.
Rudy was generous in his approach
to any relative, any friend,
any person that he liked.
And they came and asked for the name.
He said, "Go ahead."
He has a big heart, and I envy him
how he can put up with all that, you know, with a smile,
with a helping hand, always.
You know, when he gave everything
to all those guys,
he was happy to see them doing very well.
OMAR: As the carnage in Lebanon raged on and on,
Burger Barons became a terminal
for other Lebanese people displaced by war.
The owners taught them the recipes they got from Rudy,
and showed them first-hand
what it takes to run a successful family restaurant.
That's the secret recipe
that was eventually passed down to my family decades later.
You know, I talked to your dad
about, um, you know,
about him finding out
that we were a Burger Baron family.
WOMAN 1: Mmm-hmm.
And whether that changed his perception of me.
Yeah, I guess, to be honest, it did.
Like I said, I've always felt favorable
towards Burger Baron.
And when I found out that you and your family
had been involved with that,
certainly I felt that, "Hey,
"we have a bit of a kinship and something in common."
It definitely dispelled and allayed
a lot of the trepidation I would have.
-And it did. -WOMAN 1: Yeah.
For sure. Because that's Albertan.
-(OMAR LAUGHS) -It makes you Canadian.
-No longer a foreigner. -No.
A part of the fabric,
the DNA of this great province of Alberta.
Absolutely.
Hi, Baba. Did you get your vaccine yesterday?
-Oh, yeah. -Oh!
-(ULULATING) -OMAR: Excellent.
(ALL LAUGHING)
Did you ever sell Lebanese food in the restaurant?
WOMAN 2: We tried one time to make falafel.
And it didn't really sell.
Did you actually like the food? At Burger Baron?
Uh, I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
(LAUGHING) You don't sound very convincing.
No, I do. I did like it.
(SPEAKING ARABIC)
OMAR: Do you remember
when I went to the restaurant on my own as a little kid?
WOMAN 2: You were about three-and-a-half.
And I didn't even know you were gone
because you were supposed to be playing
with your siblings.
And you just walked out of the house
when I was cleaning or cooking or something.
And then I get a phone call,
"Omar's here."
I just freaked out.
-Why did I go there? -To get ice cream.
Beautifully done.
OMAR: I have a question.
I worked in the restaurant.
I think when I was 10,
I was probably maybe taking some drive-in orders.
And you put me in the dish pit.
You never let me cook.
How come? How come my brother,
my older brother, got to be a cook?
OMAR: I hated the dishes.
You were never meant to be a Burger Baron.
OMAR: Did you originally want him
to take over the restaurant? Was that your big plan?
(FATHER SPEAKING)
MOTHER: To go through what we went through.
OMAR: So when you think about that,
what do you think the Burger Baron
has meant to our community?
OMAR: It's free. It's free knowledge.
Someone taught it to me. I taught it to you.
The Lebanese generosity.
-Yeah. -(CHUCKLES) To share.
-You're right. -To share.
That's how it is.
They don't cooperate very well...
FATHER: No. (LAUGHS)
...but they are generous.
-(BABY GRUMBLING) -You all right?
(MOTHER LAUGHS)
-Are you pooping? -FATHER: No.
OMAR: At the dinner table? FATHER: No way.
-No way. No way. -(BABY EXCLAIMS)
There's no pooping at the dinner table.
(RAP MUSIC PLAYING)
OMAR: Burger Baron is the perfect business model
for Lebanese who,
let's just say are famous for their independence.
You can notice something,
if you go to other Burger Barons,
each one is different.
Some of them... It's different. They don't follow the rules.
(RAP MUSIC CONTINUES)
(LAUGHS)
Everybody wants to be the CEO of the company.
(SAM SPEAKING)
I love this job.
-You do? -Yes.
What's your favorite part of it?
Independence.
MAN 3: I've been to Burger Barons
where they weren't good.
I've been to Burger Barons that were fantastic.
It almost piques their curiosity
"Let's go try Burger Baron, see what it's like."
There is no actual system.
Let's say I wanted to add something
to the menu or take something off,
there's no head office
to say anything.
MAN 4: Maskwacis is a native reserve.
I support them so they will feel at home
when they walk in.
We serve a bannock burger and we sell bannock taco, too.
Oh, my God, why aren't all burgers bannock burgers?
WOMAN 3: I've introduced a lot of vegan options in this place.
Dairy-free cheese, vegan pepperoni, vegan sausage.
I just haven't had the chance to fully take on the reins.
-She's the boss. -(CHUCKLES)
(RAP MUSIC CONTINUES)
MAN 5: I like my freedom.
And I know, with my mentality,
I can't take orders from somebody else.
OMAR: McDonald's is not gonna let you
-open up a laundromat inside. -No.
The root is Canadian,
but the trees and the fruit are Lebanese.
OMAR: Of course, it would be a stereotype
to say all Burger Barons are Lebanese.
Some are Palestinian.
OMAR: Whether Christian, Muslim or Druze,
the syndicate is open to everyone.
But there's an unwritten rule:
Never give the mushroom sauce recipe
to an outsider.
Can you tell us what's in the mushroom sauce?
What the ingredients are.
I don't like to talk about that. (LAUGHS)
The base is the Campbell's Cream of Mushroom.
That's right. And then,
you have to add things to it, right?
-What do you add? -You add the...
There's things we add to it.
-You're not gonna tell me. -I can't. Ask your dad.
What's in the Mushroom Burger sauce?
OMAR: But just because they don't share the recipes
with outsiders
doesn't mean there haven't been any information breaches.
MAN 6: Actually most of the burgers
are the Burger Barons burgers.
We get the same sauces
and even the same burgers.
What, the Burger Baron, a long time ago
used to buy from my company.
