Space Burger Fest flies again
Moses Lake Boys & Girls Club volunteers cook spaceburgers for the Spaceburger Fest on Saturday.
Sam Fletcher/Columbia Basin Herald
Cars lined down Paxson Drive in Moses Lake for the Spaceburger Fest on Saturday.
Fresh spaceburgers, out of the spaceburger machine first attained in 1969, at the Spaceburger Fest on Saturday.
Spokane resident Ladawn Garwood, former Moses Lake Lioness Club member, has been making spaceburgers for decades. Here she is volunteering at the Spaceburger Fest at the Moses Lake Boys & Girls Club on Saturday.
More than 3,000 Space Burgers blasted off Saturday to hungry patrons.
Cars lined up in front of the Boys & Girls Clubs of The Columbia Basin and Park Orchard Elementary School at 425 Paxson Dr., and stretched for blocks for the Lioness Club of Moses Lake’s annual Space Burger Fest.
The festival was first held as a drive-thru event at the Boys & Girls Club in 2020, as the Spring Fair was canceled. In similar circumstances this year, the club was back at it, with a practiced system to get more burgers out to more people.
It’s a joint venture, said Lioness Club member Deb Graser. Volunteers from the Boys & Girls Club and the Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation helped with every aspect: directing traffic, taking orders, making burgers, cleanup and more. It truly couldn’t have been done without each of them, she said.
“This is just a way to give everybody their Space Burger fix and make some extra money for the community,” she said.
All of the event’s proceeds go to the Boys & Girls Clubs of The Columbia Basin, the Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation or otherwise back into the community, Graser said. The Lioness Club donates regularly to the Moses Lake Food Bank, senior centers, scholarships and more.
Ali’i Hawaiian Shave Ice also set up in the Boys & Girls Club’s lot, giving out shaved ice and kettle corn. Top Gun Concessions & Catering came with corn dogs and elephant ears. Fifteen percent of its earnings went to the Lioness Club, too, and KDRM & KBSM Radio played tunes from noon to 2 p.m.
A Space Burger is simple, Graser said: a ball of hamburger with special seasoning, some lettuce, and a secret sauce prepared at Chico’s Pizza Parlor, all pressed between bread.
Having first purchased the Space Burger machines in 1969 from the Seattle World’s Fair, she said, the UFO-shaped hamburgers have long since been a Moses Lake staple.
With all of the COVID-19-related changes, the Lioness Club was worried it wouldn’t make enough for all of its regular donations, she said, but it was committed to continuing the tradition and getting the Space Burgers out there.
“We give all the money back to our community,” she said. “We love our community.”
