Hamburger America

by George Motz

  The Arnold floored me. Most of the time when someone leads me to a burger almost too big to consume, the finished product turns out to be flavorless, poorly cooked, and too much to handle. I was amazed because the Arnold was as flavorful and juicy as any of my favorite “slimmer” burgers and surprisingly easy to handle. The Arnold is really just a cartoonishly large all-American burger. The secret, I believe, may be in the griddle. In plain view directly behind the register is a beautifully seasoned freestanding flattop griddle. The jet-black surface reminded me that this is where some of the best burgers get their flavor.

  If that wasn’t enough, you can actually get a burger in the shape of Texas in four different sizes. A local bakery supplies Gayla with specially made buns that are also in the shape of Texas. Other shapes are available including a guitar, a boot, and the popular heart-shaped burger for two. Choose a shape from the outlines drawn on the wall in actual size. Some of the shapes I could not identify. “That’s a snowman,” Gayla told me pointing to a bulbous outline. I had to believe her.

  Arnold is also the home of the “Family Burger,” an ingenious invention dreamed up by Gayla’s parents. “My mother was trying to figure out a way to feed a family, like a pizza.” It sounds crazy, but they have sent Family Burgers to bachelor parties and weddings. Gayla added, “We’ve even sent them to funerals.” The largest Family Burger is 24 inches in diameter, feeds a family of 10, and takes up most of the space on the flattop to cook. The grillperson uses a pizza peel to flip the Family Burger, and it’s served on a huge, custom-made bun. If you want one of these, you’ll need to order it a day in advance.

  Arnold Burger gets a delivery of fresh beef daily and whatever family is around in the morning helps hand-patty the wide array of patty sizes. Nothing is actually measured and as Gayla put it, “We just grab the meat and start pattying.” She added, “My dad had the perfect hand size for making the patties.” The tiny restaurant has been known to move through hundreds of pounds of beef a day and once set a one-day record of 500 pounds following a TV appearance.

  I asked Gayla about the limited hours at Arnold Burger, which is not open on weekends. The restaurant closes at the peculiar time of 5:45 p.m. and as Gayla explained, “It’s a great time to go home!”

  BLAKE’S BBQ AND BURGERS

  2916 JEANETTA ST | HOUSTON, TX 77063

  713-266-6860 | WWW.BLAKESBARBQ.BIZ

  MON–SAT 10:30 AM–8 PM | CLOSED SUNDAY

  I can always count on my good friend and Houston food critic Robb Walsh to dig up the obscure. Robb thankfully put this burger joint on my radar and I am forever grateful. Robb also introduced me to Don Blake, the man behind the burger. Don’t call him Don, though. I tried a few times and he didn’t respond. Finally he told me quietly, “My mom called me Don. Everybody else calls me Blake.”

  Blake didn’t always serve the best, freshest burgers in town from his dream-come-true barbeque joint on the west side of Houston. “When we first started we were serving frozen,” Blake admitted, but he knew the burger could be better. As fate would have it, when a truck didn’t show with frozen patties one day, Blake ran to a local grocery store to buy fresh ground 80/20 chuck and the rest was history. “It was like a phenomenon,” Blake told me. “Word got out and people were asking ‘What are you putting in there?’”

  There was no turning back, and after 28 years Blake is still using the same 80/20 chuck for his burgers that he picks up from a local butcher.

  I had my first burger at Blake’s with Robb Walsh and noticed right away that it seemed loaded with butter. “You have a problem with that?” Robb shot back. No, I most certainly did not. The burger to get at Blake’s is the cheeseburger with everything. The griddleperson takes a measured eight-ounce ball of ground chuck, presses it between two sheets of wax paper, then plops it onto the well-seasoned flattop. A liberal amount of “secret” seasoning (that looked like salt and pepper) is sprinkled on top and the burger is pressed again. A very complicated buntoasting procedure ensues where a five-inch white squishy is sent through a buttering toaster press and then transferred to the griddle to finish. “The key is the bun cooking on that griddle,” Blake pointed out. The bun is prepped with pickles, mayo, mustard, shredded lettuce, and tomato. It ain’t a picture-perfect burger, with its squashed bun and erupting contents, but don’t let that fool you. The butter, beef, mustard, pickles, and soft bun make for an enormously satisfying burger experience (I added bacon and grilled onions, too). Add some jalapeños to remind yourself that you’re in Texas.