What's in the mushroom sauce?
SAM: Nothing. See, when you do the mushrooms,
I do it on the grill.
I'll show you how I do the Mushroom Burger.
(SAM SPEAKING)
All right.
So let's see. It looks the same.
Something tastes off.
I think he's punking me.
Thirty-three years old, or 34, I don't know,
when they first opened
the Burger Baron in High Prairie.
OMAR: I never thought I'd see one of these again.
Did my dad know
that you just took our menu? (LAUGHS)
Actually, your mom brought it for us,
and then she was a big helper
-for us, too. -Really?
Oh. You know, my favorite thing to eat
is the Putine.
Best Putine in all of Alberta.
(OMAR LAUGHING)
It's a pretty nice hat.
(LAUGHING)
Now, Ottawa may think
it has cornered the market on shawarma,
and Halifax might think it can claim the donair.
Alberta, though, can certainly claim
the Lebanese-inflected Burger Baron Mushroom Burger.
TERRY: I would hear about the Kemaldeans
and their restaurants
by other people saying, "Oh, I drove through Milk River.
"The Kemaldeans have put another one up,"
or something like this.
They had a huge menu.
The sauce wasn't the same.
The Baron, it wasn't the same.
It looked like somebody looked at it
and tried to draw it again,
thinking, well, the name is all they need
to be a success.
They had no...
Well, I guess they had a right to it
because it was, at that time, on the open market.
It was frustrating, I guess, I should say,
that they just...
The way they do business.
I just wasn't impressed with them.
OMAR: Part of Terry's frustration
stemmed from unresolved feelings
about his dad giving up too easily
on the company after things went south.
In fact, Jack McDonnell had continued with the company,
but as an independent.
After dissolving the corporation in 1961,
he moved to Regina to buy one of the original shops
he used to collect royalties from.
He ran it with his second wife as a mom-and-pop,
until retiring to California in 1979.
He died a few years later.
TERRY: I had had a steakhouse
in Lethbridge in the late '80s.
After four years,
I closed the restaurant, stumbled around,
didn't know what to do,
and I thought, "Shoot, there's no Burger Baron
"anymore in Calgary,
"maybe I'll go out and start one up there."
I thought it could be lucrative
because of Calgary's history with the Burger Barons.
Right off the bat, as soon as I put the sign up,
it was good.
I got a lot of people saying, then,
"Where have you been?"
A guy came in
driving a Rolls Royce,
came in and ordered a hamburger.
And as I'm writing it down, he said,
"I invented that."
And he said, "Also, I started this franchise."
And then I asked him,
-"Do you know Jack McDonnell?" -(GASPS)
And he then was very quiet, got his hamburger,
and left.
I didn't know his name.
OMAR: I know exactly who it was.
I first investigated the true origins
of the Burger Baron a decade ago,
and as luck would have it,
I found the originator right away.
Or so I thought.
Sal had weaved together a loose tale
about co-founding the company with Jack McDonnell
and his brother Dick in 1957,
barely a year after immigrating to Canada
as a teenager.
He told me he was a silent partner
who'd come up with the recipes
in lieu of any financial investment.
And his biggest contribution,
the Mushroom Burger sauce,
which he claimed was made with secret Lebanese spices,
claims he now denies ever making
as well as ever having told Terry
that he invented the franchise.
We did not say we invented the Burger Baron
or we started Burger Baron.
We said we have Burger Barons.
OMAR: So you never claimed that you started
-the Burger Baron. -No. No.
OMAR: But you had in the past.
He told me that he was the Burger Baron.
And I've also heard from someone else
that he has said the same thing to them.
Maybe they misunderstood what I said.
Well, I don't think that I said...
-I did that. -OMAR: Well...
-You told me... -Yes.
...you had started the Burger Baron.
I don't know you want me to say.
So if you want to report that, go ahead, report it.
You could report anything you like.
OMAR: In fairness to Sal,
he probably wasn't the only brother
pretending to be the inventor.
There was a photo of you at the Leduc location
where it was you in your kitchen uniform.
And it said, you know,
"Rudy Kemaldean, Burger Baron, 1955,"
which was years before Burger Baron launched.
Yeah.
Jamal? Jamal.
-OMAR: Your son? -My son. Yeah.
I thought it would look better to the customers, perhaps,
to be honest.
And wanted to make the Burger Baron name
that much more interesting, I guess.
Did you use to tell people
that you were the Burger Baron inventor?
No, no. I never even thought of it.
He claimed, certainly to my face,
that he is the originator of the Burger Baron.
He's the man.
He's the guy that came up with all the stuff
like the logo and the food and stuff like that.
Rudy was a very convincing individual,
and he was standing in his Burger Baron
surrounded by his children
telling me his story.
So I had no reason to doubt him.
Yeah, I mean, the story sounds a little better, right?
The Mushroom Burger tasted a little better
when you ate it maybe, if you knew that story.
(CHUCKLES)
That was where our mafia comes in.
That's about as criminal as we got.
So many people came to Rudy
thinking he was the Burger Baron,
and they could open a Burger Baron,
and Rudy said, "Go ahead." Whatever the case.
I used to drive to various Burger Barons.
You ask for a Baronet, heaven knows what you'll get.
We can't even agree on our last name's spelling,
let alone, you know,
getting everything consistent like sauces
and everything else, so... (CHUCKLES)
You know, of course we had our challenges there.
OMAR: For Terry and the Kemaldeans,
the inconsistencies have tainted the brand name.
But for the Burger Barons' stalwart customers,
the chaos might be the best part about it.
MAN 7: The reason it's so special is the lore,
the urban legend that comes along with it.
It's a chain restaurant that went wrong,
and the food is...
There's no quality control between them.
The burgers are spongy. But I love them.
