If you are under thirty years, you may not know that McDonald’s o Burger Kingor even Wendy’s, In Argentina they had a local precursor. It was called Pumper Nic And it was created by an Argentine in 1974, who brought the idea of Miami. It was the country’s first fast chain when no one was too accustomed to self -service or the uncomfortable chairs invited to leave their premises quickly.
Nor was the custom of the hamburger sandwich full of ingredients and dressings. At that time, the choripán was the king of fast food Creole. But Alfredo Lowenstein saw her coming. The idea occurred to his 29 years during one of his trips to the United States with his fatherLuis Lowenstein, entrepreneur of the flesh that fled from Germany during Nazism, began in the beery business in Entre Ríos, opened butchers and refrigerators in Buenos Aires, expanded to other countries and became a millionaire.
Alfredo was the youngest of three brothers. Ernesto, the elder, had created the Paty hamburger factory (was also the founder of the Las Leñas ski complex); and Roberto, the medium, a chickens specialized refrigerator.
Pumper Nic was created by an Argentine in 1974, who brought Miami’s idea.
So he wanted to show his father that he could too. And when he went to eat at a quick meal chain in the United States he knew that there was a possibility. There was nothing similar in Argentina. He brought the machines, hired people, merchandising, summoned relatives, opened a colorful place on Suipacha 435 and on October 8, 1974 inaugurated the first Pumper Nic.
Of nostalgia to the book
The hamburger became a meeting point from premises scattered throughout the country. It became a symbol of the ’80, Like the Ital Park, the amusement park that closed in 1990. Pumper Nic was part of the childhood of journalist Solange Levinton: “It was like the stage of the weekly lunches with my grandmother Rositathat took me to the exit of the school, at the end of the ’80s, to a Caballito branch. My maternal grandmother, my favorite grandmother. I was eight years or so. They were meetings that I expected a lot every week and that I was very recorded. Since then I associated Pumper Nic with my grandmother. ”
That nostalgia was the impulse so that in the middle of the pandemic he began to work in a book that told the story of the first Fast Food of Argentina. The book has just appeared with the title A dream made in Argentina (boom and fall of pumper nic), After having won the III Non -fiction Prize of the Spanish Editorial Books of the Asteroid.
Pumper Nic in full boom, in the ’80. Levinton searched Google information about Pumper Nic. He found videos and notes to the losses. PHOTOS OF OUR COLORS. In the notes that read comments from readers of the type “I worked there”, “I met my boyfriend in a pumper”, “I was followed to the pumper of …”
He wrote, then, some of those readers and He discovered a world of chain fans. Some showed memories such as napkins, tablecloths or even period brochures. Others, a VHS box with allusive memories. “It was love for Pumper. I noticed if there were former employees of McDonald’s or Burger King who felt the same and no, there are no,” he says.
When the quarantine loosen, Levinton went to know the most emblematic places in the chain, joined former workers, looked for files, He diving in the history of the corporation behind the brand in the General Inspection of Justice. He accumulated a lot of information. And he began to write. “It was stiring that, rediscovering it,” Levinton tells Viva.
The end is very sad. And at the same time very Argentine, this to do something magnificent and collide it.
Solange LevingtonJournalist
The famous hippo of Pumper Nic. Names such as Mobur, Frenys or Chick Nic reappeared. This was called some of the meals asked for cashiers who used microphones so that the kitchen employees ran to satisfy the client immediately. Customers who would later throw food remains in garbage cans that simulated the mouth of a hippo.
Pumper Nic He had its peak in the ’80; Maybe that’s why now, with the reading of A dream made in Argentinaone is surprised to know that it was founded in 1974, the year of the death of Juan Domingo Perón and prelude to the hardest military coup in Argentine history.
“I also thought it was the ’80,” Levinton surprises. The thing is Pumper Nic He was always related to Alfonsinist springwith the colors of those times and the cheerful song that said something like “pumper nic / the new way of eating / pumper nic / come and you will see.” And those of us who today have more than thirty, especially more than forty, we were going with friends and first brides, rarely with parents. Pumper exceeded youth. In fact, Soda Stereo – then emerging band – presented his first album at the Suipacha Street, months after the Assumption of Raúl Alfonsín.
Cover of “A dream made in Argentina”, the book by Solange Levinton awarded in Spain. And one day McDonald’s arrived
Everything was more or less good until the McDonald’s clown ate Pumper’s hippos. He landed on Cabildo Avenue with a huge and unpolluted place. Clean bathrooms, advertising and, of course, the imprint of being American. Pumper employees, says Levinton, crossed the avenue to see what virtues the competition had. And Burger King also arrived. But Pumper’s owners did not worry: instead of lowering a change, they accelerated thoroughly and allowed franchises without quality controls. In some of them they sold empanadas, sausages or overheated pizzas. The quality went down while the clown expanded in the most important cities. “They shot in the foot “a figurative lifter.
Levinton discovered that many of the former workers were close relatives or politicians of the founder. Some ended up angry when the family pseudo company ceased to be. He spoke with one of them, who today handles a taxi, who accompanied her to the premises of Suipacha Street to show her nothing left of that. And that was employees winning good salaries, managers with salaries that surpassed those of a bank. “They lifted it with a shovel”in short.
It was such the Cimbronazo that Pumper received that the good times ended the ’90s. The luxurious office building in San Isidro had to be unoccupied. Pumper went hand in hand. The founder’s son, Diego, spoke with Levinton about the times he took over. Among other things he told him that there was never nostalgia for that end.
Soda Stereo presented his first album at the Suipacha Street, months after the Assumption of Raúl Alfonsín.
It is that nostalgia was not in the business dictionary of its owners. LThe businessmen, clarified more words, think of business. And the businesses of Alfredo Lowenstein in the ’90 were the Paseo Alcorta shopping and others, such as the Paseo de la Infanta, where in 1996 a six -year -old girl died, Marcela Iglesias, crushed by a statue. For justice there were no responsible.
It was one of the tan cases of impunity that stained the Judiciary.
“I remember that going to McDonald’s was a flash that fascinaba ”, Remembo Levinton about his novel teenage. And then:” What I don’t remember is the time I stopped realizing that Pumper had stopped being. “
That stop being occurred in the late 2000s, in Villa Gesell, where the only employee of the last Pumper store that was received a call in which he was warned to close and leave. They no longer sold hamburgers but any food and even chucheías such as glasses for the beach. “The end is very sad, it is very sorry. And At the same time it is a very Argentine end, of doing something magnificent and colliding it”, A lamentary levant.
He spoke with Alfredo’s brothers but not with Alfredo. “He never gave interviews,” he says. What is known is that Alfredo Lowenstein continues with his mega company Lionstone Development, dedicated to the hotel and real estate industries, created by his father in 1966, based in Miami. He is about 80 years old and is said to live in a luxurious castle in Italy. “The story of Pumper – Levinton Conjecture – will die as those who live it and lose the memories that there are“And closes:” What I like to have done the book is that I could do some justice to that place where I was so happy. ”