by George Motz
Bonnie started working at the little burger counter in 1965 when she was 13. For the next 23 years she worked the night shift alongside her husband Richard. When he passed away, she switched to the early evening shift. To date she has put in 40 years at the Town Topic. Needless to say, she knows how to make a great hamburger.
The burger at Town Topic is a classic thin patty. Small one-eighth-pound wads of fresh ground 80/20 beef are delivered to the restaurant daily. Bonnie presses the meat thin on the hot, well-seasoned griddle and drops a small handful of shredded onions on the patty. Not unlike the fried onion burgers of El Reno, Oklahoma, these onions are then pressed into the patty as it sizzles on the grill. The result is a tasty combination of griddled beef and caramelized onions.
“Ninety-nine percent order their burgers with onions,” Bonnie told me as she built my double cheeseburger, the most popular burger on the menu. It comes with pickles on a white squishy bun and resembles a burger Popeye’s Wimpy might have eaten—a classic American burger. Bonnie imparts to each burger a sort of nonchalant perfection that is reserved for those who have made short order burgers for decades.
Fortunately, those of us who understand the significance of a counter like Town Topic need not worry about its future. “The city tried to turn this place into a parking lot,” Bonnie’s counter partner Keisha told me, but a grandfather clause spared the restaurant based on its age. “Some people have been coming in here since they were kids,” Bonnie reflected during a lull at the grill. “They just love the place.”
WHEEL INN DRIVE-IN
2103 SOUTH LIMIT AVE | SEDALIA, MO 65301
660-826-5177 | OPEN DAILY 10 AM–10 PM
Just before the first edition of this book came out I received some really bad news. A friend had called to say that the 60-year-old burger icon Wheel In Drive-In was closing. The drive-in was featured in my film Hamburger America and seemed, at the time, to be invincible.
The vintage diner sat on the busiest corner in Sedalia, Missouri and expansion of the road was going to cut the parking lot in half. “They are putting in a turning lane that will come right up to the window,” former owner John Brandkamp told me. And as you can imagine, it’d be kinda hard to run a drive-in with no parking lot. John had the option to move and start over, but he opted to throw in the towel. With the closing of the restaurant, we all said good-bye to the famous peanut-butter-covered “Guberburger.”
But at the last moment someone stepped in to save the Wheel Inn. Longtime employee Judy Clark offered to move the business down the street and reopen in a defunct video store, and the plan worked. It took 2 months, but moving items piece by piece, Judy and her sisters managed to resurrect the Wheel Inn. The horseshoe counter and the stools made the trip, and even the big wooden wagon wheel that used to sit in the center of the drive-in made it. Judy literally saved the Wheel.
Judy started at the Wheel Inn when she was 14 years old. “I’ve worked here on and off all my life,” she told me. The Keuper family opened and ran the drive-in from 1947 until they leased the business to John Brandkamp in the 1980s. John had worked his way up from washing dishes and was at the Wheel Inn for an astounding 47 years. I guess we can’t really blame him for wanting to retire.
The key to the success of the Wheel Inn may be a burger that they’ve had on the menu forever. The Guberburger starts as a portioned wad of fresh-ground chuck that is scooped into balls daily. The beef balls are pressed thin on the flattop and when the patty is flipped a spoonful of warmed, creamy peanut butter is ladled on top. In theory it sounds disgusting but in reality the burger is perfect. The Wheel Inn offers lettuce, tomato, and mayo on a Guberburger but I like mine plain with extra “guber.” The peanut butter works so well with the burger grease that it actually adds to the complexity of the beefy profile. Think beef satay and you get the picture. Southeast Asian countries have been putting peanut butter on beef since the 1800s.
Carhop service is long gone at the new Wheel Inn but the place is a lot larger. “We have booths and tables now,” Judy told me. And the original rotating neon Wheel Inn sign is still showing people the way to Guberburgers, but at a location just down the road from where the old one was demolished. The new location is directly across the street from the Missouri State Fairgrounds, and the Wheel Inn stays busy all summer long. Judy was afraid that with the move they’d lose customers. “It’s actually better than we expected,” she says. “People have found us.”