What I love about the Burger Baron
is it's so mysterious.
It's funny to imagine all these burger chains,
sprawling out from one origin
and then disputing
-who the original guy was. -(LAUGHS)
-OMAR: Yeah. -"And the Burger Baron,
"who is that guy?"
Any other burger restaurant that you can go to,
any franchise or something,
that magic isn't there, that personality.
When I think of other fast food joints,
it's all about reproduction, right?
Everything has to taste the same every single time.
You have your favorite Burger Baron.
You don't have your favorite McDonald's.
You don't have your favorite Taco Bell or something, right?
The Burger Baron in Redwater makes pizza.
Do other Burger Barons have pizza?
OMAR: Yeah, my parents' restaurant was big on pizza.
Maybe sold as many pizzas as burgers.
-Wait, your parents had a... -Yes, I'm the son of a Baron.
-Holy shit. You're royalty. -It's not everyday...
Sometimes when you walk into a more modern or updated one,
it's kind of a letdown in a way.
OMAR: What these superfans don't realize
is just how hard the Barons tried
to become the very thing they despise.
NAZEM: Back in the '80s,
I invited a whole bunch of Burger Baron owners
into Edmonton,
and we will have our own suppliers
mixing our stuff,
and then I'll have like a warehouse.
Everything comes strictly for the Burger Baron.
We tried to get everybody together to agree
so everybody will be all the same
for all of them, wherever you go.
OMAR: His uncles Rudy and Fauzi had twice attempted
to unify the chain,
but it never lasted.
By 1984, the Burger Baron brand
had been overtaken and proliferated
by a handful of Lebanese immigrant families.
Thanks to them,
the empire had never been bigger
and never more disorganized.
The civil war brought us
some of "the unwelcome," you might say,
in the business field.
They don't have the first clue about PR
or being nice to people
or giving them what they pay for.
OMAR: So Nazem stepped up
and tried to rein in the Burger Baron
for the family once again.
Rudy gave me the okay to see if I can fix things
the way I wanted.
If he could do it better,
that's good for everybody.
You know, for me, for him.
He had no right to even tell him that.
He could tell him he could do anything.
He can tell him to go to the moon.
But there is the problem.
"No, mine is better."
I said, "We put 10 different sauces
"and let a food judge pick."
But nobody would want to agree.
You know how the Lebanese way.
You can't put it through their heads
that younger guys have, sometimes, better ideas.
Nazem is grandulizing himself too much.
NAZEM: I think they were afraid of things
that will not go their way.
After I decided not to do it,
a few got together,
and they wanted to do it themselves.
That's when I refused and I wouldn't go with them.
(JAMIL SPEAKING)
OMAR: Jamil organized a Summit of the Barons in 1989.
And perhaps because he wasn't part
of the Kemaldean family,
he successfully convinced a dozen or two Barons
to meet in Edmonton to hear out his vision,
including my dad and Uncle Abdul-Aziz.
OMAR: By the end of the 1980s,
small-town diners like my parents'
had to contend with name-brand competition
that had the advertising and buying power
to price out the moms-and-pops.
The new franchises couldn't register.
So it was just like an association.
They could not try to unite
the name and get everybody together.
There was so many people, you know.
Some of them, they brought their wives,
and it's just like a gathering.
Everybody was excited
about what, in the end, it was gonna be.
They started talking
about getting all the buildings the same
and as soon as they started talking
about building the same,
nobody wanted to be involved.
Almost everybody wanted to leave.
They said, "Okay, well, don't worry about the building,
"we're gonna try to join together
"at least when we buy the groceries
"and the meat from the company."
MUSTAPHA: And then after that, he said,
"If I want to keep going like that,
"I need to have wages."
He's gonna be in charge,
and he's gonna have his own office and secretary.
And everybody started thinking,
"Hey, this guy is gonna fool us. No. No." (CHUCKLES)
You have your own place,
and now somebody almost control your business
and tell you what to do,
and that's the worst.
I'm the owner.
And whatever happens, it's my decision.
OMAR: Jamil did manage to at least get
that rebate he promised.
But without any assistance from his fellow Barons,
he let it expire after two years
and then retired for good.
It was a good idea, you know,
if we went for it, even.
I think it'll work,
just like you have at A&W.
I would have loved to see the Burger Baron
in a lot better way than it is now.
OMAR: But this wasn't the end
of the Burger Barons' franchising efforts.
As the old guard was losing steam,
a new generation was making moves.
We knew that there is an association or some group
trying to do the same thing.
It didn't work.
So I thought maybe I'll try my way
and I called it Burger Baron: The New Generation.
I wanted to change the image of the company.
So I came up with this idea, with the Burger Baron logo,
the New Generation.
I thought this was gonna make a new wave.
At the time, there were 60 Burger Barons.
So I wanted to unify this
and put it in one agreement, and one price for everybody.
Everybody loves it.
My cousins, my brothers.
A lot of people showed interest.
They showed me the support.
That's why I spent some money doing the jingle.
(JINGLE PLAYING) * Burger Baron
* We're the hot spot right here in town... *
MIKE: They love the jingle, they want to use it.
They want to be part of it.
But when they see there is an agreement...
* ...we'll take it back to the good old days... *
What I do here is different than what he does.
"No, I'm not signing this."
Even within our family.
My lawyer advised me
it's too difficult to franchise Burger Baron.
If you want to claim it, you have to take each
and every person to court.
I ended up creating Best Bite.
So I kept the logo and changed the name
from Burger Baron: The New Generation.
OMAR: How's that going?
So far, this is the first location.
OMAR: No one has ever paid
-to use the Best Bite? -Not yet.
OMAR: What about your family members?
They like the logo, they took the logo, they use it.
Maybe it's temporary or not,
but that's what I'm using right now.
