How this NMB restaurant produced an estimated $10,000 for its employees by cleaning walls
The first dollar bill was stapled to the wall at Hamburger Joe’s in North Myrtle Beach in October 1989.
A customer wanted to be the one to give the commemorative first dollar made by the business, though one was already framed, so that dollar was placed alongside it.
That started a tradition that has endured for more than 30 years, and the memory walls have now produced what is expected to be $10,000 or more for the North Myrtle Beach restaurant’s 59 employees who are laid off or limited to part-time hours by the coronavirus pandemic.
Richard Brooks, Hamburger Joe’s co-general manager and son of Joe Brooks, 82, the namesake of the business, said it might take a couple days for bank employees to count the money.
Dollars have been taped to the walls since the restaurant moved locations in 2005. They were previously stapled, but it took Brooks three days and some bloody knuckles to take the bills down and transfer them.
So each dollar was taped, and some still have tape on them while others are disintegrated beyond the point of being salvageable. Brooks said he expects 70 percent of the bills to be salvaged.
“They’re cussing me a little bit right now,” Brooks said. “They’ve got to cut the tape off a lot of the dollars. We took it off a bunch of them but we’re talking about thousands, 30 years of people putting money up. … I think we’re going to go back to stapling because it is a big mess. I’d love to have the money back we spent on tape and markers, but it’s great memories for people.”
The Brooks family was first going to take just the bills around eating areas for sanitation purposes, but once they started Joe decided to take them all down.
“It’s a little emotional for some of us because we’ve been here since the beginning and there are a lot of memories,” Brooks said.
Brooks said his family periodically donates between $500 to $1,000 off the walls to charity — about three times a year — and that is generally bills placed where the staff doesn’t want them to be or bills that have fallen when the tape dries.
Donations have gone to multiple charities including the Humane Society, foster care, Sea Haven Shelter Home for Youth, and churches.
The bills often have names with dates, designs or messages written on them. One group brought in about 15 bills that were painted to form the face of a Carolina Panther.
When people learned the money was coming down, many reacted on Facebook and some asked for the restaurant to find and return their sentimental dollars, which Brooks said is impossible. “We always say once you put your dollar up it’s a donation. It’s not going into our pocket,” Brooks said.
Brooks said he would normally have about 80 employees this time of year, but he had 59 when he closed in-house dining, per S.C. Governor Henry McMaster’s mandate, and has retained 20 working part-time for curbside takeout service and assorted tasks.
A second Hamburger Joe’s in Surfside Beach is a franchise restaurant that is closed, likely until in-house dining resumes with the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions.
“We’re just doing what we can,” Brooks said. “We’re going to need [the employees]. It’s going to be a zoo when this place opens back up,” said Brooks, whose family has been in the restaurant business nearly 50 years.
When the restaurant reopens, the walls will be clean and ready for new bills and memories.
