The always-eclectic Eastside Big Tom goes all in to let you dine with the dinos

Next door to the Eastside Big Tom — the burger shack beloved for its Goop, its crazy milkshake flavors and its Scooby Doo-style Mystery Machine — is Olympia’s answer to Jurassic Park.

In fact, this one might be even better, because it’s free and the dinosaurs won’t attack (because they’re made of resin and fiberglass).

The dino display has taken over much of the yard of the iconic eatery’s owner, Michael Fritsch, a yard that was once home to a Halloween display so frightful that it’s become the stuff of legend.

Among the 20-plus residents of Fritsch’s “rainforest” — hey, Olympia gets enough rain — are a 12-foot-long T. rex, a 10-foot-long velociraptor and a whopping 16-foot triceratops.

It probably doesn’t make sense to ask this of the man behind the Glazed and Confused breakfast sandwich (yes, it’s served on a doughnut) and the Crunch Berries milkshake, but here goes: Why?

“I really like dinosaurs,” Fritsch said. “Plain and simple.”

He’s been collecting the creatures — spending, he estimates, about $20,000 — for years, but lately, there’s been a prehistoric population explosion.

“Every time a new ‘Jurassic World’ movie came out, I used it as an excuse to buy more,” he said. “Then COVID came along and screwed that up, and I thought, ‘I’m not going to wait an extra year or whatever it’s going to be,’ so I just ordered 11 more.”

And he has his eye on a brachiosaurus, too. “I really think I need to own that because, well, I’ve been a good boy all year, and it’s almost Christmas,” he said.

It’s just one of those pandemic pastimes, it seems, like baking sourdough bread or gardening. And it has involved some gardening, since Fritsch has transformed most of his yard into a jungle scene made up of real and faux plants as well as dinos big and small. (They’re not, he points out, proportionally correct, though some did come from a website called lifesizestatue.com.

“I thought, ‘Where am I going to put them all?’ ” he said. “I took the front yard out, and I’ve put in vegetation, and I’ve built a rainforest. It’s … insane is the wrong word to use.” (He didn’t say what the right word would be.)

It must be said, though, that Fritsch didn’t really need to take up a hobby during this time, since business is as brisk as ever.

After all, a drive-through is about as socially distanced as dining out gets, and any place that’s been serving the same menu for 71 years (with the exception of those oddball specials and the option of Boca burgers) has an advantage in a time of uncertainty.

“We have a history on our side,” said Fritsch, who took over the business from his father. “Dad used to talk about it years ago. When the economy is bad, we have always done OK, because people want nostalgia. They want something they remember from their childhood.

“When the whole world has spun out of control around you, you want consistency,” he added. “There’s a comfort there.”

And the dinosaurs (which you can visit free between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays) haven’t hurt business either.

“This is an escape from the reality that’s right now,” he said.

And pretty much every kid is (like Fritsch himself) fascinated with dinosaurs.

Not long ago, he said, a customer told him, “We come here because when we asked our kids where they wanted to go, they said, ‘The dinosaur restaurant.’ ”

Eastside Big Tom Drive Inn

• Where: 2023 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
• Current hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4-7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday for the full menu, with free dinosaur visits and ice cream and free cocoa at the walk-up window 11 a.m.-7 p.m. those days.
• More information: https://www.eastsidebigtoms.com, 360-357-4852