Every Lebanese guy is like that.
Maybe that's our brain like that. I don't know.
I think it's a cultural thing
that we have such a strong independence
that a franchise system
doesn't really work well with us.
OMAR: This fierce independence has a dark side
apparent in Lebanon itself.
It's this chronic disunity that pit party against party,
religion against religion, and citizen against citizen.
Though the civil war ended more than 30 years ago,
the tyranny of incompetence
spread through every part of Lebanon
from hyperinflation to basic services
like garbage collection, electricity and health care.
It is, by all measures, a failed state.
RUDY: I am always excited to be here.
It's a beautiful country, beautiful villages,
beautiful mountains.
But with Corona for two years, we stayed home.
And the situation and politicians
in Lebanon is bad.
We will see what is going to happen if all is settled
and we'll be glad to be here.
Otherwise, I'll be in Canada, I'll stay there.
Boy, there's a lot of clothes in this.
We do like to go on holidays and rest
because I spend lots of time with the Burger Barons,
working 18 hours a day,
every day, every week, and you don't go anywhere.
Just a big prison.
About 15 years ago,
we started coming to Lebanon
four or five months here,
and four or five, the rest, in Canada.
There used to be a Burger Baron in Aley.
We used to go there.
And it's very good food and we used to enjoy it.
All of a sudden, when we came back this year,
it closed down.
It looks like something else, like a butcher shop inside.
They still got the same,
the Burger Baron sign, in there.
OMAR: Rudy officially retired in 2015.
But he gave up on being the Godfather long ago,
with some hard-earned lessons about loyalty and trust.
Most of the time, they lose their business
because they never look after it.
They go have a good time
and I get stuck looking after it,
everyone I helped.
They put the blame on me if they didn't make money.
So that's why, now,
even at that time, they went on their own
and I was on my own.
Not involved with any of my cousins
or brothers or anything.
My father, he's a very generous, giving man
but that also opens doors to, you know,
sometimes being taken advantage of.
And unfortunately,
I saw quite a bit of that as well.
We were having a hard time back in the '80s.
He had lost a motel he used to own.
He was spread too thin.
So without getting into too much detail,
let's just say if the Kemaldean family
worked as close together
as I wish they would have,
they'd probably be billionaires right now.
Some relatives and others,
they never call me.
They come and visit once in a while
if they need something, in most cases.
I learned not to help anybody if I am not too sure of them.
Do you think that the success of the Burger Baron
was a curse over your family
and your relationship with your brothers?
Well it turns out, it might be. It might be.
Because I was successful,
and everybody thinks if they open Burger Baron,
they'll probably be like Rudy, they'll be successful.
But, I mean, you have to work like Rudy.
Not go picnic and leave staff running the place.
You have to work and work and work.
Anything you want to do,
you'll have to do it right or don't do it,
simple as that.
I had enough of the whole deal, and, to me, I should learn.
And I did learn, so I'm okay after that.
OMAR: Rudy's decision to pull back his influence
created an opportunity for a new Godfather,
and one showed up in the most unlikely form.
In 1996, two trademark applications were submitted
for the Burger Baron name and logo
from Regina, Saskatchewan,
and the applicant was none other
than Jack McDonnell's widow Rikie.
She'd been operating a popular Burger Baron
after his death,
and was preparing to appoint her son James
to the throne.
TERRY: When Dad died,
Rikie moved back to Regina,
then she built a new one on the lot.
REPORTER: While there are many fast food choices available,
McDonnell hopes his gamble will pay off
and cook up even more business
for his locally-owned and-operated Burger Baron.
I'm a capitalist and I just wanted
to grow the business,
and hopefully move forward after this
maybe to Saskatoon and other markets after this.
EMPLOYEE: There you go. WOMAN: Thank you.
OMAR: Ready to expand to a second location,
Rikie's sons had advised their mom
to protect the family legacy once and for all.
Their trademark was challenged almost immediately
by another company, Kemaldean Food Enterprises.
But it wasn't Rudy in charge now.
It was his younger brother, Sal.
Rikie McDonnell applied one week earlier than I did.
-OMAR: Just by coincidence? -It's a coincidence. Yes.
The both of you decided...
-It is... -...that it was time
to finally rein in the Burger Baron
-after 34 years? -Years.
That is the funniest part about it.
I said, "Rikie, you applied one week earlier than I do.
"I could be spending a couple of $100,000
"for lawyers' fees,
"and you could be spending
"a couple $100,000 for lawyers' fees
"and we will not get anywhere."
OMAR: Rather than fight it in court,
they decided to split the territory.
Rikie would get Eastern Canada and the US,
and the Kemaldeans would get Alberta and BC.
TERRY: Rikie talked to me about it, and I said,
"I don't think you should.
"I think you should leave that one alone."
The name is across the country,
you can't go back to them and say,
"You owe me a whole bunch of franchise fees,
"a percentage of your gross in the last 20 years."
You know, that's not gonna work.
The evidentiary question of who started Burger Baron,
who had the original IP,
is so lost in time
that it would be very difficult for somebody to succeed
on either a passing-off claim
or a trademark enforcement claim.
TERRY: The corporation had the rights
to the trade name,
and the corporation went under,
and nobody had it.
It was up for anybody who wants it.
Anyway, they went ahead with it.
I don't think anything came of it.
OMAR: Certainly nothing came of it for Rikie
out in Saskatchewan.
She was the lone Baroness
running two successful restaurants
with her son, James.
But Alberta was a different story.
When we got the franchise,
that's when I got stern with everybody.
Nobody cared about it,
as long as they're making money and putting it in their pocket,
they don't care about what the Burger Baron looks like.
He said, "Excuse me, who allowed you
"to open Burger Baron?"
