NuWay owner Neal Stong remembered for carrying on crumbly hamburger tradition

Along with the many kind words that have been said of Neal Stong since his death at 86 on Nov. 17, his son also shared a well-held secret of the longtime owner of the NuWay crumbly hamburger chain.

Chris Stong spoke in a whisper as he revealed that his father “was not very good at making NuWays.”

“Dad never mastered the NuWay flip, so he was not proficient at making them.”

Neal Stong, who had the gift of gab, was good at a lot of other things.

“He was good out in the dining room talking to customers,” said Karla Claycamp, who has worked in the NuWay corporate office for more than two decades.

She said Stong loved meeting people and hearing their stories, especially if they involved tales of out-of-towners or former residents landing in Wichita and going straight to NuWay from the airport.

Claycamp said Stong also enjoyed when customers experienced a crumbly burger for the first time. She said he felt responsible for carrying on the reputation of the 1930 business.

“It was always very important for him to carry on the NuWay tradition for sure.”

Stong, a native of southeast Kansas, didn’t start out in the restaurant business. He was in a variety of retail jobs, including a long career at David’s department store where he was everything from a clerk to store manager. That’s where he learned the value of putting customers first, his son said.

Relationships with staff members and vendors were important, too.

Chris Stong said his father taught him that “everyone needs to benefit so that we can have a good working relationship.”

“He wanted to succeed and wanted everyone else to succeed greatly,” said Vincent Aaron, who worked for Stong for more than 37 years, most of which time he was manager of the NuWay at Normandie Center at Central and Woodlawn.

“We didn’t agree on much of anything, but we got along really good,” Aaron said of their differences in management style.

“He was very strict and hard core, and I was off the cuff, kind of easygoing.”

Stong had Parkinson’s disease but remained active at NuWay even after he could no longer make it to the four restaurants or office.

“He would still call and check on the price of meat every day,” Aaron said. “He was very involved and very dedicated to it.”

Betty Gettings worked for Stong 42 of the 45 years she worked at NuWay. She said Stong didn’t know the restaurant business when he became a partner around 1980.

“We kind of went head-to-head a few times,” she said. “He was just kind of a stubborn guy, but so was I.”

If Stong wanted to try something that Gettings told him wouldn’t work, he would take it to a restaurant where she wasn’t.

If it didn’t work, he would return and say, “Well, Betty, you were right.”

She said Stong, who eventually became the sole owner of NuWay, was always fair.

Jessica Stong, Chris Stong’s wife, will do the eulogy for her father-in-law at his 2 p.m. Tuesday funeral at Hillside Christian Church, and she’ll show up in what she called “extremely wild” tasseled black shoes with cobalt blue and silver accents to honor him.

“That man could always pick me out a good pair of shoes.”

She said Stong regularly told stories that “had elements of a great epic tale,” including drama and valor.

“The stories were always hopeful — shockingly hopeful.”

Chris Stong said his father was so hopeful of a cure for Parkinson’s that he was certain it would come in his lifetime.

“He was just amazingly optimistic. Sadly, that didn’t happen.”

Stong said his father also was deeply supportive of Wichita well before civic pride caught on with city flag murals all over town.

He remembers how a designer who worked on a new NuWay logo once put it:

“Your dad . . . was Wichita cool before Wichita was cool.”

This story was originally published November 21, 2022 at 4:47 AM.