Most of Judy’s sisters work with her at the Wheel Inn as they did at the old location. And the Guberburger is back and safe in the hands of a woman that cared enough to save this drive-in. You could say that it’s business as usual, except that Judy told me quietly, “They say ours are better.”
WINSTEAD’S
101 EMANUEL CLEAVER II BLVD
KANSAS CITY, MO 64112
816-753-2244 | WWW.WINSTEADSKC.COM
MON–SAT 11 AM–8:30 PM | CLOSED SUNDAY
In the hearts of many Kansas City natives Winstead’s is the only place in the world that serves great hamburgers. Even Kansas City’s own Calvin Trillin, food writer and journalist, once said jokingly about Winstead’s, “Anyone who doesn’t think his hometown has the best hamburger place in the world is a sissy.” More than three decades have passed since Trillin made that statement and almost nothing has changed—Winstead’s still serves one of the best burgers in America.
Gone are the carhops, replaced by a drive-thru in 1989. On my first visit to the vintage time-warp diner I was led to longtime employee Judy Eddingfield. Judy started working at Winstead’s when she was only 16 years old, over 45 years ago. “When I was just a kid my father would take me here for a strawberry shake and a single burger,” she told me. Over the decades her mother, brothers, sisters, and aunts would all work at Winstead’s in some capacity.
I asked Judy how she was on skates as a carhop and she quickly pointed out, “No, no. There were no skates back then. Winstead’s opened in 1940, which predates skates.” True, carhops on skates were a fad and gimmick for some drive-ins of the 1950s. Winstead’s maintained carhops for 50 years until the popular drive-thru was installed.
Today there are ten Winstead’s restaurants in the Kansas City area but the mini-chain was actually started in Springfield, Illinois by sisters Katherine and Nellie Winstead. Their first location in Kansas City, located adjacent to the Midwest shopping mecca Country Club Plaza, remains the flagship restaurant in the chain.
The physical structure of Winstead’s is a stunning, well-preserved example of mid-century restaurant architecture. The entire building is sheathed in pastel pink, and yellow, glazed enamel brick. The dining room is large and seats 280 comfortably. The wide, clean, open space is a sea of well-laid-out booths sitting beneath enormous hot pink neon-rimmed ceiling light fixtures. On one of my visits, an entire elementary school (close to 75 kids) had comfortably taken over the restaurant for an early lunch and there was still plenty of room for regulars.
The menu at Winstead’s is split—one half lists food items, the other shakes, malts, and drinks, reminding one and all that ice cream is just as important as burgers to drive-in clientele. Winstead’s has built its reputation on the “Steakburger,” which served with “everything” includes a toasted white bun, a fresh-ground two-ounce patty, pickles, a very large slice of onion, and a “secret sauce” that is really just a mixture of mustard and ketchup. Make it a double and add cheese and you have a meal.
Bobby Chumley spends his entire morning at a patty maker in the restaurant’s basement making hundreds of the day’s burger patties. I met him as he emerged at noon one day to be greeted with a high five from the manager. The burgers are smashed thin and cooked on a flattop griddle. The result is a moist, loose burger with a salty, crunchy exterior. Order a limeade and fries with your Steakburger to round out the perfect diner eating experience.
Winstead’s today does a brisk business and employs over eighty people at the Country Club Plaza location. Judy told me as I took a sip f
rom my ice-cold Mr. Pibb, “There are still a handful of us that have been working here for over 30 years.” Now that’s commitment to making and serving great burgers.
21
MONTANA
MATT’S PLACE DRIVE-IN
2339 PLACER ST | BUTTE, MT 59701
406-782-8049 | TUE–SAT 11:30 AM–6:50 PM
Matt’s Place is a drive-in on the edge of the boom-bust Old West mining town of Butte, Montana. As you approach the hillside town on I-90, you’ll notice first the abandoned copper mining equipment and the brick buildings of a somewhat underpopulated downtown. The streets of Butte are lined with vintage neon signage that reflects its colorful past—Irish pubs and Chinese restaurants among many others that existed to entertain and feed the large number of immigrant mine workers.