I said, "Well, I allowed myself."
He phoned and he told me he's the original owner.
I never said that I invented the Burger Baron, or did that.
He said, "You know, the name,
"it's gonna cost you $450 a month."
So I said, "You're not getting nothing."
See, that's the problem
with the Lebanese mentality this way.
They cannot accept one person in charge.
They cannot. It's against their genes.
Whether he allowed me or not, I'm not gonna keep it, anyway.
Until I see something legal.
I don't care who it is.
You should've seen me with my...
I fired my kids one time.
If I do it with my family,
do you think I wouldn't do it to some nincompoop?
I didn't do anything.
So things went with the wind.
I became the bad guy of the Burger Baron.
And Rudy is the Godfather of the Burger Baron.
OMAR: Although Sal Kemaldean
had bought into the rights to oversee Burger Baron
in western Canada,
that didn't give him ownership over the brand's IP.
When the company's president James learned
his partner had been misrepresenting himself
as the founder
and using his slogans without permission,
he threatened Sal with a cease-and-desist.
Soon after they resolved their issues,
Sal resigned and passed his company shares
down to his next of kin, a Baroness.
My name is Tamara Kemaleddine Anghel
and my relationship to the Burger Baron
is I am now a 50% shareholder
of Burger Baron Canada.
Burger Baron's been part of my life
for as far back as I can remember.
I ran my own location for 21 years
here in Lethbridge, as well.
So, it's just in our blood.
I think the biggest obstacle
is trying to band everyone together
to realize that things could be stronger
as opposed to having them feel
that you're taking away from them.
And I think it's just a lot of old-school mentality,
Lebanese mentality.
"I'm the best, and why do you think
"you can do something better than I can do?"
Whereas I'm not trying to tell them
that I can do something better than you can do,
but you've got ideas, and I've got ideas,
and he's got ideas, and she's got ideas,
and we put them all together,
and we can be something real and something strong,
as opposed to just being a meme.
OMAR: How realistic do you think it is
for the Burger Barons to come together and agree,
not just to elect one Baron, but one Baroness?
How likely, at its present situation?
Not great.
But I believe in the future,
and the younger generation
have the ability to see outside that box
and that could become a reality.
I just don't think that women
in the Lebanese culture, are given enough opportunity
to be able to do that.
It's always the men in the control
and the women are the silent ones.
Even though they do have a pull and they do have a say,
it's the men that are the face of any business that's been run.
OMAR: In those eight years, have you managed
to successfully franchise a new Burger Baron?
-Not yet. -No.
Do you think that owning the copyright
then encouraged more knock-offs?
The knock-offs have been around for a while as well.
They're not running as a Burger Baron.
Some of them have been Burger Barons
and change their names,
but I don't think that there's any new,
recent abundance of knock-offs, no.
The brand identity is completely different.
The color schemes are completely different.
And it's Burger Barons, with an S.
It's not a Burger Baron.
I have faith that the brand can first grow within Alberta,
and then other places, internationally.
I have all the qualifications to do that, humbly speaking.
I worked in Switzerland, I worked in Germany,
in Dubai and London as a marketing director.
My childhood was actually in Toronto.
My parents came down
to visit family friends in Alberta a long time ago.
Every time I wanted to come and have a burger,
I'll tell my parents, "Let's go to Uncle Nazzi."
Little did I know,
I'm gonna come back to the place
that I held close to my heart.
I want to ensure
that the brand lives in the hearts of the people
like it lived in my heart as a child.
The newer menu is by far much more sophisticated.
We've changed the Mushroom Burger recipe.
So the secret recipes for the rest of the burgers
isn't made available.
Unless they franchise with me, then only will it be available.
I've actually trademarked the logo and the identity,
and the menu, and the name.
I've been going back and forth with my lawyer
on different aspects of it,
and what can hold ground and what can't.
So it's really up in the air.
OMAR: What about the Burger Baron
parody account on Twitter?
Yeah, I've...
-You're not familiar? -Yes.
-Okay. -I know about them. (CHUCKLES)
MAN 8: On Twitter, there is a Burger Baron account,
and it's run by somebody, eh, we don't know who.
He will tweet a lot of opinions,
profane and profound.
I love it. I think it's great.
It does give us a bad name.
And that's not who we are and that's not what we promote.
I think it's pretty funny.
It's kind of raunchy, it's not PG.
Not a lot of people know
that it's not an official account.
You know, we're a family-run business
and we support all franchises,
but obviously it hurts us.
It's not right to bash another restaurant.
I know that's a fake account.
I'm aware. I'm aware of that.
Yes. I don't know who that is.
Is that you?
It makes us look like a bad guy,
that we're, oh, all about us
and only us, and that's not true.
I find his humor funny.
Is that you?
No, Whallah, it's not me.
OMAR: It's not me, I swear.
I tried my best to get the mystery person
to come forward, clear my name,
or at least explain their obsession with the Baron.
I offered them the full anonymity
of a government whistle-blower.
But even revealing themselves to a handful of people
was apparently too risky.
However, I did manage to get a few questions through.
OMAR: I can pass that to you,
and then you read the answers.
OMAR: What inspired you to create
the Burger Baron parody account?
"It was clear that the Baron needed a voice
"and someone for the loyal customers to rally around.
"All the corporate accounts are boring as shit
"and ran by some..."
"...asshole with a popped collar
"and cotton candy vape pen..."
"...who has never set foot in Alberta.
"People want..."
"...to get a dose of the local culture
-"that makes it what it is." -WOMAN: Aww.
It feels like he's trying to hold on to a childhood.
"When did you start picking fights
"with other fast food chains on Twitter?"
"Look, the Baron has always been fair to Harvey's,
"but the rest can..."
"...fuck right off.
