Hasn’t missed a day yet

By Jeremy Appel on October 7, 2017.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

Margaret Devalter takes a lot of pride in her work at Tino’s Drive-in in Medicine Hat — she’s never missed a work day during her 50 years at the longstanding local burger shop.

She doesn’t mind, as there’s seldom a dull day.

“There’s always some funny thing that happens every day,” said Devalter.

She got into the burger business with her late husband Valentino, after whom the restaurant is named, in 1967.

Tino’s is closed for the December, January and February months, but during the bulk of the year, Margaret works every day of the week.

Valentino passed away three years ago but Margaret said business must carry on as usual.

“It just goes on the same,” she said. “We miss him, because he’d done all the banking and run to the wholesale if we needed something. Now we don’t have anybody to do that.”

The rest of the Devalter family also works at Tino’s.

They make sure to get any additional supplies they may need in the morning before work.

“It’s hard but we do it,” said Margaret, who married Tino in 1958.

The most popular order is the Tino’s Special, she added.

“We make our own chili (and) our own mushroom sauce,” Margaret said. “That’s over and above. When we close at night we do that, or sometimes early in the morning.”

The burger business has changed “drastically” since the early days, she said.

“We were selling hamburgers way back then for 50 cents. Today you’ve got a damn-near $10 hamburger. It really changed because of the meat prices,” Margaret said. “Everything is up.”

When they originally established Tino’s, the previous owner had an ice cream shop that also sold hamburgers, but they weren’t properly made.

“When we bought it, he had a hot plate over top of the gas-burning stove, and that’s what he cooked his hamburgers on,” said Margaret. “He didn’t know any better.”

“We changed it, modernized it to a grill, the whole works,” she said.

One memory that stands out for Margaret over the year is when they used to serve the Lethbridge Hurricanes hockey team when they came to town.

“Those were big orders,” she said. “And they didn’t have just single hamburgers. They had one with four patties, the King Burgers.”

Tino’s has kept up with the times by offering vegetarian burgers and gluten-free buns.

Margaret attributes the freshness of Tino’s food to its continuing success throughout the era of cheap fast food.