  There’s a curious burger on the menu called the “Kick-Burger,” designed by one of Blake’s biggest fans, Houston mega-developer Vincent Kickerillo. The Kick comes with pepper jack cheese, jalapeños, and a splash of barbeque sauce. Even Frank Sinatra became a fan (thanks to his good friend Kickerillo) and had Blake frequently ship raw patties to his home in Malibu. “He and Kick loved the seasoning so I’d overnight 15 to 20 pounds to them.”

  There are many other things on the menu like sandwiches, baked potatoes, and burritos, but I’ve never tried them. I have not even tasted the world-class barbeque that Blake is known for. I’ve only indulged in his amazing burgers.

  Don Blake

  There is no signage indicating a drive-up window but at Blake’s you can order from your car. Look for the tiny window on the right side of the building and place your order. “twenty-five percent of our business is by drive-up,” Blake told me.

  The idea for a barbeque and burger restaurant was born of necessity. As a young salesman for an office supply business, Blake was constantly on the search for decent, affordable barbeque and decided to open his own place. Blake’s sales beat had him in on the west side of Houston daily and he discovered his current location by accident while taking a shortcut. “This street was a two-lane dirt road back then,” he told me, which is hard to imagine given the unstoppable urban sprawl of Houston. It turned out to be the perfect location.

  Blake’s stands out on Jeanetta Street thanks to its design. “I wanted it to look ‘cowboy,’” Blake told me, and pointed out the horse hitch that completes the Alamoesqe façade. The dining room has a floor-to-ceiling painted mural depicting a dusty Old West version of his hometown of Brownwood, Texas. “That’s not really what it looks like,” Blake confessed. He grew up in a town where being black was an anomaly. He showed me his high school reunion picture and said with a chuckle, “See if you can find me!” As I scanned the sea of white faces it was not hard to spot Blake.

  Every year, just before Thanksgiving, Blake smokes 100 turkeys and donates them to under-privileged families and a shelter for homeless vets in the neighborhood. Blake explained, “I grew up poor and know how it feels to get food during the holidays.”

  BURGER HOUSE

  6913 HILLCREST AVE | DALLAS, TX 75205

  214-361-0370 | WWW.BURGERHOUSE.COM

  (OTHER LOCATIONS AROUND DALLAS AND ONE IN AUSTIN, TX)

  OPEN DAILY 11 AM–9 PM

  Any visit to Dallas, Texas, warrants a stop at this tiny, beloved burger stand. Impossibly small and showing its age, Burger House (aka Jack’s from a previous owner) serves excellent, fresh-meat burgers to hungry college students and locals in this wealthy Dallas suburb. Constantly topping best-of lists, Burger House, opened in 1951, has been a favorite of Dallas natives for generations.

  Jack Koustoubardis built Burger House and worked at the Hillcrest location flipping burgers for over 30 years. Even though there is no mention of his name anywhere in the restaurant’s signage, dedicated regulars still refer to the restaurant as Jack’s Burger House. In 1982, friends of Jack’s, Angelo Chantilis and Steve Canellos, bought the burger stand and the recipe for its now famous “seasoned salt.” The salt goes onto all of the burgers and fries and creates the taste that regulars crave.

  The restaurant is split in two—one part a tiny, fluorescent-lit diner (no more than two hundred square feet) with a few stools and a narrow counter, the other an alleyway dining room with a sloped concrete floor and
carved-up picnic tables. Of curious note, the stand closes every night at 9 p.m., but the dining room side stays open all night. Manager Nicholas told me, “That’s just the way it was. Jack kept it open all night.” Angelo, aware of the extremely low crime rate in this suburb, confirmed the policy, but said of would-be thieves, with a chuckle “Let’em walk in instead of breaking the damn glass.”

  The most popular burger at Burger House is the double cheeseburger. Every morning Burger House gets a delivery of large, flat quarter-pound patties of 80/20 chuck. Angelo told me, “We buy from a local purveyor of meat and they only give us the best.” The burgers have been cooked on the well-seasoned, original griddle from opening day at Burger House, a griddle that’s over 50 years old. A wide, toasted sesame-seed bun is standard, as are shredded lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and mustard. The double with cheese is a large, two-fisted wad of greasy goodness that will fill you up and have you dreaming about your next visit even before you take your last bite.