"The social media manager
"posing as a redhead or the clown
"trying to bite back every now and then,
"but they're restrained by..."
"...the corporate responsibility..."
"...and a properly trademarked brand."
OMAR: "So what is your actual opinion
"of Burger Baron food?"
"There isn't a Burger Baron joint in Alberta
"with more history and a devoted loyal following
"than the Baron."
"And for good reason.
"Not many people can name their favorite..."
"...McMonstrosity. (CHUCKLES)
"But all Baron junkies can name
"the exact Burger Baron order
"they would get and from what location."
"And if you're lucky enough to have one
"that sells fried chicken..."
-Which we do over here. -(LAUGHS)
"Not sure why you would ever leave.
"My death row meal would easily be the fritters,
"fries and double mush..."
"...with the biggest bucket of gravy they got."
No, the gravy is great. We make our own gravy.
"Long live Jewel of the Gravy District."
Yeah.
Obviously, he...
He holds Burger Baron in his heart,
but I just think he goes about it
quite disrespectful to Burger Baron.
OMAR: There is a certain subset of people
for whom the parody account is actually good advertising.
They kind of love the fact that the Burger Baron
has been a bit of a shitshow.
I have no idea what the appeal to that would be.
DONOVAN: Because it's been a photocopy
of a photocopy of a print
of a photocopy of a photo
that somebody took on their Polaroid,
there's all these variations.
And I don't know if that's part of the charm.
ALADEAN: I've talked people, tried to explain it,
because if someone sees me with a tattoo of it,
they're like, "What the hell is that?"
I'm like, "Yeah, no, it's a burger and it's good,
"but it's spongy, so it's kind of weird.
"And then also they put
"Campbell's mushroom soup concentrate
"on top of the burger, which is awesome."
And people are like, "That sounds terrible."
And I'm like, "No, it's really good."
Burger Baron represents
every amazing small town in Alberta
and what it's like to live in a small town in Alberta.
That's part of the amazing story that I think is awesome,
that it's this amazing immigration story
where people come here...
Could you imagine living in Alberta in the '70s?
We're not the most progressive place in the world.
I can't imagine how hard that would have been
to be slightly different than everybody else
and trying to fit in.
Well, you lived it.
OMAR: I wouldn't exactly say that I lived it.
By the time I was born, my family was well-established.
But my parents lived it.
It's just something they don't like to talk about.
Did you guys ever face any racism or discrimination?
-Never. -Never.
TAMAM: Not a slap like you mean.
-(OMAR LAUGHS) -You translate it to English,
it's not a...
OMAR: You've never slapped a guy, okay.
But have you wanted to slap a guy?
You don't think people ever got upset or jealous
that immigrants coming into this small town
and really, you know, ascending?
OMAR: I got the sense from my parents
and the other first generation Barons
that they were holding back the truth a little bit,
either because they had a business to protect
and they didn't want to rock the boat,
or they just didn't want to appear ungrateful.
When was the last time you ate at Burger Baron?
I don't know. It's been a while,
but when my parents came over last weekend,
I asked them to bring me
-a Mushroom Burger. -(LAUGHS)
OMAR: Small towns can be fertile ground
to start a successful business
and secure your children's future.
But it can come at another cost for them.
Thank you.
Nobody knows this better than Nizar Watfa,
a Burger Baronet who turned those hardships
into a persona.
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen,
-Sheik Akbar Shabaz. -(ALL CHEERING)
NIZAR: Well, ever since I was a kid,
for as long as I can remember,
I had to deal with it to some extent.
When I first moved to Lamont,
there was a quite a bit of racism.
People would make fun of my name.
And once they got to know me, they kind of stopped,
but there was always still one or two kids
that would say something
that was kind of off-color or racist.
-To them, it was normal. -Yeah.
And they would laugh, kind of thing.
But whether it hurt me or not, I wouldn't let people see it.
When you bring it up with the Burger Baron owners,
it's a completely different answer
based on the generation you ask.
NIZAR: I think that a lot of it had to do with...
Maybe they didn't know
that you can say something.
My dad was always worried about us
because we're the only minority
in a small farm town, right?
So just to keep us safe,
it was easier just to keep us in the restaurant.
My parents have that old-school mentality
where it's like, the family helps the family,
and it doesn't matter what is going on.
But when you're a teenager and whatever, like,
work is the last thing you want to do.
When people ask me, "What was your first job?"
-I tell them it was slavery. -(LAUGHS)
Because it felt like, you know,
they were just always cracking the whip on me,
trying to get me to work more, work harder,
but they're trying to keep me out of trouble
and just make sure that I have a good work ethic.
-Are you the oldest son? -Mmm.
-You are? -Yeah.
Do you think that played a part in it?
Because my older brother and me,
we had very different experiences
-with the Burger Baron. -Yeah.
Where like, yeah, I was working in it
at a young age,
but I think it was more about just teaching me
about the value of work.
But with my brother, he was clearly being groomed.
My dad would always say,
"When I'm not around, you're the man of the house,
"you have to take care of things
"and make sure everybody and everything's okay.
"This is your job."
(PAPER RUSTLING)
OMAR: So, my brother took over the restaurant in 2008.
He wanted to take the opportunity
to do his own thing with it,
change the name, and it surprised me.
There was not a moment in my life
where I thought about running the restaurant,
not even...
Not even a hypothetical.
I appreciate the fact that it did so much
for my family and me, personally.
I went to college without any student loans.
I came out debt-free.
Why? Because of Burger Baron.
There were some cool perks to it as well.
Nothing will win over friends more
than being able to order a pizza to their house
when you've got the munchies,
and have it there in half an hour, free.
Just saying.
At the same time, the Burger Baron
can be like a prison sometimes.
And I don't judge my parents for it
because I know that they had the right priorities.
