Hamburger America

by George Motz

  Outside of burgers, Charcoal Pit is ice cream nirvana. A sign out front proclaims simply, ICE CREAM CREATIONS and they are not kidding. The menu is heavy on ice cream and there is a sundae named after each of the nine local high schools. The thick, hand-dipped milkshakes are enormous and not to be missed.

  Every year as the local high schools are letting out for the summer, Charcoal Pit can count on one thing—the prom. “It’s total chaos in here,” manager Joseph Grabowski told me, “They’re really into the Kitchen Sink.” For a minute I imagined a burger with enough embellishment to fill a sink, but Joe explained, “It’s 20 scoops of ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, etc., and two bananas.” Whoa.

  6

  DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  BEN’S CHILI BOWL

  1213 U ST NW | WASHINGTON, DC 20009

  202-667-0909 | WWW.BENSCHILIBOWL.COM

  MON–THU 6 AM–2 AM | FRI 6 AM–4 AM

  SAT 7 AM–4 AM | SUN 11 AM–11 PM

  “Most people don’t want to eat with a lot of loud music. It’s just part of our culture,” a regular for four decades named Marshall Brown told me as we sat at the counter of this 50-year-old Washington, DC, landmark chili restaurant. Marshall was referring to the sounds of Bob Marley and Luther Vandross that were oozing out of the jukebox, not necessarily loud, but definitely present. One time when I was enjoying a breakfast chili cheeseburger, the guy next to me at the counter was eating his eggs, so consumed by the music that he started dancing in his seat. I’m positive that moving to the music made the food taste that much better.

  Ben’s was opened in 1958 by Ben and Virginia Ali in a former silent movie theater known as the Minnehaha. Ben, who had emigrated from Trinidad, met his wife at the bank just down the street. “She was a bank teller,” the couple’s son Nizam told me. Ben passed away in 2009 and Virginia has retired, but two of their sons, Nizam and Kamal, run the restaurant today.

  Ben’s is known for its tasty chili that gloriously adorns hot dogs, half smokes, and hamburgers. The bright, airy, neighborhood restaurant, with its incredibly colorful façade, also serves a memorable breakfast, but many return from all corners of the country for their chili dogs and burgers. Over the years it also became known for the role it has played in Black American history. Ben’s fed many celebrities performing at the clubs along the U Street corridor in the ’50s and ’60s, including Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and Cab Calloway.

  The 1968 riots sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King started just a block away when someone threw a brick through a drugstore window. The riots devastated the neighborhood, a curfew was imposed, and the city shut down while attempting to restore order. But Ben’s remained open by special police permission to feed firefighters, police, and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee located just across the street. When they did close for the night, Ben stayed behind to protect the business from looters. “He kissed my mom goodnight, sent her home, and sat inside with a gun all night,” Nizam told me. To identify the restaurant as a black business Ben painted the words SOUL BROTHER across the front window.

  Ben’s survived the riots, the crack hell of the’70s and ’80s, then the construction of a Metro extension that cut off traffic on U Street for almost five years. “We had two employees and were making only about $200 a day during that time,” Nizam told me. “The construction was more devastating than the drugs.” Massive publicity from Bill Cosby and other black luminaries kept the business alive during the bad times. Cosby and his wife had many dates there while he was stationed in the Navy nearby.

  Today Ben’s thrives. Even the Clintons are fans. Nizam told me, “We sent a lot of takeout over to the White House when they were in office.” President Obama paid a visit in 2009 and indulged in their famous chili dog (and humorously complained when he noticed that the guy sitting next to him had cheese and he didn’t). The U Street corridor is in the midst of a revival and the new Metro stop is directly across the street. There must be twelve people behind the counter and the atmosphere is lively and fun, with all of the employees joking and flirting with each other. The large front room with its long counter and booths gives way to two more rooms that are somewhat hidden from view. The enormous dining room in the back has a projector and screen and the walls are lined with adoring photos of a virtual who’s-who in Black America. One great photo shows Cosby and Al Green smiling, the front window of Ben’s as their background.

  The burgers are quarter-pound patties and arrive fresh daily from a supplier in Baltimore. The chili that goes onto the burger is a simple family recipe that contains only finely ground meat in a dark red, tangy sauce. The burger comes on a toasted bun in a plastic basket with a side of potato chips. If you need more, go for a chili dog, or better yet, the sublime chili cheese fries.

