Jimmy McHugh at Al’s French Frys circa 1980 (left) and 2017 Credit: Courtesy

Jimmy McHugh worked his last shift on the grill at Al’s French Frys in South Burlington on Sunday — more than four decades after his first. On Wednesday evening, the restaurant will be uncharacteristically dark after 5 p.m., when most of the staff will head out to celebrate McHugh’s retirement from the local landmark, which was honored in 2010 with a James Beard Foundation America’s Classics Award.

“Jimmy’s worked here longer than I’ve been alive,” said Shane Bissonette, 38, who co-owns the 75-year-old business with his father, Bill. “He’s our longest-standing employee,” Bissonette continued. “In his heyday, he was the fastest grill guy anyone had ever seen.”

Not only was McHugh fast but, for many years, the job required extra mental concentration. Before orders were printed out on tickets, Bissonette detailed, “You’d tell him an order like ‘two cheeseburgers, a hot dog and a cheesesteak’ and he’d remember it — and the one after that, too. That was the job back then.”

A post on the Al’s Facebook page about McHugh’s departure generated more than 2,300 reactions in its first 18 hours, including hundreds of tributes from those who knew him by sight, if not by name.

“He’s kind of the face of the place,” Bissonette said. Prior to new health code regulations, the wall between the line of customers and the kitchen was lower than it is currently. “As a little kid, you’d be face-to-face with Jimmy. You could see the grill guy.”

Reached at his Essex Junction home on Tuesday, McHugh, 62, said he’d heard about but not seen the outpouring of appreciation, since he owns neither a cell phone nor a computer.

McHugh said he never expected to spend his entire working life at Al’s when he started as a cashier in 1979, the spring before graduating from Burlington High School. But he’s happy with how it turned out. “I enjoyed being there. I enjoyed the people I worked with and the customers,” he said. “I just never thought of getting another job.”

When the Bissonette family bought the business in 1982, McHugh said, he had recently moved from the cash register to the grill.

Asked why he made that shift, McHugh laughed. “I wasn’t given much of a choice,” he said. “All of a sudden the grill guy wasn’t there, and they turned to me and said, ‘Well, you’re gonna have to run the grill.’ So I did that for about 40 years.”

McHugh enjoyed watching generations of kids grow up and then bring in their own kids. He doesn’t travel much but recalled one time when he was in Virginia at an amusement park and somebody recognized him from Al’s.

But working the grill is a younger person’s job, McHugh said. About a year ago, he had to acknowledge, “I was just getting too old for it.” He moved over to dressing the sandwiches and filling drink orders before deciding it was time to retire. He plans to take up fishing again, he said, and spend time with his two grandsons.

McHugh did move back to the grill for his final five-hour shift on Sunday. “It felt good to be back on there for a day,” he said.

Customers and colleagues alike will miss McHugh, his boss said. “The kids all love him,” Bissonette said, referring to the restaurant staff. “He’s affectionately known as ‘the old man.’ He’s just overall a great guy and a great employee.”

Al’s French Frys Credit: Melissa Pasanen ©️ Seven Days

As the lunch rush ramped up on Tuesday, Al’s cashier Ben Schifilliti paused between ringing up orders to say that McHugh’s retirement would leave a hole. Schifilliti was a devoted customer before he was an employee. “Ever since I was a little kid coming in after Little League, I remember Jimmy,” he said. “It’s the end of an era.”

“He was kind of a big deal,” agreed Shannon Geraw, who has worked at Al’s for 13 years. “Everyone knew him.”

Sitting in a red upholstered booth on lunch break, cousins and Al’s coworkers Kyle Doan and Deli Nuñez said they’d been trained by McHugh, who was not only master of the grill but had a special touch when running the fry station, too.

“The way he shakes the fries. It makes them better,” Doan said with admiration. “You listen close for his tricks.”

McHugh won’t be a stranger, since his son, Ben, has followed in his footsteps and his dad drops him off most workdays.

Doan and Nuñez said McHugh’s colleagues have been joking that they’re going to set up a chair for him to be the official Al’s greeter — “like at Walmart,” Nuñez said.

The cousins said another colleague estimated that McHugh has flipped probably two million patties at the grill.

When asked about the number, McHugh mulled it over a moment and then said, “That sounds a little low, actually.” 

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Melissa Pasanen is a Seven Days staff writer and the food and drink assignment editor. In 2022, she won first place for national food writing from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and in 2024, she took second. Melissa joined Seven Days full time...