But now that I have kids,
I can't imagine
how that would weigh on my conscience,
to miss out on the things that they're passionate about.
I don't think we actually
have ever really sat down and talked
about what we wanted to do with our lives.
We're coming up to it.
Here it is. I haven't seen that sign in a while.
Was it hard for you
to dishonor your family's legacy
-by calling it "Boondocks"? -The Boondocks Grill?
No. I didn't really want a whole lot to do
with that name.
Nothing against the Burger Barons.
I love Burger Baron food.
I love walking into a Burger Baron,
but it needed to be my own.
There's that nostalgic feeling when you're driving
through a small town, a Prairie town,
and you see a Burger Baron.
You can walk in there,
and it's like walking through a time machine.
I just didn't want that.
I wanted the town to have something
that was a little more modern.
We wanted to have a place
where people can meet for work, they can come on a date,
maybe something closer to the city than a small town.
When did you realize
that you were being groomed
to take over the family restaurant?
I had no desire to work anywhere else
when I was younger.
I didn't want to work for someone that I didn't know,
I'd rather work for my dad.
I just assumed it was because you were the eldest son.
That probably had something to do with it, too.
When it comes to the oldest son,
I don't know if they expect more.
They definitely expect more.
-Okay, they expected more. -(LAUGHS)
I don't know if I wanted any other choices.
But at some time,
you just accept that if I want to provide
for the family like Mom and Dad did,
then this was really my one shot.
So when Dad tells me
in 2008 that the current owners
don't want to renew their lease,
and there's a possibility of him selling,
that scares me,
knowing that my last chance
of having this as my own
could possibly be gone.
Did it bother you that I had
a lot more freedom of choice, maybe,
with what I was going to do with my life?
-A little bit, I guess. -Yeah.
A little bit. And I didn't understand
why you had these options,
but with me, maybe I was already,
like you said, groomed for it.
"He's already learned these skills,
"might as well take advantage of it."
OMAR: A funny thing happened
after my family's restaurant was renamed.
Another immigrant moved to High Prairie,
bought up a rundown restaurant,
renovated it and renamed it what else?
Burger Baron.
ALI: I know they're doing well, and good for them.
I love to hear that story of someone coming
from back home, bringing their family here,
raising them in the small community
where there isn't much of an Arab community,
and doing their own thing and being successful.
How could you not love that story?
OMAR: It was one of the last Burger Barons to open
made possible only because the man
who started it, and has since sold it,
was a relative of the Kemaldeans.
Let's try this milkshake.
That's a perfect milkshake. Thank you.
You're welcome.
OMAR: The family's exclusive rights
have only prevented new Burger Barons from opening.
More importantly, it's done nothing
to stop them from closing.
More than a third of existing Burger Barons
have closed in the last decade.
Including Rudy's last spot in Edmonton.
Including Sal and his daughter Tamara's
three locations in southern Alberta.
Including the last two
owned by the McDonnell family in Regina.
As big box restaurants,
upscale casual dining and foodie culture
encroached on the humble hamburger,
it made a last ditch effort to keep up with the trends.
Yep, definitely.
I'm a little bit nervous about it.
I do believe my father would be 100% on board with it.
OMAR: But the pivot to healthy choices was not enough
to keep the doors open.
Starting a restaurant in the '70s, '80s, '90s
just seemed to be so much simpler.
Definitely easier.
It was much easier.
I was thinking I'll give them empire of restaurants,
so they'll do very well.
And my grandsons,
I hope that do the same thing I did.
Even if 50% what I did.
Now it's completely different.
It's harder, that's for sure.
Everything's so over-saturated.
There's so many franchises now,
you can't even keep count of them anymore.
And not to mention costs going up.
It's just getting harder and harder.
OMAR: It's not just oversaturation,
but the hyper-industrialization of the food industry.
Even if the Barons could get their shit together,
they could never compete with all the new chains
able to scale up and spread globally
at record speed.
My kids were born,
and I was supposed to take a year off,
but I didn't have the heart to leave the kids.
Come on. Come on.
Okay.
You can always make more money,
you can't make more time.
And time always mattered to me
more than money.
I never did go back to the restaurant.
RUDY: They got sick and tired of selling hamburgers
and they wanted to spend time with their families.
So I was... I'm not gonna argue with them
if they want to work something else.
For a few years now, I've owned a finance company.
My brother and sister ended up selling
and going into the corporate world, as well, now.
There's good and bad to that, you know?
It's good that, okay, well, we can expand
to something different and maybe better.
It's sad because it's kind of like an end of an era.
RUDY: It's sad.
Everything's gonna have an end to it.
This Burger Baron was like a constant in your life?
Yeah, absolutely.
-Really? -Yeah. It was like...
Pretty often. I don't know, at least once a month.
-I was legitimately sad. -Really?
Yeah. It was like a piece of my childhood gone.
Did you feel like, "If only I went there more often..."
-If only I, you know..." -No.
I didn't feel like I went there too little.
I think I went there
the maximum amount I should have.
(LAUGHING)
DONOVAN: My niece texts me and she says,
"Hey, you know they're shutting down
"the Burger Baron on the end of Whyte Avenue?"
And I was like, "No. Oh, no."
"We're gonna stop in and we're gonna have a burger."
I'm talking to the owner. He's in tears.
I see people coming in and out, and they're crying.
And I'm like, "What the hell?
"This is a burger joint, and everybody's crying?"
There's something going on here that I'm not getting.
"Why is everybody so upset?"
And they're like, "Well, that you care enough."
And I'm choking up.
As my kids and I are leaving,
I look and I see the sign in my rear-view mirror
as we're pulling out,
and I stop and I'm like, "I need to be a part of this.
"This is too good."
