Better Every Day in Every Way
Meet Andi Halsten of The Burger Dive
In her own life and as the co-owner of the Burger Dive, Andi Halsten practices the mantra: “Every day. Every way. We get a little better.” Since opening their restaurant, she and her husband and business partner, Brad, have made Billings more delicious with their award-winning burgers.
I witnessed Andi bettering lives in our community in another way firsthand. About a year ago, I ran into her at the grocery store. She stepped in front of me in line, which seemed out of character for her. However, as always, she greeted me with my name, looked me in the eyes and identified herself, but on this day, the usual dance in her glance and smile were missing, replaced with urgency. She apologized with a strained look as she stepped up to the cashier just as my order was about to be processed.
I was more than happy to step aside, sensing her anxiety. As a big group of people came through the door into the store, Andi turned to look at them and then quickly looked away, as if to avoid being recognized. She pointed out the group to the cashier and asked if she could leave a credit card to pay for their groceries.
“These were customers and friends who had just lost a family member, and they were planning a funeral and buying snacks,” Andi told me. She ran into them in the parking lot, heard the sad news and hurriedly came into the store. “Sometimes when I can, I try to help those who are struggling.”
Andi’s job as the chief executive officer and owner of her restaurant is to be sensitive to the operational needs and make sure they are attended to. While Brad heads up the kitchen, she manages the front of the house, greeting customers, taking orders and clearing tables. These days she works behind the scenes, after Brad’s oldest son, Brendan, started stepping into Andi’s old role of operating manager five years ago.
On this day, we sit in a booth located in the far back of their new restaurant in the West Park Promenade. Brad and Brendan are nearby. In early spring, they opened in the space that once housed Parasol, Midway and Phatty’s, right next door to Gainan’s Midtown Flowers. The modern industrial design from the previous occupants will remain, but a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant statue — a blue-eyed boy with fluffy hair and checkered overalls holding a burger — will be placed prominently near the front entry in keeping with their nostalgic vibe. The downtown eatery will continue to serve diners in anticipation of the opening of the Marriott AC Hotel next door, on which construction is scheduled to begin this summer.
Andi has spent the last several years training Brendan.
“I have been here since 2010,” Brendan says. “I started as a dishwasher. Three hours in, I was cooking on the line and got a $1 raise.”
“I’m taking a step back and letting Brendan step up,” Andi says. “Brendan developed the whole system of how we did the line. He’s worked everywhere in fast food – Buffalo Wild Wings and Dairy Queen. He learned the recipes and the system.”
With Brendan on board, “The team is excited about their new location with ample parking and turnkey kitchen,” Brad says.
The couple, both aficionados of heavy metal music, met at a Rockin’ the Rivers concert. Andi, who was working at the concert, first spied Brad in line for beer.
“I saw this ‘o line’ man football guy with four beers in his giant hands. I went over to him and asked, ‘Oh, can I help you carry them?’ I downed one and then started walking away.” Brad, who was stunned said, “Hey, those are for my friends.”
“We spent the next three days together,” Brad says of the beginning of their love affair.
A year later, in 2007, Andi says, she moved from Butte to Billings “with my Rottweiler and tortoise. Brad had two children and two stepchildren. I inherited four stepchildren. I went from being single to having a family.” Besides Brendan there are Austin, Ashlinn and Brady. Brad and Andi tied the knot a year later.
Both were in the mental health field with Andi “managing group homes with boys that were severely injured,” while Brad was licensing homes for foster care children for Youth Dynamics.
Brad dreamed of opening a burger place. For two years he and his father, Gary, spoke about the restaurant. “I got tired of listening to them talk about the burger joint,” Andi says. “They had six things on a list” for what they needed to realize the dream. “One night I came up with a spreadsheet that had over 200 items in it. It included everything we needed for the restaurant — small ware and hardware.”
“She’s the reason we’re open,” Brad quickly interjects.
“I went to Big Sky EDA, got the finances together. Then in 2008, in the middle of the big recession, we opened,” Andi says, moving ahead when many people tried to convince them otherwise.
“Originally we were going to run it with the three of us,” Andi says. Brad’s father, an actor and painter who had owned a restaurant in Calistoga, California, decided to move to Billings to help the couple. These days, he makes all the soups.
Andi was going to keep her job and work at the restaurant when she could. “Dad and I were going to do the cooking, and Andi would take orders at the counter,” Brad says, since they expected business to be slow. “We were way busier than we thought we would be on day one.”
Andi left her job to take on the “responsibilities of HR — the hiring, discipline and management of personnel.” She says, “I have a gut feeling when I do the hiring. It’s their personality and my gut feeling. You’re giving someone a chance to have a job. One can only become better with a paycheck, Social Security.”
Over the years, the Billings Gazette declared that the Burger Dive made the best burger in town a half dozen times. Nationally, the restaurant has been mentioned as a favorite Montana restaurant by People Magazine and Zagat, and it has excelled in national cookoffs.
Andi has been a key member of the team all the way. She helped Brad win the title of the 2016 World Burger Champion at the World Food Championships with “The I’m Your ‘Huckleberry Burger.’” The creation, made with Angus beef and Brad’s huckleberry hatch chili barbecue sauce, bacon, goat cheese, roasted red pepper mayonnaise and arugula on a Grains of Montana bun, is one of the most revered items on their menu.
“They have really good ideas to run with,” Brendan says of Andi and Brad. “Andi has the palate to dial things in.”
“I am good with flavor combinations,” she humbly admits. After having tasted pancakes made with a huckleberry and hatch chili sauce at an eatery in Whitefish, she suggested that Brad try combining huckleberries with jalapeños. “He takes it and twists it,” she says.
They took this idea to the World Food Championships. “The flavors represented where we come from,” Andi says of the burger that took them to the second round. Knowing the sponsors were Jim Beam and Coke, Brad made a dressing with Jim Beam Double Oak Bourbon that included the secret ingredient of dates that Andi also suggested, and they won.
During competitions, “Brendan does the cooking. Brad makes the sauces while I get the buns ready, and I work on the final presentation. Brad’s daughter Ashlinn also helps out.”
Andi was a shy child. “I have had to overcome anxiety,” she says. “I had a single parent mom. She made me answer the phone. She had me pay the pizza guy.”
“I credit my Aunt Gaylene, who was social, for inspiring me. I wanted to be like her,” Andi says of her aunt who knew everybody. Andi came out of her shell in high school, where she excelled in volleyball, basketball, bowling and tennis, eventually receiving a full scholarship to attend University of Montana, where she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology.
In working with her husband to run a successful business, Andi says, “You have to be able to be honest with each other. You have to be excellent communicators.”
The team sits down every afternoon to talk about the day. “Initially, from 3 to 4, Brad, me and grandpa would sit down and talk. We reviewed the day. We talked about what we could do better.” The practice continues to this day.
Early in the year, Brendan had spearheaded the idea of opening burger dives throughout the state. Then, a day later, out of the blue, Brad received a phone call from Jamey Eisenbarth, owner of their new restaurant space. “On Wednesday we talked about a turnkey place, and we got the call on Thursday,” Brad says.
“We are proponents of putting out positive energy,” Andi says with conviction, grateful for their new opportunity.
“I’m looking forward to waiting tables, doing that again. I love talking to people,” she shares of wanting to continue to make the world better every day in every way.