  The seasoned salt, a garlicky secret recipe invented by Jack’s brother, Jerry, is so popular that in the 1990s Angelo and Steve decided to bottle and sell the stuff. “People would walk off with the shakers of the salt that we put out,” Angelo told me, “so we figured we should just start selling it.” Now you can attempt to re-create Jack’s burger at home.

  Today, Burger House is a mini-chain with seven locations around Dallas and more to come. The enormous Mockingbird location (with its large dining room and drive-thru) does the most business, but it’s the original Hillcrest location with its red, white, and blue neon sign that burger lovers visit to get their dose of Americana. I asked Angelo if there were plans to keep expanding, and he responded with an emphatic. “Hell yeah.” Angelo’s confidence in the franchise led me to believe that there might just be one near you in the future.

  CASINO EL CAMINO

  517 EAST 6TH ST | AUSTIN, TX 78701

  512-469-9330 | WWW.CASINOELCAMINO.NET

  OPEN DAILY 4 PM–2 AM

  Casino El Camino is not a burger joint. It’s a dark punkabilly rock bar with tattooed and pierced patrons that maintains one of the best jukeboxes just about anywhere. People go to Casino to drink and listen to great tunes at this bar on the Sixth Street party strip in downtown Austin, Texas. I was in a rock band for 10 years so I feel at home in a place like Casino. But it wasn’t until my third visit that I realized they offered amazing burgers to the buzzed clientele.

  I was informed of Casino’s burger prowess by a film crew member of mine in Austin, John Spath, who begged me to give it a shot. In a town whose burger culture is dominated by Hut’s and Dirty Martin’s, and in a state enormously burger-proud, I was skeptical. Even John commented, “It’s not the kind of place you’d expect to find good food.”

  I approached the tiny opening in a dark back corner of the bar to place my order. The small kitchen is manned by a staff of one. A solitary chef takes orders, preps buns, and grills the burgers. When the chef on duty that night, Orestes, was through tending to burgers on the grill, he reluctantly sauntered over to take my order. I waited over half an hour, but for my patience I was rewarded with a heavenly burger.

  The burgers at Casino el Camino start as fresh-ground 90 percent lean chuck that’s hand formed into 3 quarter-pound patties. They are cooked on an open-flame grill, placed on a bun, halved, then the two halves are placed back on the grill again, cut side down, to achieve a decorative grill brand on the cross section of your burger. It should be noted that cooking over a flame and achieving decent results don’t often go together. Most grill cooks, especially those working from a Weber in their backyards, manage to overcook and ruin burgers. Every time I’ve been to Casino, the burger has been cooked perfectly. Casino el Camino cooks their burgers to temperature. If you ask for rare, get out the napkins and listen for that mooing sound. The cooks know what they are doing. Even a medium-well comes out juicy.

  The menu lists burger concoctions that use the three-quarter-pound burger model and add condiments. There’s the “Buffalo Burger,” which is not actually buffalo beef, but a regular burger topped with hot wing sauce and blue cheese. Or try the “Amarillo Burger” with roasted serrano chiles, jalapeño cheese, and cilantro mayo. My favorite is the standard bacon cheeseburger with cheddar, listed as the “Chicago Burger.”

  Casino el Camino is both a bar and a person. Casino el Camino, the stage name for this rocker and bar owner, came to Austin for the famed South by Southwest Music Festival in 1990. He was impressed with the forward-thinking Texas town and told a friend back in Buffalo, New York, that it would make a great spot for a bar. “Before I went I thought Texas was all tumbleweeds and fucking cowboys,” the Long Island, New York, native admitted. Casino el Camino, the bar, became a joint venture between Casino and the Buffalo restaurateur, Mark Supples.

  Expect to wait for your burger, sometimes forever. Casino told me, “The grill only holds fifteen burgers at a time so we are limited in what can come out of that small kitchen.” On busy nights the wait can be over an hour. But so what? Enjoy the music, gawk at the crazy piercings, and get a drink. If you complain, you may make it worse. Just remember, this is not fast food. It’s slow food at its best.

