The final customers place their orders about 12:30 p.m. at the Nick’s Hamburger Shop trailer.

By Rosemary McCoy

Loyal Nick’s Hamburger Shop fans stood in the rain Wednesday on the east side of Sioux Falls to get a single or a double.

First Bank & Trust and Coffea Roasterie hosted the Brookings restaurant’s trailer over the lunch hour in their parking lot at Dawley Farm Village.

Customers started lining up 15 minutes before the 11 a.m. opening, said Sadie Bell, retail banking manager. For much of the time, the line stretched from the truck to the building’s front patio.

“It was a great day even though the weather didn’t cooperate,” she said.

Staff members handed out bank umbrellas to customers who needed them.

Nick’s owner, Todd Fergen, packed as much hamburger as he could into the trailer, and he stopped taking orders about 12:30 p.m. He and his staff were cooking up the last of the 645 burgers just before 1 p.m.

In the lobby for the bank and coffee shop, Stensland Family Farms handed out ice cream and the bank gave out school supplies as part of its back-to-school event. Bell said fewer people than expected stopped inside because of the rain, so the bank will keep giving out the notebooks and pencils for the rest of the week.

Getting wet didn’t dampen the spirits of Nick’s fans, though, Bell said. She met an older couple who recalled walking there after school to get burgers in the 1950s. Another woman said her son in Idaho contacted her to make sure she had heard that Nick’s was coming to town.

Because of the overwhelming response, Bell said Nick’s will be back in September. She’ll announce the date once Fergen checks his calendar.