From his french fry truck, Jake Hiebert became a Niagara Falls institution
For generations of families, Jake Hiebert didn’t just serve them fries. He served them nostalgia.
That smell of salt and vinegar. That iconic blue truck. The alwayssmiling face of Jake and his wife Amy. Whether you dropped by in 1975 or 2015, the experience was the same.
Jake Hiebert and his fries were a Niagara Falls institution. Kids grew up to bring their own kids to him. Then their grandkids.
“We have one product and we try and make it as good as we can … or better than anybody,” said Hiebert in a 2016 interview with The Review.
At the time, he and Amy were reluctantly facing retirement. The rigours of running a chip wagon were getting too hard. But they toughed it out for a few more years, sporadically opening up on weekends downtown.
It was a reassuring sight for locals. But on Monday, the man who peeled probably a million potatoes over the years died at 86. And with him went a huge part of Niagara Falls history.
“We all have amazing memories of Jake’s Chip Wagon,” said Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati, who went to high school with Hiebert’s children. “Cold days waiting in line and he and his wife cutting the potatoes by hand with a lot of love.
“The funny exchanges, the smell of vinegar and delicious hot fries … he was a great friend to all of us and will be missed in a big way.”
Even before Hiebert owned it, the truck was a Niagara Falls fixture. It was started in 1945 by Amy’s parents, Andrew and Julia Morhach, and became a regular sight downtown and at the former Cyanamid swimming pool in the summer.
Amy started working in the truck when she was 12, and Jake joined her when the couple married in 1957. In the mid ’70s he offered to take the business over on one condition — he insisted on buying it. The 1951 truck was rebranded as Jake’s Chip Wagon and even though it had shockingly few kilometres (barely 13,000 after 60 years), it drove straight into the Niagara Falls history books.
Locals went across town for it. Downtown employees lined up at lunch. Even the crews of movie shoots would drop by.
Former employee Drew Hallenbeck said there was an easy way to tell who was a tourist: They’d ask for ketchup. The locals knew better.
“It was a great experience,” he said. “It was a simple business that just seemed to do well.
“(Jake) was a stand-up guy. I would call him a mentor as a 20year-old. He was a guy who would drive you into knowing what good a work ethic is, what a hard day’s work was. He was super kind to me and generous for everything.”
Hallenbeck, who now lives in Oakville, said Jake and Amy would often deliver leftover fries at the end of the night to “people in need” around the city.
Though they had a licence to set up anywhere in the city (except Clifton Hill and Niagara Parks property), Jake and Amy kept the truck in its familiar spot downtown on St. Clair Avenue.
People grew up, retired, moved on. But it seemed Jake, Amy and the truck would be there forever.
“People ask us all the time whether we’re going to retire,” said Jake in a 2008 interview. “But why? We have the best job in the world.”
‘‘ He was a great friend to all of us and will be missed in a big way.
JIM DIODATI NIAGARA FALLS MAYOR