By Stevi Costa

The Wedgwood Broiler has been a neighborhood institution since the area’s developer, Albert Balch, designed the restaurant building in 1965. What today is the lounge area of the Broiler was originally the limits of the restaurant – then called Sir Wedgwood. Changes were afoot for the Broiler only a few years later as the owners consulted with Balch to expand their steakhouse. They brought on Glen Jensen, owner of the Blazes Broiler, and his business partner James R. Anderson, who took over the newly renamed Wedgwood Broiler and ran the restaurant together until 1996, when the restaurant was purchased by long-time employee Derek Cockbain.

Cockbain began working at the Broiler straight out of high school, taking a kitchen position that eventually turned into a regular stint as the weekend chef. He was then quickly promoted to a weekday chef position and worked as the kitchen manager at the Broiler for 12 years. When the owners began to talk about selling the restaurant in the mid 90s, Cockbain thought that the restaurant should remain in the hands of those who knew it best. “I felt like I knew the restaurant well,” he said. “It seemed like a good thing at the time.”

Cockbain upheld the integrity of the restaurant when he took over, forgoing any major remodels, menu changes, or employee reshuffling. “We’ve got a few [employees] here who have been here over 20 plus years. Most have been here over 10,” he said, noting also that he takes care to include his employees in any decisions that will make a change to the Broiler they’ve all come to know and love, whether that’s changing a uniform or adding a menu item.

The biggest menu change the Wedgwood Broiler has seen in its 45 years in business was the addition of a burger menu in the late 2000s. When the restaurant opened in the 1960s, it was conceived of as a surf and turf joint, making its bread and butter off steaks and seafood – the fine dining staples of the mid-century era. And though the Broiler has kept those standards like broiled salmon, prime rib and sirloin, other items have popped up along the way, including the Broiler’s signature burgers, which Cockbain added in response to the growing popularity of gourmet hamburgers.

The addition has proven successful, and today the Wedgwood Broiler’s burgers are some of the best selling items on the menu. Cockbain said that the weekend-only prime rib special is also one of the restaurant’s best selling items, along with the London broil. Red meat may be a mainstay, but the most unique thing on the Wedgwood Broiler’s menu is a certain, unexpected addition to the house salads: Cheese Nips.

Cockbain explains that the Cheese Nip-laden salads are another long-standing tradition at the Wedgwood Broiler, and are likely a combination former owner Glen Jensen borrowed from one of his other restaurants. In this case, the Broiler’s commitment to its traditions has been something of a hindrance – not in the sense that the Cheese Nip salads are unpopular with the customers, but simply in terms of the scarcity of the Kraft-manufactured cheese crackers. “You can’t believe how hard it is to find Cheese Nips nowadays. Sometimes my suppliers don’t even have them,” Cockbain said.

Maintaining tradition is clearly a hallmark of the staff at the Wedgwood Broiler. But for as long as certain members of the staff have been employed at the Wedgwood Broiler, they are outlasted by some of their customers. “We have a ton of customers who have been eating here longer than I’ve owned it,” Cockbain said. “And that’s really what keeps us going is our neighborhood, and the people here.”

Nonetheless, the Wedgwood Broiler is trying to reach out to a new generation of clients, creating a Facebook fan page to draw members of the internet generation out to this mid-century gem and establishing a Web presence. Cockbain says that the Broiler has been drawing in a few Facebook fans and that the campaign has made it easier to invite customers to events, like Sunday night trivia games held in the lounge, which usually draw anywhere from 20 to 60 patrons each night.

He hopes that the Web campaigns will do the same to promote the Broiler’s weekend breakfast, which offers steak, eggs, omelettes, pancakes and other treats served from 11:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.