SEATTLE, Wash. — They flipped burgers and heated up buns at Dick's Drive-In restaurants like they have since the 1950s. But on this day they did so without their visionary owner.
"Dad is very fond of saying, he didn't start this by himself," said John Spady. "There were three partners."
John Spady sat inside the family's Queen Anne restaurant. He says his father eventually bought out his partners. And by the time KIRO 7's Deborah Horne met him in the 1990s during the Jack In the Box E. coli outbreak, Dick Spady was his restaurants' sole owner and the one reassuring customers that eating at Dick's was still safe.
"We do not prepare any orders special for anyone," Dick Spady said in 1993. "If someone wants a medium rare. They don't get it. It's only one way here. It's medium well."
In other words, he said, burgers here are cooked "Dick's way."
"But Dad was more than just burgers," said John Spady. "He helped the community in lots of different ways."
Dick Spady was living in Portland when he and his partners decided to relocate to Seattle and open a newfangled restaurant, like he had seen in Los Angeles.
They opened the first fast-food restaurant in the Pacific Northwest in Wallingford nearly 62 years ago. Hamburgers were just 19 cents.
Still, Spady offered workers a higher pay than his competitors. And he helped support charities here and around the world. Indeed, it was his optimism and concern for others that his sons remembered today.
"He was a caring person," said Jim Spady, Dick's son, his voice breaking. He loved people. He was a joy to be with."
Richard Jack Spady was 92. He leaves behind his wife of 60 years, five children, several grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
His family plans to remember Spady at a private memorial service.
KIRO
