Since opening up in May of 2008, Zippy’s Giant Burgers in Highland Park (7573 s.w. Holden) has been raking in the awards for best burger in Seattle, securing its legend as a hell of a good burger at a darn good price.

Zippy’s has been in the news quite a bit recently, but not for the latest accolade. Instead, owner Blaine “Zippy” Cook and his wife Rahel are embroiled in battle with a bank over the future of their restaurant nestled in the corner of a foreclosed building on the corner of Holden and 16th. Once the dust clears and final decisions are made, we may ultimately see Zippy’s relocating to a new home in West Seattle.

“We are currently scouting for new locations here in West Seattle,” Cook said.

The Seattle Weekly’s Voracious column ran a story that suggested a matchmaking possibility between Zippy’s need and the vacant Chuck and Sally’s Tavern on the corner of California s.w. and s.w. Graham. Cook said the tavern is on their radar.

“Hopefully, if we can get a bigger place … maybe we will gain that respect as being looked at as more of a sit-down type of place,” he said. “People are still kind of thinking we are a fast food joint and we are just not a fast food joint.”

“Financially, and with the stress it will put my wife and I through we want to make sure that we can find a place that is a vertical move, not a horizontal move,” he added.

When Zippy’s is reviewed by food critics and everyday burger enthusiasts, the one complaint that rises up amidst the high praise is slow service. Cook said the perception of Zippy’s being fast food and the cramped confines of their 500 sq. foot “little teeny weenie place” lead to the complaint. The easy solution, of course, is to call ahead and have your burgers waiting when you arrive.

Regarding the foreclosure of Zippy’s current location, might as well go back to the beginning.

Almost three years ago the Cooks purchased their spot from a family that owned the building and ran Seamart next door. They converted the teriyaki shop into a burger joint, started grinding their beef fresh each day, formed it into hearty patties and char-broiled them into burgers (Cook says char-broiling is a little more labor intensive and requires a bit more skill than cooking on a flat grill). Highland Park locals took notice, then West Seattle and then all of Emerald City.

Seamart and the rest of the building was sold to the brother of the original owner, and that brother became Zippy’s landlord. That was about the time started getting complicated.

“He had a problem with our lease from the very beginning,” Cook said. “He felt that we were getting too good of a deal.”

The deal was a three year lease (ending April 2011) with a two year extension. That initial lease put the commercial space at $36 a square foot ($1500 a month) plus $200 in utilities.

Things moved along well for Zippy’s as their burgers increased in popularity, although the focus has never been taking great care of the owners.

“Financially, since we’ve run the business we have put our employees and our staff above my wife and I making any profit in the business, so our profit margin is pretty slim,” Cook said.

Zippy’s currently employs twelve people, ten of them West Seattleites.

Jump to last summer, July of 2010. Out of the blue, Cook was approached by Unibank and asked if he was interested in purchasing the entire building for $876,000 – a price that Cook felt was about $200,000 too high. He asked for a new appraisal and waited to hear back for a response that never came.

That next Saturday, at some point during the bustle of a lunch rush, a mysterious messenger posted a foreclosure sign on Zippy’s door.

Cook realized that his landlord had not been paying the bank, hence their offer to sell to him. He was still paying the landlord, but those payments were not making it to the bank.

The bank notified Cook that he would start making his lease payments directly to the bank which, theoretically, could have worked out fine.

Then a problem arose.

“Shortly thereafter, under verbal threats by the building owner we had to take over all utilities and put them under our name,” he said. “Unfortunately, as it turns out, right now the bank is deciding on their own which portions of our lease they want to honor.”

Covering all the utilities quickly changed the face of that original lease from a decent deal to bad news.

“We’re paying somewhere between $60 and $65 a square foot (versus $36 in the original lease) for a 500 square foot place in Highland Park,” Cook said. “That is so far out of what rents go for in this market. That’s what we’d be paying if we were in the Junction … and there is no parking and it’s a little teeny weenie place.”

“So they (Unibank) want more money out of us and unfortunately the way our lease was written, there was no provision in the lease that protected us in the event that the property did go into foreclosure.”

“Right now our hands are tied and we are just going to ride it out,” Cook said. “We could try to fight them with our lawyer, but we’d spend maybe $10,000 to $12,000 on attorney’s fees just as a matter of principle.”

Zippy’s is not the only business affected by the Foreclosure at Holden Street. JoJo's Fine Espresso, a popular coffee/tiki hut that shares the small parking lot with Zippy’s and Seamart (now closed) served its last coffee a few weeks back before shutting down. At the time of posting this story the owner of JoJo’s was unavailable for comment.

Long story short, Zippy’s will continue to serve burgers from their current spot until at least April and the Cooks have their eyes out for a vertical move to a new location.

“(This is) something that I’ve worked very hard on and a number of employees have worked very hard to build up this very strong neighborhood business,” Cook said. “We are all well respected in the neighborhood. I think we brought a lot of life to that area that wasn’t there before. They appreciate what we’ve done to elevate the neighborhood.”

But the time may come when change is a necessity.

“You can only squeeze so much out of that little teeny space,” Cook said. “It epitomizes the hole in the wall, off the beaten path.”

For more information on Zippy’s Giant Burgers, visit www.zippysgiantburgers.com.