  Ben’s is a successful family business that has endured incredibly hard times. “We’ve gotten the most ridiculous amount of press, more than we could ever dream of,” Nizam pointed out. Then, remembering the importance of having a fan like Bill Cosby, he said “this place is a big part of his history.” I’m sure Ben’s is also a big part of the collective histories of all of the diners who have passed through its doors, and the future stories that have yet to be written there.

  TUNE INN

  331½ PENNSYLVANIA AVE SE

  WASHINGTON, DC 20003

  202-543-2725 | SUN–THU 8 AM–2 AM

  FRI & SAT 8 AM–3 AM

  Johnny Cash on the jukebox, cheap beer on tap, and copious amounts of taxidermy on the walls . . . sounds like a recipe for your favorite country crossroads bar. But the bar is the Tune Inn and it’s only steps from the Library of Congress and the Capitol Building in our nation’s capital. It’d be easy to assume the country bar trappings are an urban design choice, but all of the stuffed game was bagged by the three generations of the Nardellis, owners of the Capitol Hill watering hole since 1955. This place is the real deal—a comfortable neighborhood dive bar with an excellent burger on the menu.

  “I shot that one. That’s my first doe,” Lisa Nardelli told me, pointing to a stuffed deer head directly over the bar. Lisa is young and pretty and doesn’t strike you as the hunting type. Her grandfather, Joe Nardelli, hunted most of the stuffed game, ranging from deer to squirrels to pheasant. “They would get drunk and shoot at anything,” Lisa said of her father, Tony, and grandfather hunting together. Mounted over the bathroom doors in the rear of the narrow tavern are the other ends of deer. “That’s my grandfather’s sense of humor—deer asses over the bathrooms.” The collection is so vast that the local Shakespeare theatre once borrowed a bunch of the Nardelli’s stuffed birds for a production of King Lear.

  Lots of well-known politicos and other Capitol Hill heavies have been drinking and eating at the Tune Inn for the last five decades. One of the most famous couples in American politics, James Carville and Mary Matalin, had their first date here (they left abruptly because it was too crowded). Janet Reno was a regular (for the burgers) and JFK the senator had his favorite booth (second one on the left). The bar also hosts regulars who have been coming in for decades. “It’s like a big family, which is unusual in a big city, so close to the Capitol,” Lisa pointed out. It’s also home to countless numbers of students looking for cheap beer and good burgers, yours truly being one of them a few decades back.

  The menu is mostly modest comfort food. The burger takes center stage and starts as a six-ounce ball of 80/20 ground chuck. Chef Mike Tate told me, “We use a measured scoop, then form a patty.” The meat is delivered fresh every morning from a local butcher that also supplies the well-known upscale Old Ebbitt Grill, a Washington landmark near the White House. “It’s the same exact meat,” Lisa told me.

  The patty is cooked to perfection on a flattop griddle and served on a buttered, toasted bun. The result is a loose, moist burger that melts in your mouth. It really is the perfect bar burger—not so big that you can’t finish your beer and not so small that you go hungry. Following an appearance on the televisio
n show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, a burger that was formerly a specialty item went to the daily menu—the “Beer Batter Burger.” “After the show, everyone who came in wanted one,” bartender Michelle told me. They basically take a griddled burger, dunk it in beer batter, then drop it into the deep fryer.

  The Tune Inn was the fifth bar in the District to receive its liquor license after Prohibition was repealed, and today is the oldest drinking establishment on Capitol Hill. During Prohibition the bar served as a speakeasy and regulars have told stories about that time for decades. One day recently, Lisa was wondering about a certain out-of-place wall in the basement. She tapped on it, found it hollow, and proceeded to smash the wall with a sledgehammer. What she uncovered was an indelible piece of American history. “There was a trap door that led to right here,” and she pointed to a spot behind the bar. “Apparently they used to pass the booze through here to the bartender.”

  You can visit the Tune Inn for a burger, for a few drinks, or as longtime bartender Susan Mathers believes, for love. “You think I’m kidding. Many people find their own true love at the Tune Inn,” Susan told me with a straight face. “I have observed many people meet and fall in love here.” She looked over at the third-generation Nardelli. “Lisa met her husband here.”

