"Hamburger Mary" Morris (ca. 1888–1940) was a restaurateur and personality from San Francisco who operated a restaurant known as "Hamburger Mary's" in the
Radio City Music Hall area of
Midtown Manhattan. The restaurant was very popular with theater people, models, and other, often-struggling performers. The original Hamburger Mary's continued to operate for some years after the death of Mary Morris.
William S. Burroughs used to frequent the restaurant during his early days in New York City and later used the name "Hamburger Mary" for a character in
Nova Express and
The Ticket That Exploded. The modern Hamburger Mary's restaurants began in San Francisco in 1972, when the first Hamburger Mary's was opened by a group of "hippies and gay men". Christensen said of the origin of their restaurant's name: I’ve heard different stories. I’ve heard that William S. Burroughs in one of his books refers to a ‘Hamburger Mary’. I’ve heard that there was a woman named Mary who cooked food on the streets after the
1906 earthquake and gave it away. And I’ve also heard that it’s the old
gay slang, you call everybody 'Mary'. It could be all those, it could be any of those. By the late 1970s, Hamburger Mary's had expanded, opening locations in
Portland, Oregon, and in
Honolulu and
Lahaina, Hawaii. In 1978, an ownership split took place, with Tom "Toulouse" Mulvey remaining in charge of the original San Francisco location, and Jerry "Trixie" Jones taking charge of the other locations and all
franchising rights. After the closure, the owners of the Hamburger Mary's franchise expressed interested in buying out the Folsom Street location, however, they were unable to find franchisees. A combination of poor economic conditions during the
early 2000s recession and the shift in the gay customer base to the
Castro District were cited as reasons why the search for a franchisee was unsuccessful. The original Hamburger Mary's and the franchise developed in different directions. Although several of the owners and much of the clientele of the Folsom Street Hamburger Mary's were gay, the overall customer base was mixed and it relied less on specifically
LGBTQ-related events like
drag performances to draw customers. The bar continued to maintain a countercultural, funky atmosphere close to its early 1970s origins. The other locations eventually developed into an LGBTQ-themed
casual dining franchise, with
cross-dressing waitstaff and drag performances as part of their appeal. After Jerry Jones death in the 1980s, the franchise rights were inherited by his partner, however, those rights were in turn lost in a lawsuit. A series of ownership changes took place afterward and the franchise developed in a haphazard way, without a clear
brand identity and individual locations often operating independently of the larger franchise after licensing the name. In 1997, Stan Sax, who had run the Palm Springs location, and Darren Woolsey purchased the chain, incorporating it as Hamburger Mary's International, and began to standardize the operation of Hamburger Mary's franchises, instituting company-wide training manuals for franchise owners and employees and standardized recipe books for the kitchen and bar. The "Mary" logo was added in 1999. The chain began to expand during the 2000s, peaking at 11 locations across the continental United States, but closures followed, and by 2007 there were only 4 locations. That year, twin brothers Ashley and Brandon Wright, owners of the Chicago franchise, and Dale Warner, owner of the West Hollywood location, purchased Hamburger Mary's International from Sax and Woolsey and the chain underwent another round of expansion. == Locations ==