With two locations in Manchester, Shady Glen is too celebrated to be categorized as a traditional mom-and-pop shop. Regardless, the environment there is very much that of a family-owned and locally beloved business. The restaurant has incredible staff retention, with some employees working there for 30 years or more.

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One such employee is Billy Hoch, the restaurant’s current owner, who started working for the business as a pre-pubescent kid, back in 1954. As Billy worked his way up the ladder, he bore witness to the restaurant’s cult-like appeal. He also weathered Shady Glen’s worst disaster, a cheese catastrophe of such epic proportions, it threatened to shutter the entire business.

In 2010, shortly after Billy took over managerial control, disaster struck. For years, Shady Glen relied on Schreiber Foods, one of the country’s largest cheese producers, to manufacture the restaurant’s proprietary cheese recipe. On an ordinary day in the spring of 2010, Shady Glen received their customary order of 10,000 pounds of cheese. In keeping with restaurant protocol, a chef took a cheese loaf, sliced it up and placed it on the grill to confirm quality control. Only this time, the cheese didn’t crisp—it turned jet black.

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Panic ensued. For four months, Billy experimented with both European and domestic cheeses, grilling cheddar, light cheddar, low-fat cheddar, muenster and Colby, searching for a cheese whose flavor profile and consistency might successfully replicate the crispy cheese experience to which customers had become so accustomed. Nothing worked, and it was during this time that Billy seriously worried the restaurant might not be able to overcome this hurdle.

“That’s the one scary thing, when it all revolves around crispy cheese and now you can’t produce it,” he told The Takeout.

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Schreiber bigwigs were unable to account for the difference, insisting the recipe hadn’t been altered. It was only after Billy examined some paperwork left behind by the company that he noticed something had changed—specifically, the company’s address.

Unbeknownst to Shady Glen, six months earlier, Schreiber had moved their plant from Wisconsin to Missouri in search of cheaper labor. To a cheese autodidact like Billy, the implications were obvious and catastrophic—the Missouri cows had a different pH and acidity from their Wisconsin counterparts, creating an entirely different product.

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The “Crispy Cheese Crisis,” as local outlets referred to it, lasted for four long months. During this time, Billy delegated the responsibility of running the restaurant to other managers as he focused on single-handedly resuscitating Shady Glen’s secret weapon. He reached out to food chemists at the University of Wisconsin, who were able to use the restaurant’s process for crisping the cheese as a way to reverse engineer and mimic the original product. Restaurant patrons who refused to visit during the crisis gradually returned, and those who remained loyal during the troubled times enjoyed the return to the status quo.

On June 12, Shady Glen will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Generations of people like me who grew up eating the Bernice Original and now return annually to show it off to our significant others, will stop by to enjoy the best and most consistent cheeseburger on either side of the Mississippi. If you’re ever in the area, I must insist you hop off I-84 and investigate.

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If you’re not local, I ask only that you consider crisping your cheese from the comfort of your own grill. As Shady Glen’s founders discovered, the process requires much trial and error. But nothing tastes as good as crisped cheese feels.