  7

  FLORIDA

  EL MAGO DE LAS FRITAS

  5828 SW 8TH ST | WEST MIAMI, FL 33144

  305-266-8486 | WWW.ELMAGODELASFRITAS.COM

  MON–SAT 8 AM–7:30 PM | CLOSED SUNDAY

  Erase any pre-conceived notions you have about the traditional American hamburger. If you find yourself in Miami, get away from the glitz of South Beach, brush up on your Spanish, and prepare for the taste explosion that is the “Frita.” Also known as a “Cuban Hamburger,” the Frita offers one of the most unique hamburger experiences in America. It is unquestionably the most genuine gastronomic expression of the Cuban-American experience.

  In the middle of the twentieth century, the Frita was a ubiquitous street food of Havana. By 1959, when the smoke from the Cuban Revolution had cleared, many fled to set up shop in America. As entrepreneurism was squashed in the new Cuba, it flourished in Miami. Today the best examples of the Frita are found not at its birthplace but in its adopted home of South Florida.

  In a bright and tidy lunch counter, tucked into a strip mall with only three parking spaces out front, you’ll find, arguably, one of the best Fritas in Miami. The man behind this tasty Cuban treat is the affable septuagenarian Ortelio “El Mago” Cardenas. El Mago opened his lunch counter in 1984 after splitting from his brother-in-law’s successful Miami chain El Rey De Las Fritas. Both restaurants are on 8th Street, aka Calle Ocho, which is the main artery through Little Havana in South Miami. Many lunch counters on Calle Ocho serve Fritas but El Mago is in a league of its own.

  El Mago’s Frita is made with fresh ground beef and what seemed to be chorizo and several spices mixed into the patty. I sat at the counter one day with friend, guide, and translator, the Florida burger blogger Burger Beast, Sef Gonzalez, and asked El Mago what else was in the patty besides chorizo. He turned from the griddle and shouted with a smile, “No chorizo!” Burger Beast was confused and I was in disbelief. The presence of another red, spiced meat was undeniable, but what was it?

  When you place your order, El Mago disappears into the back and returns clutching a wad of refrigerated ground meat. The multihued chunk is tossed onto a hot griddle and pressed flat. He reaches for an unmarked plastic bottle and gives the patty a generous squirt of a thin, deep red liquid. A handful of chopped onion is sprinkled on as the patty cooks in the red bubbling sauce.

  What makes a Frita a Frita is the generous heap of super-thin fried potatoes that virtually obscure the patty on the bun. It’s presented on a soft, warmed Cuban roll with more chopped onion, a squirt of ketchup, and a bird’s nest of the wiry potatoes. The extraordinary flavor profile made me nearly fall off my stool. When I told El Mago how happy I was he just looked at me and smiled. After inhaling that first Frita I did the only sensible thing I could think of. I ordered another.

  Burger Beast told me, “There are Frita places that use those canned potato sticks instead of fresh and that’s just wrong.” El Mago makes a batch of his ethereal fried potatoes every morning.

  El Mago De Las Fritas has refreshing watermelon juice and the old Cuban standby soda, Materva, on the menu. But don’t leave El Mago without trying one of his batidos, or Cuban milkshakes. You won’t find American classics like the chocolate malt here. Instead, indulge in tropical fruit flavors like guanabana, papaya, or the amazing mamey fruit. Or get the incredible flan de leche. I swear I’ve never had a better flan.

  Directly translated El Mago means “The Magician” and this one hails from a long line of Cuban Frita purveyors. Like a good magician, El Mago harbors trade secrets that only his son seems to know. Let’s hope he plans to pass along those secrets so that this Frita endures.

  LE TUB

  1100 NORTH OCEAN DR | HOLLYWOOD, FL 33019

  954-921-9425 I OPEN DAILY NOON–4 AM

  After Le Tub was chosen by GQ magazine for having the #1 burger in America, the Oprah show did its own report backing up the claim. The only problem is, the most crowded no-frills burger shack in Florida just got more crowded.