Matt’s Place opened in 1930 during the peak of copper mining in Butte. Through it all, Matt’s has survived, so much so that it can proudly boast that it has a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Recognized as historically important for its contribution to early American road culture, Matt’s also serves amazing, fresh-beef burgers and milkshakes made from homemade ice cream. I visited Matt’s for all of these reasons, but mostly to sample their fabled “Nutburger.”
Of the thousands of burgers I have eaten across America, few piqued my interest like the Nutburger. Maybe it was the remote, beautiful, Western locale, or the fact that Matt’s has been in existence for over 70 years, but it was the description of the Nutburger that had me planning a trip almost immediately.
In 1930, after a visit to Southern California, Matt Korn returned home and opened a small drive-up burger stand only a few feet from a busy railroad right-of-way. After a few years of hanging trays on car doors, Matt built a structure 25 feet away that would serve as a drive-in, a counter with 16 stools, and living quarters upstairs for him and his new wife, Betty. That structure still stands today, a vestige of car culture stuck in time that was placed on the National Register in 2002.
Today, nonagenarian Mabel Laurence, only the second owner in the burger counter’s long history, owns Matt’s. Mabel started at Matt’s in 1936 as a carhop, and in 1943 she and her husband bought the restaurant. Many people from “Mae’s” family have worked at the vintage burger counter and for the last 25 years Matt’s has been run by Laurence family member Brad Cockhill. Brad is proud of his family’s heritage and committed to quality burgers.
Matt’s is split in two; one half is a horseshoe counter, the other an efficient short-order kitchen. A server works the counter while Brad flips patties at the freestanding griddle in the kitchen. “This is the original cast-iron griddle from the 1930s,” Brad told me. “There’s nothing like cast-iron.” He’s right. Very few burger restaurants in America cook on vintage cast-iron because they are impossible to find.
The Nutburger
Brad uses an ice cream scoop to make balls out of the fresh, lean ground round. When I asked Brad about the size of the burgers, he shrugged and showed me the scoop. “They’re this big. We should probably have better portion control, but we don’t.” Brad believes the burgers are around a quarter pound each.
The most popular burger at Matt’s is the double cheeseburger deluxe, which comes with mustard, pickle, onion, lettuce, and tomato. But do yourself a favor and indulge in a Nutburger.
“We don’t really sell many Nutburgers anymore,” former employee Paula told me. “Maybe six a day?” Just then the phone rang and in came an order for two Nutburgers.
The counterperson spoons chopped salted peanuts from the sundae bar into a coffee mug and adds Miracle Whip. It’s that simple. The texture of the nuts and the creamy sweetness of the Miracle Whip synthesize perfectly with the salty, greasy meatiness of the burger. Standard condiments are available to dress up the Nutburger, but why mess with the simplicity? I understand if you are a little squeamish at the concept, but after your first bite, you’ll be a convert.
The interior of Matt’s is worth the price of admission alone. Grab a seat at the small horseshoe counter and take in the décor. You’ll be hard pressed to find a single fixture not dating back to the 1950s. Everything, from the knotty pine walls to the Coke dispenser, is original. Even the cash register dates back to simpler times—it only goes up to $5, so they have to ring up big orders $5 at a time.
A carhop at Matt’s will still take your order from your car if you drive up and toot your horn. “We’ll still go out and hang a tray on a window,” Brad told me as he dumped out a basket of fresh-cut fries. Imagine that. A functioning drive-in where you can pull up and order a fresh-beef Nutburger with a side of nostalgia. Can it get any better than that?
THE MISSOULA CLUB
139 WEST MAIN ST | MISSOULA, MT 59802
406-728-3740
OPEN DAILY 8 AM–2 AM (GRILL CLOSES AT 1AM)
The Missoula Club is not the only bar in town. In fact, there are more great bars and vintage neon signage in this western Montana town than I’ve ever seen in such close proximity to one another. Having 10,000 students at nearby University of Montana probably helps, but the Missoula Club is a local institution that has been serving beer and burgers to students and regulars, some believe, since 1903.
