Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410110005
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Long
No question, they've got him surrounded.
To the left, the Mexican border. To the right and across the way, kings and colonels and clowns and pirates.
And over here, in this parking lot along Fairlawn's version of a fast-food jungle, over here is just hard-working Hank with his ragged troops - a couple of waitresses and his wife, Virginia, his "ace in the hole."
Somehow, through 22 years, Hank's Drive-In has managed to survive.
"I attribute it all to the good Lord, fast service and good food," says Kesterson, who claims these new restaurants, which started popping up like poison ivy in the mid-to-late '70s and kept right on spreading, "never did worry me. I always look at it as competition is good business."
He glances out the window toward Burger King, where a line of cars snakes toward the drive-through window.
"How much do you suppose it costs for one of those TV commercials?" he asks. "You know, a picture can sell a sandwich faster than anything else."
When Kesterson opened in 1972, there was a beer joint in Burger King's spot and a motel where the McDonald's sits now. Near the end of the bridge that connects U.S. 11 to Radford, there was a Tasty Freeze.
"The rest, it was just fields, all it was was green fields," Kesterson says.
Now, his tiny, blue-cinder-block building is dwarfed by billboards and neon.
But his own sign, etched out in blue letters with a disco-sparkle, still stands out.
"I just stayed like I was," he says.
"It's true, it's hard work," says Virginia "Ginny" Kesterson, 66. "Everybody asks. They want to know how we stay in business. Maybe it's that the food has a down-home taste. We have men now full grown, and their father and mother brought 'em when they were just kids."
Around strangers - or reporters, anyway - Hank Kesterson's the quiet sort. But friends and customers who've followed him from his drive-in at Plum Creek to this building in Fairlawn know he's always ready for conversation and good-natured ribbing.
"Am I in your way or are you in mine?" he asks waitress Christy Roop.
"What can I get you? Bobby? Mark?"
He knows his customers by name, their orders by heart.
"You gonna have the usual?" he asks Darrell Graham, who's just started his 30-minute lunch break from Industrial Drives.
"Yep. You reckon we're gonna get rain today?" Graham asks as Kesterson starts spreading a hamburger bun with mustard only.
"They see me coming down the walk, they have it ready by the time I sit down," says Graham, who eats here six days a week.
Sometimes Graham brings friends from work. Sometimes, like today, he comes alone. On those days, Kesterson will sit with him if it's not too busy, or yell over from the grill.
"I was 8 or 9 when I started eating in this place," says Graham, now 34. "I always come back."
Kesterson looks up.
"Old Colonel Sanders says on that commercial: `You give them a good meal at a reasonable price, they'll always come back to you.''' He turns back to his grill.
The menu board has lost a few vowels here and there, but customers know the offerings: chuckwagon and chicken, hot dogs and breakfast sandwiches.
"This is too good to be fast food," says Gary Mills of Ironto. Mills and Mike Young sit in their truck waiting for Roop to bring them their chuckwagon, onion rings and a cola.
"Ain't many of these places left," Young says.
There used to be.
When Kesterson started his business, restaurants offered curb service all over the New River Valley. Now, there are only a handful of drive-ins left. Which is another reason people come here.
"I just like the old times, I guess," said Bud Trigg, on a recent visit with his wife, Carol, and his grandson, Joe.
"I don't cross the road. Hank's been good to me," says Lewis Martin, who comes here twice a week after a workout at the nearby wellness center. "I guess I defeat my purpose," he adds, biting into a barbecue sandwich.
People who've moved away stop in when they visit the area. And once in a while, Radford University graduates send postcards or Christmas cards to this spot where students and locals mingle over hot dogs and chili.
"They'll tell him the only thing they miss is his good food," Virginia Kesterson says. "It makes you feel like you want to do it more when you have someone coming in and complimenting you and all."
Even Bill Murphy, an area supervisor for Long John Silver's, ventures across the street for a burger now and then.
"In our business, we hit the seafood line and the chicken line. He has a hamburger like you fix at home."
Only you're not fixing it; Hank Kesterson is. Just the way you like it.
by CNB