OKOBOJI, Iowa | What’s in a name?
Bob’s Drive-In? Well, that’s the name of the parent restaurant in Le Mars, Iowa.
Bob’s in Arnolds Park? That’s what the sign says on the little building atop a small hill that overlooks West Lake Okoboji on one side and a city park on the other that boasts a plethora of concerts every summer.
Bob’s Beach House? That’s the unofficial name that ties Bob’s with the previous occupant, The Beach House, a bistro built in 1999.
In 2004, Bob’s took over, expanding from its base 90 miles south of the Lakes to become that rarity, a restaurant that successfully branches off to the Lakes area from somewhere else, in this case its 65-year-old mainstay in Le Mars.
Bob’s Drive-In was founded by Robert Kass, whose son Myles, now 60, runs things and operates Bob’s in Arnolds Park along with his wife every summer, starting the week before Memorial Day and closing up religiously the day after Labor Day.
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The specialty on the much-expanded menu is hot dogs, called Bob dogs, and loose meat sandwiches, also called taverns. Just don’t ask for a hamburger.
“Basically, our claim to fame is that we’ve got this natural casing hot dog on a locally baked bun, and then we’ve got this extra lean ground beef sandwich that we brown, we strain and we fresh cook in a sauce and we strain it again,” Myles Kass said. “So if we talk about health food, we’ve been doing health food for 65 years.”
Everything is on a locally baked bun and even the French fries, crispy cooked fries, are the best on the market, he insists.
“It will stay crispy even in milk. It’s the same with our onion rings. It’s like if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it correctly,” he said.
Kass said he learned a long time ago that the one thing most families have in their fridge is hot dogs or frozen pizza. And since he doesn’t do pizza, he figures that if he’s not going to have the best hot dog folks can get their hands on, they’re going to stay home .
“So that’s basically our philosophy: If we’re not going to have excellent service, excellent product and reasonable prices, I’m going to be looking for a job,” he said.
When Dad started the original Bob’s in Le Mars back in ’49, the menu consisted of hot dogs, beef sandwiches, a cold cheese sandwich, potato chips and soft drinks, but no fried foods. “Even with the soft drinks, back in the old days, you created your own. You had a root beer barrel, so you made your own root beer,” he said.
Bob’s still makes its own root beer, but over the years, the business has evolved into a variety of fried foods, chicken strips, pork tenderloins and the like. Just no hamburgers.
One customer last year asked for a hamburger, insisting that he had had one the year before.
“Well, because the customer’s always right, I said, 'I’ve got a hamburger but it fell apart and we call it loose meat,'” he said. “'Do you want it?' And he says, ‘No, no, no! A hamburger!’ Well, we don’t have them anymore. They didn’t work out, so we got rid of them. But, I mean, there’s no arguing.”
Though 60 now, and still dealing with a cancer scare that sidelined him much of last year, his 11th at Arnolds Park, Miles has been working in the business for more than 50 years. Fortunately, his wife Roberta and their seven grown children, in spite of their own career and family commitments, were able to fill in at Bob's in Arnold Park last year to keep the enterprise afloat.
He started out at the age of 8 picking up trash outside where the carhops delivered food to the folks in their parked cars, then worked his way up. Back then, he noted, everything was pennies, nickels and dimes and two people could almost eat a meal for 20 cents. The original 16-by-20-foot building had four serving windows and an NCR cash register that could only ring up a maximum of $4.99 – and that took three fingers. Any order bigger required a second ring-up.
A couple of years before the move to Arnolds Park, Kass said his third-oldest son, Nathan, was by then basically running the iconic place in Le Mars. Wondering if it was big enough for the both of them, Kass said it might be time to find out what Bob went through when opened the original drive-in – and Arnolds Park seemed as good a place as any to try it out.
So he put up the sign that said “Bob’s in Arnolds Park Since 1949” and immediately heard the cry, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” The locals at first didn’t know if Bob’s was a bar, a food place, a hardware store or a bait shop. But they soon found out. And the sign remains, unchanged.
He and Roberta move to the Lakes every summer, and they love it.
“The one thing is that we are owner-operators. I truly believed that when they walked in that door, that we either have that customer for life and they will tell their friends because that’s our philosophy – if we serve them correctly, they will come back to us -- or if they didn’t like the experience, they will get on Facebook, Twitter or whatever you’re gonna say, and they will tell everybody that you had a bad day or whatever. And I’m not here to provide a bad service.
“Another philosophy that I have is that if you can find somebody who will work harder for your money than I will, eat there. Until you do, you’re mine!”
