“If it ain’t broke,” the aphorism goes, “Don’t fix it.” Harmon’s Lunch on Route 26 has been unbroken for more than forty years and still packs folks in every day for its particular brand of burgers smothered in fried onions, with mustard and red relish if you want one with everything on it -- just you don’t ask for lettuce and tomato. “That’s not what a Harmon’s hamburger is and as long as I’m here it’s not what it’s gonna be,” says Pete Wormell.

Pete Wormell

Wormell can be found behind the grill (not the original grill, but don’t tell the regulars) nearly every day from 10:30 to 3:00 during which time he can cook up as many as 300 hamburgers.

Harmon’s originally opened in 1960 when Marvin Harmon, who cooked at Wasson’s Grove Restaurant in Falmouth, decided to open his own place. Wasson’s Grove originally was opened by a cousin of the Simpson’s family that originated the Harmon’s style hamburger in their Simpson’s Restaurants in the area.

Wormell will celebrate ten years at Harmon’s this coming May. He and a former partner bought the place after seeing it advertised in the Sunday paper. They went down to talk to Mr. Harmon who was looking for the right people to buy it. “He was trying to sell it to the person he thought would keep it the same and keep it going…for whatever reason he picked us.”

Wormell tells of the time, shortly after he bought the place, when elderly Mr. Simpson of Simpson's Restaurant fame came for lunch, “I was scared to death...I have to make a burger for the guy who invented it – this is going to be cute.’” When Simpson finished his lunch he beckoned Wormell over. “I’m just as nervous as can be and he shakes my hand and goes…‘I haven’t had a burger like that since I closed up.’ After that nothing anybody ever said made any difference in the world.”

Wormell says the national fast food chains aren’t competition, “They don’t do what we do. They can’t do what we do. People bring their kids in here, they’ve been brought up on fast food and they’ll say, “Wow Mom, these are really good.’ They’re surprised”

What makes Harmon’s burgers special? Wormell says they’re not cooked ahead of time; the rolls are fresh – made in Portland on Washington Avenue, the same rolls used back in the days of Wasson’s and Simpson’s. The meat is fresh everyday. Then there’s “the secret recipe of the onions.” Wormell says with a smile that leads one to believe perhaps the recipe isn’t particularly complicated.

Another difference from fast food is just how long you’ll have to wait for your food. “We have to tell people – you don’t expect in this day and age to have to wait a half an hour for a hamburger, but when we’re busy, like on Saturday or sometimes during the week, it will be as much as a 45 minute wait”

Peak times are between noon and two o’clock, but Wormell says some days there’ll be ten people waiting at the door at ten-thirty, “You just can’t tell.”

The wait is OK with most people, but Wormell says “Ten percent will get mad and go out and slam the door.”

The wait is a selling point for some people. One regular customer, an older retired gentlemen, came in and was told it would take a half an hour. “I don’t give a G—D----, he said, “I got nothing to do.” So now Wormell explains, “He comes in and says, ‘If I can’t wait at least a half hour, I don’t want to wait!’ He’s a riot.”

Still others make Harmon’s lunch a regular stop. “One guy, I see him drive by – I know he’s going to turn around. I put the order on the grill and when he comes in we just hand it to him, if we’re not too busy. He laughs that we’re getting slower all the time and he had to wait five minutes.”

Even after forty years Harmon’s Lunch is a secret to some people in Falmouth. A few years ago they were named “Best Burger” in a newspaper poll, which brought them some attention, and the late television reporter Bob Elliot named Harmon’s Lunch one of “Bob’s Landmarks” Wormell says some people, “Pass by and see the cars and when they finally come in they say they’ll be back.”

A lot of his customers are very wary of any changes in the business, “You have to be real careful of what you change.” After Wormell installed a new floor in the place, some customers just turned around and walked out because something had changed. Eventually most of them found their way back.

Symbolic of change is Wormell’s collection of antique milk bottles that line the walls. Before he bought Harmon’s, Wormell came from a dairy family. The decline in the dairy industry was what led him to try and find another profession. The bottles come from small dairy farms all over Maine. “Someone will come in from Presque Isle or someplace and they’ll see their father’s bottle or their grandfather’s bottle and they’ll say, ‘gee I’ve never seen one of those.”

One change Wormell did bring to Harmon’s was the addition of french fries to the menu. Mr. Harmon never sold them, reasoning that if he didn’t offer fries, people would buy another burger instead. Originally Wormell used pre-cut frozen fires, but after experimenting with fresh potatoes, he switched to cutting his own.

Most of the staff has been with Wormell for a long time. They rely on an old fashioned cash register. “It’s just one more thing we refuse to change.” and breaking new people in is hard because they have to know how to handle cash without a digital machine. Wormell says Harmon’s isn’t expanding anytime soon, “I don’t have any reason to want to. This works.”

"So if it's working, why change it."

by Chad Gilley aroundmaine.com September 22, 2004