Short Stop to close at Platte and Circle this weekend as it moves east

After a 25-year run, Short Stop Deluxe Burgers is about to dish up its last hamburgers at Platte Avenue and Circle Drive in Colorado Springs.

The popular, locally owned burger joint isn’t shutting down, however; it’s just moving east.

Short Stop will turn off its broiler at 9 p.m. Saturday for the final time at Platte and Circle, where it operated since 1993 from a free-standing building in the parking lot of the Tower Plaza strip center. National pharmacy chain CVS has purchased Tower Plaza, and plans to raze buildings on site to make way for one of its stores.

Short Stop owner Ted Vong opened a mobile unit last month — complete with a drive-thru — in the parking lot of Powers Centre, a shopping center southeast of Powers and Palmer Park boulevards.

The location is open Mondays through Saturdays.

By January or February, he plans to open a permanent Short Stop building in the Powers Centre lot, similar to the one he operated at Platte and Circle and complete with its familiar fire-engine red awnings. Short Stop’s menu at the new location will continue to include burgers, fries, hot dogs, brats, soft drinks and milk shakes.

Vong, who’s described the move as bittersweet, thanked his customers of 25 years, and said he hopes they’ll follow Short Stop to the east side.

“We’ve been there for so long,” he said of the Platte and Circle location. “It was an icon, I guess, for that corner.”