If you were expecting a cozy, dark pub, you’ll be shocked by the Missoula Club’s first impression. During the day, the “Mo Club” (as it’s affectionately known) looks like any well-worn watering hole, but at night the daylight seems to linger. Thanks to super-bright bluish overhead fluorescent lighting, the place is lit up like an operating room in the midst of triple bypass surgery. There’s no hiding at the Mo Club, and the lighting allows one to observe every detail of the bar. The lighting also seems to make patrons overly sociable, so expect to be involved in a random conversation with a stranger almost immediately. The first time I visited the famous burger and beer destination, I walked in with my friend Greg Ennis and we were greeted by a group of rugby players and a boisterous “Hello, LADIES!” It’s a rowdy, drinker’s bar that serves great burgers. You have been warned.
The burger at the Mo Club is legendary. “The hamburger is the best thing on the menu!” employee Jim Kelly told me. Of course the joke is that the hamburger is the only thing on the menu, aside from chips and milkshakes.
Tell the bartender what kind of burger you want. The choices are single, double, or the absurd triple known as the “Griz” (named after the University of Montana’s sports teams, the Grizzlies). American, Swiss, “white,” horseradish, and hot pepper cheeses are available and the burger is served with a slice of raw onion and a pickle. The preferred burger at the Mo Club is the double with hot pepper cheese, a tasty pepper jack that doesn’t really melt, but softens on the burger. Add some of the Mo Club’s signature hot mustard and you’ll be in burger heaven. As my friend Greg, a Montana native, squirted copious amounts of the fiery mustard onto his double cheeseburger, grillman Tyler warned, “Whoa, have you had this mustard before?” Greg just laughed and said, “Oh yeah, the hotter the better!”
Soft white buns are toasted on the tiny electric bar griddle alongside the burgers. I asked Tyler if the buns were buttered and he told me, “No, but the burger grease might work its way over there.”
The burgers at the Mo Club are hand-pattied from unmeasured scoops of ground beef. The beef comes in fresh daily from the same butcher they have been using forever. One time while I was at the Mo Club, a man rushed in and dropped two enormous white paper-wrapped wads of fresh meat on the bar right next to me. They had run low and needed to augment the meat supply before the night crowd showed up hungry.
“Our burgers are over a third of a pound each,” owner Mark Laslovich said of the large, juicy patties. Mark also revealed that the amazing tasting burger has chopped onions mixed into the raw meat before they are pattied. Mark has owned the century-old bar since 2000, but has worked there at some capacity for over 45 years. One of the recent changes Mark made at the Mo Club was installing a larger griddle. Well, not too much larger. “This one’s a burger wider
than the old one,” Mark said of the tiny two-foot-wide griddle.
Expect to find all types enjoying burgers and beer at the Mo Club. “We get lawyers, doctors, bums, whatever,” Mark pointed out. There is an old-school sports bar feel to the place, but not the kind that hangs gaudy memorabilia on every usable inch of wall space. The Mo Club’s walls are blanketed with decades of UM team photos up to the high ceiling, as well as signed sports portraits of Missoula natives who went on to professional fame elsewhere in America.
As bars go, the Mo Club is a clean one. “It wasn’t always this clean,” Mark told me. “When I took over, this place was a mess.” I asked Mark why the lighting was more conducive to a well-lit truck stop than a cozy Irish pub and he explained, “People come in here and look for themselves in these team photos.” He and the other bartenders also believe it keeps people honest and the fights to a minimum. Mark told me that a group of women who frequent the bar once asked him to install a dimmer because they were getting older. His advice: “Have another beer.”
22
NEBRASKA
STELLA’S HAMBURGERS
106 GALVIN RD SOUTH | BELLEVUE, NE 68005
402-291-6088 | MON–SAT 11 AM–9 PM
CLOSED SUNDAY
Stella’s is not a fancy place. If you are looking for tablecloths and silverware—go elsewhere. If you are in search of a burger fix and don’t mind eating off a napkin, you’ve come to the right place.