Bill Kenney changed the name of his Biff Burger Franchises to Kenney's.
Bill Kenney first opened his Biff Burger franchises in Roanoke in 1958. They were known for the burgers that were as unique as the A-frame buildings they called home.
Biff Burger was one of the earliest franchise burger joints. According to Biff-Burger.com, the name BIFF stands for Best In Fast Food.
The burgers were cooked on a bi-level round broiler called a roto-broiler. It could quickly cook the thin little burgers several at a time.
The Biff Burger was the forefather of Kenney’s. Biff had small .19-cent hamburgers drenched in a delicious sauce, which was mostly ketchup, mustard, and sweet pickle relish.
Bill Kenney’s first Biff Burgers was put in a closed Dairy Queen restaurant. His first Roanoke restaurant was built in 1958 on Williamson Road.
But Biff Burger’s national franchise program failed relatively quickly.
Bill Kenney told the Roanoke Times in 2009, “It was a very loose franchise. We didn’t stay with them for long. Then we called it Kenney Burgers. We sold burgers for 15 cents. I hired an architect and he designed the buildings.”
It just took a quick change of the signs from Biff’s to Kenney’s to bring a Roanoke Valley favorite to life.
Other than the signs, not much changed from the Biff Burger formula. Inexpensive tasty burgers made their way out the doors by the hundreds.
Thick milkshakes were big hits with flavors like chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla.
Hot dogs, french fries, hot apple pies, and eventually a fish sandwich made their way onto the menu.
If you ask people what they remember about Kenney’s beside the Sauce Burgers, many will talk about the fried chicken and biscuits, which became a major part of the Kenney’s chain. It was marketed as “Kenney’s Great American Chicken” starting around the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976.
The chicken was delicious with a heavy pepper taste. It usually came with french fries and coleslaw. Now almost 50 years later people still talk about the biscuits.
Unlike the typical biscuit, these were deep fried. That gave them a slight crunch on the outside. They were light and fluffy on the inside.
Served hot with little packets of honey, they were almost like little donuts.
One popular promotion for the chicken saw Kenney’s sell what had to be thousands of these glasses. You can still find them in antique stores across the Commonwealth.
Kenney’s was a favorite place for families, especially those with small children. The restaurant once put out a coloring book with pictures and puzzles and money-saving coupons. You can find images from it by clicking on the coloring book.
Before all was said and done, Bill Kenney had 52 Kenney’s in Virginia and West Virginia. There were 12 in the Roanoke Valley alone.
But with other burger restaurants competing for the fast food dollar, the chain eventually was overextended.
In 2009, Mr. Kenney told the Roanoke Times, “My only problem was we tried to run all our own restaurants. We did have some franchises but they were all spread out and we ended up in financial problems. The company was over in 1982.”
Three of the franchises managed to hang on for decades. Devotees of the Sauce Burger can still get them at the restaurants in Lexington and Lynchburg.
Buena Vista’s Kenney Burger store lasted until August 7, 2021. Still popular, owners decided to close when they couldn’t get the help they needed to stay open.
Steve Slagle told WDBJ’s Bruce Young, “If someone had come to me a year ago, and said, ‘Steve, you’re going to lose your business because you cannot get no help,’ I’d have laughed at them. The business is good. We just cannot get any help.”
After the company-owned stores all closed, people were left longing for a sauce burger. But years later, Mr. Kenney began bottling his sauce. Proceeds went to help Habitat for Humanity.
Occasionally he would put on a chef’s jacket and cook up some of his delicious burgers to raise money for the charity that helped people buy homes.
He told the Roanoke Times, he helped raise about $100,000 through the sale of the sauce.
Mr. Kenney passed away in July of 2012 at the age of 91.
Before he died, the sauce recipe was handed off to another company that has packaged it for several years. You can usually find it in the barbecue sauce section of Kroger’s in the Roanoke area.
Several restaurants also sell their version of the sauce burger; most are pretty tasty.
For many, each taste of Kenney’s sauce is like a trip on a time machine. They are transported back to a time in their childhood when happiness could be bought one 15-cent hamburger at a time. For that, we owe a debt of gratitude to William Kenney and Kenney Burgers.
Years ago, 1978 I believe my parents and I lived across from a Kenny’s restraunt on Bramalton ave in Roanoke Va.Those were the good ole days.