Jon Thompson, a Montgomery County native and Clarksburg High School graduate, has been in the restaurant industry since he was 16. In 2020, he created Fifty Fifty– a burger concept featuring patties made of half beef and half bacon– currently located inside Olde Mother Brewing at 526 N Market St in Frederick, MD. This innovative recipe has attracted diners from across Maryland and beyond (photos below).
Thompson began his career in the restaurant industry at the Outback in Germantown at age 16, eventually working at 14 different Outback locations over a decade. He later gained further experience at Cafe Deluxe in Rio before serving as General Manager of Growlers in Olde Towne Gaithersburg.
Following his tenure at Growlers, Thompson became the area director for Red Hot & Blue, where he revamped recipes and deepened his knowledge of BBQ by taking food science courses and studying chemical curing processes– earning FDA certifications along the way. When COVID-19 struck, he assisted Sardi’s in Olney with developing a BBQ program, and later partnered with a longtime friend to reopen a BBQ truck in Washington, DC. Confronted with unsellable remnants from imperfect pork belly slices, they ground the pieces and blended them with ground beef, which led to the creation of the signature Fifty Fifty burger.
Thompson began developing the Fifty Fifty burger in the spring of 2020, launched the food truck in October 2021, and opened the brick-and-mortar location inside Olde Mother Brewing in January 2023. The concept, born from a desire to reduce waste in the BBQ truck, clearly resonated with customers. The combination of bacon and beef not only creates an incredible crust but also keeps the burgers juicy and flavorful.
The restaurant’s top-selling burger, the Oklahoma Animal, features thinly sliced raw onions pressed into the patty to deliver a range of flavors, mustard cooked into the meat, tangy chipotle mayo (Fifty Fifty sauce), and house-made apple cider vinegar pickles designed to cut the bacon’s richness. Other notable options include the Peter Piper– topped with roasted poblano cream cheese, hot pickled cherry peppers, and bourbon molasses sauce– and the She’s My Cherry Burger with herbed goat cheese and sour cherry jam. Complementing the burgers, the most popular side is the Old Bay Fries, crispy straight-cut fries coated in potato starch, seasoned with Maryland’s finest Old Bay, and served with Fifty Fifty sauce.
Fifty Fifty plans to continue its growth and expansion, actively pursuing a second location. Prospects are being considered in several areas, including Silver Spring, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Mount Airy, and Aberdeen.
