Classic Burger celebrates five years of success

July 31, 2019 | Danielle Eaton
DanielleE@thereminder.com

Classic Burgers owner Barry Parker sits with 9-year-old customer Logan Macutkiewicz inside one of the classic car booths in the restaurant.
Reminder Publications photo by Danielle Eaton

WEST SPRINGFIELD – Classic Burgers, a restaurant located at the site of a former Friendly’s in West Springfield, is hard to miss with its bright blue paint and red trim. 

While the outside of the restaurant on 1261 Westfield St. in West Springfield draws you in, the inside is an experience all its own. Classic Burgers celebrated its fifth anniversary on July 16 with a celebration complete with customer favorites, homemade ice cream, hand-formed burgers, and an Elvis impersonator.

For five years, the restaurant has been transporting customers back to the 1950s. Inside, classic cars and Coca-Cola coolers have been converted into booth seating, retro posters hang from the wall, and songs like “Jitterbug” and “Jailhouse Rock” play in the background.

The restaurant truly takes you back in time.

Owner Barry Parker, wasn’t always a restauranteur, though. Parker, a Westfield firefighter who retired in 2011, has owned a number of businesses over the years throughout the Western Massachusetts community. 

setts community. “Sitting on the couch at the age of 55, I felt that I was still young enough and in good enough shape that I wanted to do something,” Parker told Reminder Publishing. “But I also kind of needed to do something because I couldn’t live off of what I was getting for a pension and I couldn’t collect Social Security yet.”

Paired with his desire to make homemade ice cream, Parker began exploring the idea of a burger business. 

“My first piece of property that I was actually looking to purchase was on Route 9 and it was a used car dealer, but it was a classic car dealer,” he said. “So that’s how I came up with the name Classic Burgers.”

Parker then went on to take a week-long ice cream making course at Penn State where he learned how to make some of the restaurant’s well-known flavors like Cookie Monster and Luck of the Irish.

He attributes the restaurant’s success to both getting through the first year and community support.

“The first year I had a pension from the fire department, so I didn’t need this to make a living. Otherwise, the first year I might have been in trouble because there was a tough winter the first winter, Parker said. “Without the community I wouldn’t be successful. It’s a two-way street, so I see returns on helping different things in the community out.”

Within the next year or two Parker sees himself moving on from Classic Burgers and enjoying the time he has left. “This has turned out to be a bigger job than I thought it would be, I’m roughly 70 hours a week, seven days a week,” he said. “I don’t take many days off, and I have some hobbies I really enjoy so at some point within the next year or two I will probably move on.”

Until then, he plans to keep running a business enjoyed by many and giving back to the community. “We try and help support a  lot of different things in the community. We give a lot back to the community. I don’t need this place to live off of,” Parker told Reminder Publishing. “So I can afford to do that, where some places may not. I still take money from here, but I don’t mind helping out with different things in the community.”

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