On a warm summer day in August 1950, Harmon Dobson and Paul Burton opened up their first Whataburger on Ayers Street in Corpus Christi, Texas. According to Mr. Dobson, the stated goal of the business was to “make a better burger that took two hands to and tasted so good that when you took a bite you would say ‘What a burger!’”Unfortunately, the partnership lasted less than a year before it fractured over business-related issues, raising the price of the burgers from 25 cents to 30 cents.
Looking back on it now, you might think an argument about a five-cent rise in price for hamburgers is rather silly(and you could be right) but luckily that wasn’t the end of the Whataburger saga.
Burton settled with Dobson. They resolved that Burton would own the Whataburger franchises in San Antonio, where Dobson would control the restaurants in the rest of the state. Dobson had ideas to begin expanding even further, eventually opening the first Whataburger in Pensacola, Florida by the end of the decade.
Time moved on and Dobson, being the chief holder of the Whataburger trademark, continued expanding the franchise, eventually having spread to more than 40 locations in 4 states (Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona) by 1967. Unfortunately, April 11th of that year saw the death of Harmon Dobson and one of his associates by way of a plane crash. Harmon’s wife Grace took over for her husband in the wake of his death and the business continued to grow exponentially. In the 70’s they added their first drive-through locations and expanded exponentially. By 1980 they had 300 stores, adding another hundred to that number before the decade was up.
Harmon and Grace’s son Tom Dobson took over as CEO and President in 1993, and the chain continues to flourish. Today, 66 years after its founding, Whataburger boasts more than 700 stores in 10 states and has annual revenue of more than $1 billion.
Despite not having the overwhelming saturation that Burger King and McDonalds have on a global scale, Whataburger holds to much better quality standards than many of its competitors. As a result, more than half a century after it’s opening, you can still manage to go to almost any city in Texas and order up a meal that will make you shout, “What A Burger!”