CUSTARD & CAVERN BURGERS
By Chris Wadsworth
Sixty miles or so southwest of Ashburn sits the town of Front Royal – famed as the gateway to the Shenandoah Valley. And on one of the main drags through town sits a fairly standard looking fast food-style restaurant.
We’re guessing some of you already know where we are going with this – we’re talking about Spelunker’s, a tiny restaurant with a very outsized reputation known far and wide for its frozen custard and its “Cavern Burgers.”
“People come in here and say, ‘I heard about this from my cousin’s neighbor,’ or ‘We drove two hours just to get this burger,’” said co-founder April Antonelli. “We actually get hikers coming off the Appalachian Trail and they say this is a destination stop for them.”
Indeed, Spelunker’s is well-known across the region. Local social media sites – like the mammoth Northern Virginia Foodies page on Facebook – are filled with posts about the restaurant. And Ashburn Magazine isn’t the first publication to make the trek down Interstate 66. The Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, Northern Virginia Magazine and others have all written about Spelunker’s.
April and her husband, Steve Antonelli, are the co-founders, operators and de facto managers of Spelunker’s. Originally from Woodbridge and Burke respectively, the duo started the restaurant in 2002.
The couple had been looking for a business they could open together when – with the help of Steve’s father, William – they found a vacant Long John Silver’s building. After much family debate – and even the help of some restaurant consultants – they settled on burgers and frozen custard.
Then all they needed was a name.
“It was Steve’s idea,” said April. “It was playing off this area and the caverns and the spelunking. Steve suggested Spelunker’s and immediately everyone hated it. The family dismissed it. But the consultants liked Spelunker’s.”
Opening day came, but the customers did not.
“We thought it would be a gold mine. A brand new building. Lots of traffic. But it was incredibly tough. We were pouring in the hours – 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week,” Steve said. “The people weren’t coming.”
April recalls pulling some tricks out of their sleeves. “There were times when there was nobody in here – days when we made $300 all day,” she said. “We were parking our cars out front to make it look like people were coming in.”
Looking back, Steve admits he probably wasn’t doing the best job at the start. He says he had a steep learning curve, especially in the kitchen. Finally, he decided dire times called for bold solutions.
“I thought if we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down making the best burger we can make,” he said. “I bought a meat grinder and started experimenting with different cuts and blends.”
The focus on the quality of the food started to turn the tide. Burger patties made from fresh whole chuck and brisket each day. Potatoes are now cut by hand for the restaurant’s signature fries.
The custard base is mixed with flavorings, fruits and candies and churned daily. In case you were wondering, April says the banana pudding custard is by far the most popular.
They started making their own chicken strips from scratch, too – trimming and brining them in a house marinade and then tossing them in Spelunker’s secret recipe breading.
As the quality of the food improved, word began spreading. And then came the internet. Social media posts started pouring in, and glowing Yelp and Google reviews fueled the fire.
“Before when people came into this town, they knew nothing about us,” Steve said. “We were just this nameless, faceless ice cream shop. But then they went online and started to see these great reviews we were getting.”
Chris Nordean is one of those folks who learned about Spelunker’s online. The Ashburn Farm husband and father of two was exploring with his family one weekend when they passed through Front Royal and decided to check out the restaurant he’d heard so much about.
“We came down the street and realized that the drive-thru line was well back into the road,” Nordean said.
The burger was one of the best he ever had, added Nordean, calling it “juicy,” “flavorful” and “fresh.” He’s returned multiple times.
“There are two things I think of with Spelunker’s,” he said. “It’s always crowded – always a sign of a good place to eat. The other is that it feels really old-school to me. It makes me think of how burger places would have been 50 years ago.”
While the parking lot is often crowded on weekends when tourists pour into town to visit the nearby Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive, the Antonellis recently reconfigured the parking lot to help with the flow of customers. They also added staff members carrying tablets to speed up ordering.
“We’re trying to be fast – but not be a ‘fast food’ restaurant,” Steve said.
Coral McDonald first learned about Spelunker’s when she was working in Front Royal a few years back. She quickly became a regular, going multiple times a week. Now, she’s a stay-at-home mom to two daughters in Ashburn Village, but she’s still a fan.
“I still find a reason to go to Spelunker’s at least every few months for a Cavern Burger – with cheese and bacon, of course. I’ve also gotten my husband, mom and sister hooked on their food,” McDonald said.
As far as the future is concerned, the Antonellis seem pretty satisfied with having just one great location with a reputation that extends well beyond the tiny town it calls home.
They’ve talked with outside groups that wanted to expand the Spelunker’s brand and open additional locations – but these conversations always end when the outsiders want to trim labor costs and stop grinding the beef fresh and buying more pre-made foods from distributors.
That’s just not the Spelunker’s way.
“With the exception of the onion rings, all of the items on our menu are prepared in-house and are 100% unique to Spelunker’s,” Steve said proudly.