by George Motz
I was there to sample their often talked about “Pimento Cheeseburger” (pronounced “pimena” in these parts). The Rockaway Pimento Cheeseburger has so much gooey cheese on it that it’s almost impossible to pick up. Fortunately the burger comes cut in half, and each half has a large toothpick to keep the contents together. The second you pull the toothpick, hold on as the contents have a tendency to slip and slide.
Pimento cheese is a Southern staple and is traditionally made with only three ingredients—cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, and diced pimentos. In his book Hamburgers & Fries, burger scholar John T. Edge points out that the marriage of pimento cheese to the burger may have actually happened in Columbia by J.C. Reynolds at the now-defunct Dairy Bar. I believe the claim. There are more pimento cheeseburgers available in this town than anywhere else on the planet.
The burgers at Rockaway start as eight-ounce handformed patties of fresh ground chuck. They are cooked on a flattop and the large seeded buns are warmed nearby on the griddle until they are soft as a pillow. In keeping with tradition, Rockaway only uses the three basic ingredients to make their pimento cheese and it’s amazing. If you’re not too pimentoed out, the Rockaway also offers a plate of fries with a copious amount of hot pimento cheese dumped on top.
In 2005, George W. Bush visited Rockaway on a swing through South Carolina. He ordered two burgers and two pimento cheese fries to go, then made a point to shake a few hands. Forest remembered, “I think he spoke to everyone in here.” A comfortable bar will do that to you.
Rockaway is huge. With the University of South Carolina only 5 minutes away with its 30,000 students, it’s a good thing they have a capacity of almost 300. There are booths and tables everywhere, an air hockey table, a pool table, and a very long bar.
So if you can actually find the Rockaway and make it through the throngs of students, you will be rewarded with a great pimento cheeseburger. The Rockaway Athletic Club did not invent the pimento cheeseburger but they are doing something just as important: perpetuating a great Southern food tradition.
34
SOUTH DAKOTA
HAMBURGER INN
111½ EAST 10TH ST | SIOUX FALLS, SD 57104
605-332-5412 | MON–SAT 10 AM–2 PM
CLOSED SUNDAY
On a corner in the heart of downtown Sioux Falls (which is in the midst of a revitalization) sits the tiny Hamburger Inn. It is a classic ’30s burger joint specimen—eleven stools, a single counter, minimal menu, and a griddle in the front window. When I visited, the small TV on the wall was tuned to The Price Is Right and the first customer of the day was a blind regular who found his stool without help. This is my kind of place.
The Sioux Falls favorite “Eggburger” is served here—a fried egg is placed on top of a finished burger, the yoke popped and cooked through thanks to health department rules. “Can’t decide on breakfast or lunch? Have an Eggburger!” Maria Poulsen, the current owner, exclaimed when I asked about the origins of the strange pairing of chicken and cow. If you’ve never had one, fear not—the combination works well. It’s basically steak and eggs on a bun.
Many past patrons have fond memories of Mel Nelson, the longtime proprietor of the Hamburger Inn. Sadly, Mel is no longer pressing balls of ground beef into a puddle of grease, cooking burgers the “old-fashioned way.” But the good news is that three months before he died, local chef Maria offered to buy the place. This is always great for the burger world, especially when the plan is to keep a similar menu and scrape up some of the caked-on grease. Maria said, “It was a mess when I took over. Grease up to here!” and she made a gesture about two feet from the floor.
The burgers are no longer cooked in a tray of grease like Mel did for 32 years and previous owners did for close to 75 years. Now, one-third-pound balls of fresh ground beef hit the hot griddle, are flattened with a spatula, and cooked until the fresh meat has an exterior crunch.
The menu at Hamburger Inn is sparse but focused. Burgers are the star attraction here and can be ordered with cheese, bacon, or the aforementioned fried egg. Standards such as onion rings and fries are also on the menu, as is a curiosity called “cheeseballs.” This Midwestern treat is also known as the deep-fried cheese curd, one of my all-time favorite side dishes.
