Original Spalding burger restaurant location has closed

Bad Wolf Burgers has closed its original Meadowthorpe restaurant on Leestown Road after 7 1/2 years, but the new one on Broadway is going strong. So strong, in fact, that owner Joe Collins is looking at franchising or expanding into surrounding counties.

The restaurant, which began as the Meadowthorpe Café, served its last burger last Wednesday, Collins said.

“We’d been telling everybody for a month that we were closing,” he said.

The Meadowthorpe Café building was older, smaller and cost more to rent than the restaurant at 340 Foreman Avenue, just off South Broadway, which opened in June. The spot has more parking, has a patio, and serves lunch and dinner. And Collins plans to add beer and wine before next spring.

“We want to put all our energies into the new location,” he said. He has added new burgers and now has curbside pickup. He doesn’t call it a drive-through, because it takes 10 minute to cook the burgers.

“These are real hamburgers, you know,” Collins said.

One popular option: The Spalding burger, which is on a Spalding doughnut instead of a traditional bun.

The Meadowthorpe Café began with traditional “meat and two” lunches, but the menu switched about 2 1/2 years ago after Collins noticed that people were ordering burgers.

Now he said, he is looking at adding locations. He said he has been approached by a broker about possibly franchising.

“So many people are coming in from surrounding counties just to get our burgers,” he said.

This story was originally published November 28, 2017 at 1:51 PM with the headline "Original Spalding burger restaurant location has closed."