  CHRIS MADRID’S

  1900 BLANCO RD | SAN ANTONIO, TX 78212

  210-735-3552 | WWW.CHRISMADRIDS.COM

  MON–SAT 11 AM–10 PM | CLOSED SUNDAY

  Chris Madrid is like no other hamburger icon that I’ve met. If you are searching for him in the vast, sprawling 34-year-old burger joint, just look for the guy with jet black hair who is smiling and hugging customers. Chris has been hands-on since opening day in 1977 and can still be found moving briskly from kitchen to dining room to bar checking constantly on every moving part of the restaurant. And it seems that every customer in the place knows Chris. “That just means I’m getting old,” Chris told me with a chuckle.

  In the late ’70s Chris bought a tiny burger stand in San Antonio on the corner of Blanco Road and Hollywood called Larry’s Place. Fresh out of college, he saw potential in running a taco and burger stand. He renamed the place Chris Madrid’s Tacos & Burgers but dropped “tacos” from the name (and menu) in 1980. “The burgers were selling so well and we had so many things on the menu,” Chris told me. “We needed to simplify.”

  Originally, there were three burger sizes to choose from—the Baby, the Mama, and the Papa, but Chris streamlined that as well. In 1980, inspired by the Village People’s hit song “Macho Man,” Chris decided to call his larger eight-ounce burger “macho” sized. The smaller four-ounce “regular” sells well, but the macho is hard to resist. You can keep it simple and order the Old-Fashion Hamburger, a Texas classic with mustard, pickle, lettuce, onion, and tomato, but there’s a better reason to eat at Chris Madrid’s—the “Tostada Burger.”

  The Tostada Burger at Chris Madrid’s is legendary. Chris did not invent this staple of San Antonio burger culture but he most definitely made improvements on the classic. The original version, called the “Beanburger,” was supposedly invented at the now-defunct Sill’s Snack Shack in San Antonio in the ’50s and was soon copied by many other burger joints. A traditional Beanburger consists of only four basic elements—a hamburger, refried beans, Fritos, and Cheese Whiz. That’s it, with no lettuce, pickle, or anything else to get in the way. Chris changed the name and altered the ingredients slightly for his version but has kept the basic integrity of the original intact. The Tostada Burger uses refried beans, but replaces the Cheese Whiz with cheddar and uses house-made corn chips instead of Fritos.

  The macho Tostada Burger is a sight to behold. As you contemplate how to eat this enormous pile of heavenly goo, take a moment to appreciate what is in front of you. The bun, toasted on the grill, can barely contain the brown-and-yellow hues of its contents. The burger patty itself, a thin-pressed wonder made from fresh 75/25 beef, is hidden beneath a layer of refried beans and cascading cheddar.

  The burger is impossible to pick up. I found that cutting it in half m
ade things slightly easier. My first bite of this legend sent me soaring. As I easily made my way through the macho I wondered why this burger was not replicated in every corner of America. The beans and chips worked so well with the beef, and the cheddar tied it all together. Chris said it best when he told me, “It’s like a hamburger and an enchilada plate in one.” What an amazing invention.

  Chris Madrid’s is enormous and has grown slowly over the years. Chris bought the icehouse (the Texas version of a deli/package store) next door and eventually put an awning over the large gravel parking lot between the two buildings and added more tables. The awning was replaced by a glassed-in structure and seating capacity increased to over 300. “We had to. It was too hot under there,” Chris explained of the connecting addition. Today, the core of the restaurant is the connecting structure, a high-ceilinged dining room filled with mismatched tables and chairs. The icehouse side of the restaurant contains a beautiful recycled bar that Chris bought from a closed convent in the ’80s and the original thick refrigerator doors from the icehouse are still functioning.

  Every once in a while a mariachi group will wander through the restaurant entertaining customers downing their Tostada Burgers. Chris doesn’t hire the musicians. “They just come in,” he told me. Grab a local Texas favorite beer, Shiner Bock, while you wait for your burger. It’ll come wrapped in “pickle paper,” or waxed paper, to keep your hands dry from the bottle sweat. “That’s the way they used to do it back in the icehouse days,” bartender of 24 years Jimmy told me. Jimmy is not the longest-running employee at Chris Madrid’s. That honor goes to Chris’s sister, Diana. “She’s seen it all,” Chris told me. “She was here on day one.”