For those old-timers who may miss Mel’s tasty sliders, there is no need to fret about the state of burgers here. The Hamburger Inn is still turning out great burgers and your clothes will still smell of grease all day. Maria also refurbished the decades-old neon-and-glass sign that hangs over the front door, using all of the original lettering. “It was falling apart but I didn’t want to change much,” she told me. In keeping with the integrity of the old place, the Hamburger Inn still looks like a shoebox with a door, a burger bunker whose only window faces 10th Street.
Maria understands good food, service, and simplicity. She runs a catering business in the Sioux Falls area and this is the second restaurant she currently owns. “I’m looking for an old stainless steel diner to buy and fix up,” she said as I was leaving. “Got any ideas?”
NICK’S HAMBURGER SHOP
427 MAIN AVE | BROOKINGS, SD 57006
605-692-4324 | WWW.NICKSHAMBURGERS.COM
MON–FRI 11 AM–7 PM | SAT 11 AM–4 PM
CLOSED SUNDAY
Dick Fergen is my kind of guy. He left a job in farm management in Texas to return to his hometown of Brookings, South Dakota. Upon his arrival, he inquired about the landmark burger joint, Nick’s, and soon after purchased it from the notorious and sometimes volatile third owner, Duane Larson. In his nearly three decades at the grill, Duane was known to close early because he ran out of buns, and refused to sell the business to just anyone, saying that he’d burn the place down before he sold it to the wrong person. Duane was also involved in a spat between the Coca-Cola Company and Nick’s that led to a dramatic photo in Time magazine of Duane pouring Coke into the street.
The good news is that, Dick Fergen is now in charge and he will never run out of buns or Coke. I watched Dick at the grill for one-and-a-half hours, waiting patiently to speak to him. He was in a zone, pressing small balls of ground round into a puddle of bubbling grease, transferring them to buns, and serving them at a rate of about 700 per hour. When I finally got his attention, he was taking a break and eating, not surprisingly, a burger. “I eat mine dry,” he said. This meant he had squeezed some of the grease out, “Makes it a little bit healthier.” Amazingly, Dick creates his own “solution” for the deep-frying of his burgers. This is not just any old grease. He starts with solids and adds seasoning according to a recipe that has been handed down for decades.
Dick doesn’t really look like your typical hamburger stand owner. He is a sixtysomething, impossibly fit, tanned, and a self-described Harley nut. What brought him to and keeps him at Nick’s is pure nostalgia. Nick’s was started by Harold and Gladys Nickalson in 1929 and was later passed on to their son, Harold Jr., in 1947. When Duane Larson bought Nick’s in 1972, much to the dismay of the old-timers, he added the cheeseburger to the menu. The small burgers come with a secret relish whose recipe goes back to the beginning. It’s a mustard based pickle-and-onion relish that has “other seasonings,” waitress Laurie told me.
Orders are not taken, they are yelled. “We just holler at Dick what we need,” Laurie said. First, you tell the counter person what you want. When your burgers are ready, you tell them what you want on them. They arrive at your counter spot on a square of waxed paper and can be consumed at a rate of roughly one every 20 seconds, which is good, because you will need to make room for the 30 people waiting for your stool.
In 2008 Dick bought the barbershop next door and doubled the size of Nick’s. The new counter wraps around the griddle, which is in the center of the restaurant, and the burger joint can now seat many more hungry burger lovers.
A man named Stewart sitting to my left told me that he had been coming back to Nick’s every time he visited his alma mater, South Dakota State University. “I’ve been coming ever sin
ce I graduated in ’52.” Old-timers refer to their visits as getting their “Nick’s fix.”
“If you are not from South Dakota, then you wouldn’t understand.” Dick pondered seriously while gazing at the ceiling. “There’s something about these people. I wouldn’t trade them for anyone in the world.”
35
TENNESSEE
BROWN’S DINER
2102 BLAIR BLVD | NASHVILLE, TN 37212
615-269-5509 | MON–SAT 10:45 AM–11 PM
SUN 11 AM–10 PM
It may not look like much, but Brown’s may be one of the most historically significant burger joints in this book. The fact that it survives is a miracle, and a testament to the power of hamburger culture in this country. It has lived through more than one fire and withstood many facelifts.
To the untrained eye, Brown’s appears to be a dump—an unimpressive double-wide with a drab grey/beige exterior. But to American cultural historians it is a treasure. There was a time in this country when hamburgers were not king. They were considered dirty food for wage earners, and were served in establishments much like Brown’s. The only difference is that places like this, which once dotted the Americna landscape in the thousands, and were mostly found in close proximity to factories and urban areas, are just about gone.
What makes Brown’s Diner special is that its core is made up of two retired trolley cars, muledrawn cars that were left at the end of the line in the early 1920s as the automobile became ubiquitous in city life. The trolleys are arranged in a T shape, one making up the bar, the other serving as the kitchen. Terry Young, the bartender and manager, told me, “The wooden wheels are still on it, though I wouldn’t suggest going down there.” The practice of converting trolleys and diner cars into eating establishments was so popular in the early part of the twentieth century that companies emerged to fabricate the restaurants without the wheels—and the modern diner was born.
Today, Brown’s is a beloved spot in Nashville and has numerous regulars, famous and not. Vince Gill loves the burgers, as do Marty Stuart and Faith Hill, among other members of Nashville’s country elite. Johnny Cash dedicated an album to the place and John Prine was as comfortable there as you will be. According to a regular, Prine was at the bar one night when someone recognized him and put one of his songs on the jukebox. Apparently, Prine stood up and mimicked himself continuing to sing along to his own music and giving the bar patrons a twisted, impromptu karaoke performance.
Randy, a 25-year veteran of Brown’s, told me, “This is a good anti-anorexia place.” I’m assuming he was referring to the gloriously unhealthy menu that includes, beyond burgers, grilled cheese, Frito pie, hush puppies, and a catfish dinner. The only salad on the menu is coleslaw. The burger at Brown’s has been on the menu since it opened in 1927. It’s made from a daily delivery of fresh chuck, hand-pattied to around five ounces. A cheeseburger comes with mayo, tomato, lettuce, and onion on a white squishy bun with pickles speared to the top. If you ask for a cheeseburger, you don’t get mustard. If you ask for a hamburger, you do. I’m confused too—just read the menu and have another Budweiser.
Charlie Brown demonstrates the new “electric” coffeemaker, mid-1930’s.
DYER’S BURGERS
205 BEALE ST | MEMPHIS, TN 38103
901-527-3937 | WWW.DYERSONBEALE.COM
SUN–THURS 11 AM–1 AM | FRI & SAT 11 AM–5 AM
No hamburger restaurant in America flaunts the method of deep-frying a burger like Dyer’s in Memphis, Tennessee. There are other burgers out there that are cooked in skillets of bubbling proprietary, blended grease, but Dyer’s goes to the extreme and employs a two-foot-wide skillet that I’m guessing holds more than three gallons of grease. But that’s not all. Dyer’s claims the grease has never been changed since the restaurant opened almost a hundred years ago.
I know this sounds nuts, but according to previous owner Tom Robertson, the grease has never been changed, just added to. “We’ll top off the grease but never throw it out and start over,” he told me as I interviewed him for my film, Hamburger America. As I sat there in disbelief, he produced one photograph after another documenting the police-escorted moving of the grease from the old location to the new. On some news footage I obtained for the film, you can hear someone say, “As soon as the mayor gets here we’ll go inside and make some lunch!” Now I’ve really seen it all.
The burgers are not deep-fried in just any old grease. Dyer’s uses beef tallow, or rendered beef fat to add to the decades-old skillet. You’d think your burger would emerge from the grease a sludgy disaster, but quite the opposite occurs. The grease of course adds flavor, but the burger turns out being no greasier than a regular, griddled burger. It’s probably because of this that some regulars ask to have their bun dipped, which is where the top half of the bun is returned to the skillet for a dip in the grease.
The method for cooking a burger at Dyer’s is the most peculiar of any burger counter in America. A quarter-pound wad of fresh ground beef is placed on a marble surface. A large spatula rests atop the meat as the cook pounds the beef into a paper-thin patty nearly eight inches wide. The flat beef is then scraped off the surface and slid into the nearby skillet of bubbling, brown grease. Within a minute, the patty floats to the top and it’s done. Ask for cheese and watch what happens. The cook lifts the patty out of the grease with the spatula, places an orange square of American cheese on it, and the patty is quickly dipped back into the grease to melt the cheese.
Mississippi native Elmer Dyer opened Dyer’s Restaurant in 1912 in the midtown section of Memphis. The burger shack proudly served both blacks and whites, though in the Southern tradition before the civil rights movement, they had to enter though separate doors. At some point, Dyer’s moved around the corner to Poplar and North Cleveland, and from there made its historic move to Beale Street. The North Cleveland location became a Vietnamese restaurant that curiously continued to sell deep-fried burgers among a selection of traditional Vietnamese dishes.
The Dyer’s of Beale Street comes off as a tourist trap, but maintains the fabled grease and uses only fresh ground beef for the burgers. If you want to broaden your horizons, order the second most popular sandwich at Dyer’s—the deep-fried bologna sandwich. Previous owner Tom once told me bluntly, “If you are watching your health, I recommend going next door.”
FAT MO’S
2620 FRANKLIN PK | NASHVILLE, TN 37204
615-298-1111 | (17 OTHER NASHVILLE METRO LOCATIONS)
WWW.FATMOS.COM | TUE–SUN 10 AM–11 PM
MON 10 AM–10 PM
Ask any current or former Nashville area college student about Fat Mo’s and most likely they’ll tell you they’ve been there. That may be because in the Nashville metro area there are eighteen Fat Mo’s locations. It also may be because people in Nashville love burgers and Fat Mo’s makes one helluva burger.
At first glance, anyone of the Fat Mo’s outposts look like a standard roadside burger joint, some of them nondescript, brightly painted cinderblock boxes near highway interchanges. But to those who know Fat Mo’s, there is something entirely unique at play here. Opened in 1991 by Iranian husband and wife Mohammad Ali and Shiva Karimy, the burgers at Fat Mo’s have a very distinct flavor that is unmistakably Middle Eastern.
The story of how Mo and Shiva came to found a burger empire in Nashville is right out of a storybook. After the Shah of Iran was deposed in 1979 the lives of any remaining supporters of his regime were in danger under the new ruler Ayatollah Khomeini. “After the revolution I escaped,” Mo told me, “I was for the Shah and if I had stayed I’d be killed. They had no mercy.” Mo was a prominent businessman in Iran prior to the revolution and owned a number of restaurants, four of them burger joints. Inspired by the success of McDonald’s in his country Mo saw potential in the burger business. He opened his own burger joint and called it “Mamad Topol,” which translated from Farsi means “Fat Mo’s.” “The Iranians loved American culture,” Mo explained, “and they still do! Don’t bel
ieve what you see on the news.”
Mo and Shiva have made their name with a unique twist to the all-American hamburger. The basic construction of the burger is the same but a very important step in the cooking process sets these burgers apart from the rest. When you bite into the half-pound Fat Mo you’ll be struck by the subtle spices at work. Black pepper, salt, and garlic are all present, as well as other spices, but none of this overwhelms the beef-and-cheese profile of the burger. The secret is in the marinade, an old family recipe.
All of the burgers at Fat Mo’s come from bulk fresh ground beef that is hand-pattied daily. “We weigh it on a scale then flatten into patties on a hard surface,” Mo explained. The burgers are cooked on a flattop griddle, and just before they are finished, the patties are dipped into the marinade then returned to the griddle. “That’s how we do it,” Mo explained proudly. “But the marinade is a secret. I cannot tell you what is in that.” Whatever it is, it makes the Fat Mo one unique, tasty burger.
The menu is vast but the burger options are pretty basic at Fat Mo’s. The biggest seller is the “Fat Mo,” which is a half-pound patty on a toasted sesame seed bun. Unless you specify what you want on your burger the Fat Mo comes with everything, which is shredded lettuce, tomato, raw onion, pickles, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, and American cheese. Mo’s personal favorite burger on the menu (and coincidentally mine as well) is the half-pound Double Mo. Instead of one large half-pound patty the Double Mo comes with two quarter-pound patties, more griddle char, and an extra slice of cheese. There’s also the Little Mo, a quarter-pound burger that Mo says, “Most of the ladies get that one.” If you are feeling adventurous (or really hungry) go for the Super Deluxe Fat Mo, a twenty-seven-ounce patty that comes with everything plus grilled onions, barbeque sauce, bacon, and jalapeños. It may be your only meal of the day.