So, first thing, I get it home,
I pressure-wash it in my backyard.
All I can smell is hamburgers.
The grease is just lifting off with the hot water.
And I'm like, "I've made the right decision."
Can you tell us how much you paid for it?
Twenty Mushroom Burgers' worth.
Honestly, I think Burger Baron is closing
because it's not fashionable.
People see the Burger Baron,
but they don't see the Burger Baron.
They forget to appreciate
what it really is.
And it's that burger.
It's that logo.
It's that smell.
And even more, it's that family
that came from the other side of the world.
OMAR: Changing consumer values
no doubt has a lot to do with the closures,
but there's a bigger problem they're facing.
The next of kin, the Baronets and Baronetesses.
JUDY: I wouldn't be buying stock in Burger Baron.
How many kids
want to work in Burger Baron,
take it over, run it
and face all the competition
that they have in the drive-throughs
and the this and the that?
How many of those sons of Burger Baron families
want to run a Burger Baron?
How many of them can even talk their own kids
into working there during the summer?
I played a lot of soccer growing up,
and I honestly don't remember one game
my parents ever watched me play, right?
Because they're always in the restaurant, they can't.
They're not gonna leave the restaurant
at 5:00 or 6:00 during rush hour
to go watch a hour soccer game.
Even though the soccer field is just down the road, still.
You're just trapped. You're here all the time.
You can't get away.
-It's a sacrifice you're making. -Yeah.
Like your family, your life, everything, right?
For the restaurant.
It's drilled in your head
that you need to feel guilty
if you try to do anything else.
But with this new generation,
they don't have that.
There's hope for them.
JUDY: They have their own dreams,
and they're not the dreams of their parents.
And you only have to be a parent and a grandparent
for about five minutes
to learn the truth of that.
My dream is not your dream.
I was in my second year of political science,
and then he had his heart attack.
And, you know, especially with us,
it's like, I'm the only boy in the family
and that's kind of a huge responsibility
in Lebanese culture, especially.
So, I don't know, I kind of seen it
as a duty of mine to just step in.
My dad just had a heart attack.
So with that happening,
I know my dad
would sell the restaurant yesterday if he could.
But the problem is my mom
still wants to go hard, go at it.
She would sell it if the right offer came,
but she doesn't want to give it away.
Alexa, four minute and 30 seconds time.
People who run those things are not about give them up.
But they will have to
either give them up
or find somebody else to take them over.
And there's the problem.
I remember Mom waking me up and she's like,
"You need to go to work, your dad doesn't feel well.
"Something is wrong.
We're taking him to the hospital."
So I came in, I see my dad,
he didn't look great.
It wasn't long after
where Mom called us and said,
"Hey, it's pretty serious.
"He'd had a heart attack.
"They're flying him out to Edmonton."
And I remember going to the hospital,
and he was on the gurney there,
(VOICE SHAKING) and just looking in his eyes,
and thinking this might be the last time I see him.
And it happened at the restaurant.
So, it wasn't easy to see.
(VOICE BREAKING) You know, it...
Talked to him after they did the procedure
and they put some stents in him.
He said he felt like a new man.
He'd come and he'd still want to work just as hard.
He'd come in at 6:00, 7:00 in the morning
to start organizing or cleaning
or doing whatever he wanted to do.
OMAR: Yeah. Are you trying to do things differently
from the way our parents did?
How are you protecting yourself against that?
ALI: I don't know if I'm protecting myself.
Five years ago, we started closing on Sundays
to have some sort of normalcy with the family.
So they don't kind of grow up
just knowing the restaurant life.
Would you want your kids to take over the restaurant?
You have big dreams for your kids,
but there's nothing wrong with the restaurant life.
I know it's hard. I know it's demanding.
I know you're here all the time.
And it becomes...
The restaurant becomes like a second wife
or a family kind of thing, a second family.
No, a second wife.
-(LAUGHING) -Obviously.
One of my four wives.
I know it's demanding,
but it's not so bad.
It really isn't.
I've been able to provide for the family
in a community that I love, that I grew up in.
It's what I know.
I guess it's what I love.
OMAR: Because of a popular little burger shack
that went rogue,
we were able to secure a future for ourselves
and our children,
reunite with our families
and get loved ones out of a war zone.
I wondered if Jack McDonnell ever had an idea
of what his true legacy really was.
TERRY: He wouldn't have realized that.
I'm learning a lot right now, today.
I didn't know there's near as many in the family
as you've suggested.
Like, I think that's great
that a group of people, or individually,
they do well because of the Burger Baron.
OMAR: There may not be as many Burger Barons
as there used to be,
but were it not for the immigrants,
refugees, and foreign workers,
there may not be any left at all.
(UPBEAT SONG PLAYING)
OMAR: Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Don't you want to know
how the Mushroom Burger sauce is made?
So, we've got Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup.
OMAR: Oh, man, I remember that can opener.
It's the same one from when we were kids.
We're gonna take our Tabasco sauce,
we're gonna add 10 splashes.
Worcestershire sauce, we're gonna add four to it.
Soy sauce, a little bit more.
And then we're just gonna mix it up.
OMAR: So, really, it's just these four ingredients?
ALI: This is it. There's not much to it.
OMAR: No cumin, no sumac, no Lebanese spices?
ALI: Not a single Lebanese spice.
-(OMAR LAUGHS) -It's not a pretty sauce,
but it tastes fantastic on that burger.
* Burger Baron
* We're the hot spot right here in town
* People know our value for miles around
* At Burger Baron you'll be amazed
* We'll take you back to the good old days
* Great big burgers
* And delicious fries
* We offer so much
* You won't believe your eyes
* You're gonna love
* What we do for you
* We're serving value
* At Burger Baron
(UPBEAT SONG RESUMES)