  Located on a stretch of A1A just a half hour north of Miami, Le Tub is a former Sunoco gas station converted into a strange pile of flotsam collected over three decades. Most of Le Tub’s seating is outside on a meandering multilevel porch surrounded by lush foliage, worn wood, chirping birds, and hot breezes. Its proximity to the Intra-coastal Waterway offers a constant boat show. I once sat at a table on the water and watched an entire bachelorette party in bikinis float by, the bride opening gifts of lingerie and giggling.

  The restaurant got its name from owner Russell Kohuth’s collection of discarded commodes, tubs, and sinks, which basically hold the place together. In addition to the porcelain collection are parts of boats, buoys, and other planks that actually make up the basic structure of the restaurant. Russell started collecting stuff on early morning jogs along Hollywood beach and opened the restaurant in 1975. “This place wouldn’t hold up in a hurricane,” the guy at the next table told his wife.

  The Sirloinburger at Le Tub is a beast—13 ounces of fresh-ground, hand-pattied, char-grilled sirloin served on a soft kaiser roll. When I prodded the waitress for the actual size of the burger, she told me, “They are big and messy!”

  The grill cook works at a small three-foot-square grill on a level just below the bar in basically an enclosed un-air conditioned space. There is smoke everywhere and the smell of searing beef permeates your clothes if you spend any time at the bar. Why the grillman does not pass out from the heat three times a day is beyond me.

  The crowd at Le Tub is a mixed bag—confused tourists, beachgoers, and boaters fill the tables. A dock on the patio allows you to arrive by water if so inclined. Order your burgers THE MINUTE YOU WALK IN THE DOOR. I’m not kidding when I say that mine took one hour and twenty minutes to arrive. When I asked our waitress upon ordering if their famous burgers really took that long, she warned, with a straight face, “Could take up to an hour and a half.” I placed an order for myself and a friend who had just landed at Miami International Airport. By the time she got off the plane, got her luggage, rented her car, and drove to Le Tub, she still had to wait 45 more minutes for her burger.

  The good news is that the burger is worth the wait. Also, don’t forget, you are in a bar, on the water, in Florida—the beers will go down easy, especially because you’ll be sitting there for a while.

  IS THERE REALLY A “CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE”?

  Imagine that you are sitting in a beachside bar somewhere in the Caribbean or south Florida eating what you consider to be, at that moment, the best-tasting burger you have ever had. You tell the waitress or bartender, and they say, “Well it should be the best. This is the burger Jimmy Buffett wrote the song about!” This hypothetical conversa
tion plays out every day somewhere in the warm climes of vacationland, in claims that stretch from the Bahamas to New Orleans and back to the Florida Keys. Places like the Cabbage Key Inn on Captiva Island, Florida, where the wait for the fabled burger can be up to two hours because up to 500 people a day are there just for the burger “Jimmy sang about.” Or Le Select, a comfortable beach dive on St. Barths where the claim has some merit because Buffett has been known to swoop in on his Cessna seaplane, go straight to the bar, and put on an impromptu concert.

  One claim that seems to make the least sense but is worthy of inspection comes from Rotier’s in Nashville, Tennessee. The burger at Rotier’s has been on the top of every poll in Music City for decades. It’s a worn-in, dark, friendly place that has served excellent burgers since 1945. Pointing at the bar, Margaret Crouse, the giggly owner and second-generation Rotier, told me, “He used to sit right here and write songs,” referring of course to Buffett, who lived and tried to make a go of his music career in Nashville in the late ‘60s. It’s easy to see how over the years a connection could be made between the best cheeseburger in town and a starving artist-cum-star’s early lowincome diet. Alas, there is no connection.

  Where is the famed cheeseburger then? Turns out Buffett came clean a few years back and told the truth. The “cheeseburger in paradise” stemmed from a hallucination. As the story goes, he was sailing near Puerto Rico in the mid-’70s and ran into weather and equipment trouble. He and his crew floated at sea for over five days eating nothing but canned food and peanut butter, and naturally fantasized about juicy cheeseburgers. Eventually the ship limped in to the Village Cay Marina on Tortola, BVI, and the hungry sailors headed for the dock bar. There they feasted on what he recalls as overcooked American-style burgers on burnt buns that tasted “like manna from heaven.” The song that followed was not about that burger, but about the fantasy. Buffett made his dream burger a reality in 2002 when he opened the first of his 32 Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurants.