by George Motz
KELLER’S DRIVE-IN
6537 E. NORTHWEST HWY | DALLAS, TX 75231
214-368-1209 | OPEN DAILY 10 AM–MIDNIGHT
The sign in front of this aging relic of Dallas hamburger culture says it all—“Keller’s Hamburgers Beer.” That’s what you’ll find here and not much more. Personally, I don’t require much else and at Keller’s I was in heaven.
During the day Keller’s doesn’t look like much. The low, faded green, beige, and brick central structure that houses the kitchen sits in the middle of a huge parking lot surrounded by long parking shelters that can accommodate up to 100 cars. Lunch seems to be moderately busy but at night, Keller’s comes alive. The parking shelters light up with flashing neon and pickup trucks line the drive-in with tailgating Texans. On most Saturday nights, owners of classic cars still cruise into the drive-in to stage impromptu shows and beer flows more than soda. At Keller’s, they’ll not only bring your burger to your car seat, they’ll bring you a beer too.
But Keller’s is not just another roadside hamburger joint. Jack Keller opened his first drive-in in 1950 after working for the Big Sam Company. Big Sam developed drive-in restaurants and is credited with opening the first in America, the Pig Stand in Dallas in 1921. Jack wanted to open his own drive-in and saw that there was a need to serve beer with the burgers. As Jack explained in his gentle Texas drawl, “Beer, hamburgers . . . that’s all you need really.” Cheers to that.
My first visit to Keller’s was around 4 p.m. on a Tuesday and I was a little shocked to find people pulling up in pickups and motorcycles ordering beer and skipping the burger. Most seemed to just have one and move on, a postwork cold one before the ride home that made perfect sense to me. “Some come for the beers because they are only $1.75 here!” carhop Rachel told me. Rachel, a sweet, salt-of-the-earth, sun-baked Texan wearing an oversized T-shirt, told me she has been at Keller’s for over 21 years and loves her job. “The tips are excellent. That’s why I started here.”
The burger selection is totally confusing with random, specially numbered burger combinations that are strangely out of sync. The #9 is a double meat with chili and the regular cheeseburger gets no number. I asked Jack about the reasoning behind the numbered burgers and he replied, “Lack of a good sign painter, I guess.” Avoid confusion and order the #5, a double meat and cheese with tomato, shredded lettuce, and “special sauce,” which my taste buds identified as Thousand Island dressing. Tater tots are on the menu at Keller’s and when tots are on the menu I always skip the fries.
The thin-patty burgers at Keller’s are cooked on a large flattop griddle and served on toasted, soft, white poppy seed buns. The drive-in gets a shipment of fresh beef daily and they come in as patties just over 3 ounces each. The burgers are delivered to your car wrapped in waxed paper, creating a perfect package of cheesy, beefy, greasy deliciousness. I can eat one of their doubles in three bites and go back for more.
The carhops are all female and range in age. There doesn’t seem to be an enforced dress code for the carhops at Keller’s and the outfits go from baggy tees to tight tank tops. One flirty carhop sported a straw cowboy hat and only worked the side of the drive-in that was frequented by the bikers, affectionately known as the Zoo Side. This section of the parking lot, to the left of the main structure, also has a few mismatched benches that look like church pews. Here, the bikers can rest, have a burger, and sip a beer. “These guys are mostly weekend bikers, you know, doctors, lawyers,” Rachel pointed out. She didn’t want me to get the impression that the Zoo Side was a hangout for some dangerous biker gang. From what I’ve seen there day and night, Keller’s attracts a pretty docile biker crowd.
To order at Keller’s, find a spot, check the menu posted on the main structure, and put on your hazard lights (or as the window says, “turn on your blinkers for service.”) Soon after, a carhop will approach to take your order. Your meal will arrive on the classic drive-in tray that hooks on your window and your beer will be wrapped with a napkin to prevent beer sweat—a nice touch.
If it were not enough that you can get an amazing burger, tots, and a beer brought to your car, you can also buy cases of beer to go. Keller’s doubles as a package store, which means you can go on a beer run and reward yourself with a burger at the same time.
In a follow-up phone call, Jack told me, “Next time you are through Dallas come on by and I’ll fix you an ‘original.’”
“An original?”
“Yeah, that’s me fixin’ your burger.”
So if you find yourself around Dallas in need of a beer break head over to Keller’s. You’ll be able to chase that beer with one of the tastiest burgers in America. And if Jack’s on the griddle, you may be able to score an original.
KINCAID’S HAMBURGERS
4901 CAMP BOWIE BLVD | FORT WORTH, TX 76107
(VARIOUS OTHER LOCATIONS AROUND FORT WORTH)
817-732-2881 | MON–SAT 11 AM–8 PM
SUN 11 AM–3 PM
A visit to Kincaid’s is a must on the burger trail in America. The restaurant is a revamped corner grocery that today is profoundly dedicated to the American hamburger. Most burgers found in Texas fall into the half-pound category and a hamburger at Kincaid’s is no exception. The good word spread in the early 1970s that Kincaid’s was serving up a stellar burger in the rear of the store. It was only a matter of time before burger sales eclipsed grocery sales and the rest is history. Today, Kincaid’s grinds and patties up to 800 pounds of fresh beef daily (you read that correctly). For groceries, you’ll have to go elsewhere.
Kincaid’s is located on a corner on the edge of a quiet residential neighborhood in Fort Worth, and the atmosphere inside and out is laid-back and comfortable. Inside, the long, original stock shelves remain in place, their tops sawed off to act as surfaces to stand at, unwrap your burger, and dig in. It was O.R. Gentry, a meat cutter and manager at the grocery store, who bought the business from the ailing Charles Kincaid in 1967. It was O.R. who cut down those shelves and created countertops out of old doors he found for $1. And it was O.R. who created one the greatest burgers in America, a burger whose fame is so widespread that it can claim fans from every corner of the globe.
“He started with a $25 grill,” Lynn Gentry said of her father-in-law. “O.R. would take the prime meats that didn’t sell and grind them to make hamburgers the next day,” Lynn explained. As the need for the corner grocery faded in America in the 1970s (spurred by the proliferation of the supermarket), O.R. began to focus more on burgers and less on groceries. When his son, Ronald, took over the business in 1991, he and wife, Lynn, did away with the remaining groceries for good. “We pulled out all of the produce bins and refrigeration in the front and replaced them with picnic tables,” Lynn told me. “We needed the space.”
Kincaid’s is a gigantic place. Today it’s a clean, functional, bright restaurant where the integrity of the old grocery has been preserved. The concrete floors are polished to a high shine, and the original neon grocer’s sign continues to glow red over the front door. The interior walls are still painted sea-foam green and Lynn told me, “The local hardware store calls this color Kincaid’s Green.” The restaurant can accommodate up to 280 burger enthusiasts, either standing or sitting, in over 3,500 square feet of space.
Every day Kincaid’s grinds on premises the meat for their half-pound burgers. They use only chuck steaks from organic Texas beef that is free from hormones and steroids. The burgers are cooked on two six-foot flattop griddles. You can cook a lot of burgers with 12 linear feet of griddle space.
The burger is served on a white, seeded, toasted bun with tomato, shredded lettuce, pickles, yellow mustard, and thinly sliced onions. The elements of this burger are so well balanced that, taken as a whole, they create a nearly perfect burger experience and in turn a euphoric first bite. Curiously, the burger’s condiments are placed underneath the burger instead of the standard above-the-patty placement. “We do that for speed,” Lynn explained, pointing out that the buns are prep
ped before the burgers come off the grill. The inverted burger actually allows the juices from the meat to drip into the condiments and Lynn told me, “We think it makes the burger taste better.”
Kincaid’s is a family business. The Gentrys two sons work at the restaurant and Lynn’s father retired from American Airlines and has been the manager of Kincaid’s for over a decade. In the last few years, the Gentrys have opened a few new locations around Fort Worth including a 5,000-square-foot replica of the original complete with sawed-off grocery shelves and “Kincaid’s green” painted walls.
Many refer to the burger at Kincaid’s as the best in Texas. That’s a mighty claim in this burger-proud state. It is a claim that the Kincaid’s burger lives up to and a challenge the Gentry family takes in stride.
LANKFORD GROCERY
88 DENNIS ST | HOUSTON, TX 77006
713-522-9555 | MON–SAT 7 AM–3 PM
CLOSED SUNDAY
“There’s nothing better than a good burger,” was the first thing out of Edie Prior’s mouth when I told her about the book I was working on. Edie is the owner of Lankford Grocery, a breakfast-and-burger destination opened by her parents, Nona and Aubrey Lankford, in 1939. From 1939 to 1977 the Lankfords operated the business as a grocery store before turning it into the café it is today. The only visible evidence of the store’s past are the original Coca-Cola grocer’s sign out front and the large enameled steel meat case separating the kitchen from the dining area. “I don’t have the heart to pull it out,” Edie said of the case. “We use it for storage now.”
Lankford’s is a funky place with a lot of heart and soul. There’s a wall with pegs where locals hang their personal coffee mugs, the floor is impossibly slanted and creaky, the ceiling is low, and each table has a roll of paper towels in lieu of napkins. Edie heavily decorates the restaurant depending on the season. My first visit was just before Halloween so you can imagine the décor. “We just took down our summer theme,” Edie’s brother Jimmy told me, “We had beach balls and stuff hanging from the ceiling.”
Jimmy, who has since passed away, used to work at Lankford making change and small talk at the end of the counter. He said to me once, referring to the much-debated GQ magazine hamburger list, “What do these swanky men know about good hamburgers anyway?” True. A real man would do well to put one of these burgers down—a Texas-sized, fresh meat, two-fister.
Burgers at Lankford’s are cooked to perfection on a flattop griddle, juicy on the inside and crisp on the outside. They start as hand-pattied fresh ground meat and are roughly eight ounces. Order a double and you are getting a pound of meat. The burger to order is the Bacon Double Cheeseburger (the bacon single works just fine, especially if you plan on eating again that day). The burgers come with shredded lettuce, red onion, pickles, tomato, cheese, mayo, mustard, and copious amounts of crisp bacon. All of this is served on a large toasted bun with a single toothpick straining to keep the contents vertical. I’m a hamburger professional and can deftly maneuver the sloppiest of burgers with ease, but this one got the better of me. “Uh, would you like a fork?” Jimmy said, sensing my struggle with the unruly pile of ingredients.
There are other burgers on the menu that sound excellent, like the “Soldier Burger,” explained best by waitress Robin. “A man walked in one day and asked for a burger with an egg on it, so I did it!” Or try the “Fire House Burger” that contains a homemade habanero paste. “It is REALLY hot!” Edie warned me as she approached with a mason jar containing an orange paste. “Just try a little . . . do you have water?” The paste contained radishes, onion, mustard, and habanero peppers and was hot as hell. It was a deep-down hurt though, not a sharp pain, with lasting heat. Would I spread this on a burger? Absolutely. And recently a new burger creation has become a big seller, the “Grim Burger,” which is topped with mac and cheese, bacon, an egg, and jalapeños. “One of our customers dreamed that one up,” Edie told me.
Lankford’s is only open for breakfast and lunch, so don’t plan on having dinner there. Burgers are served all day though, starting when they open at 7 a.m. “People order burgers for breakfast, right when we open,” Edie told me.
The small, sleepy café looks slightly out of place in this neighborhood very close to downtown Houston. “We used to be able to see the buildings downtown. These were all vacant lots,” Edie pointed out. Those lots are being quickly transformed into condos and other large construction projects. Edie plans to be around for a while though. She wants to leave the business to family one day but told me, “I plan on being here as long as I can flip that burger.”
LONGHORN CAFE
17625 BLANCO RD | SAN ANTONIO, TX 78232
210-492-0301
(5 OTHER LOCATIONS IN THE SAN ANTONIO METRO AREA)
WWW.THELONGHORNCAFE.COM
SUN–THU 11 AM–9 PM | FRI & SAT 11 AM–10 PM
CLOSED MONDAY
Don’t look for this burger destination near the famous Alamo in downtown San Antonio. There are now six Longhorn Cafe locations and they all cater mostly to locals and any visitor willing to venture to the outskirts of the city. The 25-year-old burger chain is a beloved Texas roadhouse serving burgers, beer, and many other favorites and is totally worth the drive.
One of the keys to the success of the Longhorn Cafe is the amazing attention to the quality of the ingredients. Everything that goes into the burgers at the Longhorn is visible in a bank of glass-front coolers behind the counter. The burgers are cooked on a flattop griddle in a big, open kitchen and prepped at a station adjacent to the griddle. It is all out in the open and as employee José Penado told me with a wave of his arm, “Everything we do is right here.”
What they do is burgers and they do them expertly. The original griddle from opening day in 1984 is still in place and sees thousands of burgers a week. Longtime manager Uko Equere told me that the beef is always fresh, never frozen. “If someone brings in frozen I’ll have to slap them!” he proclaimed. Uko is on your side.
The sign outside of the restaurant exclaims that the Longhorn Cafe is the “Home of the Big Juicy.” I asked José what was on the “Big Juicy” and he explained, “All the burgers are Big Juicys,” which is basically a one-third-pound, wide, flat patty on a large, toasted, white squishy bun. There are many burger options at Longhorn Cafe but the most popular, Uko explained, “is the double meat, double cheese.” Ask for everything, and you’ll get a burger piled high with shredded lettuce, raw onion, mayo, mustard, and pickles—a true Texas classic.
The kitchen area is an incredible study in efficiency. Everyone has a task to complete and during peak times the kitchen works like a well-oiled assembly line. A griddleperson slaps patties on the flattop and toasts buns alongside the burgers while another employee preps buns with condiments. Completed burgers are delivered to the counter in plastic baskets lined with waxed paper.
One employee spends his time only at the deep fryer. Get the “Half & Half” with your order and choose 2 of the 3 deep-fried sides: onion rings, fries, or tater tots. The onion rings are not to be missed (they are cut and battered in-house) but it’s also hard to pass up on tater tots.
At Longhorn Cafe, you place an order at the counter, then find a seat and wait for your name to be called. Grab a pickled jalapeño at the counter to munch on while you are waiting. At the Blanco Road location you can sit in either the large dining room filled with booths and picnic tables, or check out the equally large outdoor patio with its big homemade slide for kids to play on. When things get crazy Uko opens up the private party room to handle overflow.
It’s a big, clean, easygoing place that caters to all types. The first time I was there it was lunchtime and the place was mostly filled with dudes in auto mechanic uniforms and families, a mixed clientele that changes as the day progresses. Nighttime brings local high school and college students (and sometimes players from the San Antonio Spurs). “There is usually a line out the door,” Uko explained. The place is packed on game day weekends.
The r
estaurant apparently opened in the ’50s as a taco stand at what is now the Blanco Road location. In 1984 a Sooner (a graduate of the University of Oklahoma) and an Aggie (a graduate of Texas A&M) bought the stand, started selling hamburgers, and changed the name to the Longhorn Cafe. Two high school buddies, David Wynn and Paul Weir, came along and purchased the business in 1995. The duo is responsible for the Longhorn’s expansion into a six-store chain.
What I also love about the Longhorn Cafe is that my favorite Texas beer, Shiner Bock, is available by the pitcher. I couldn’t think of anything better to do in Texas than eat a roadhouse burger while drinking one of the best beers in Texas at a picnic table. What more do you need?
Directly across the street from the Blanco Road location (the original) is a Sonic Drive-In that is obviously not affecting business in the slightest. “We’ve been here so long that our customers are pretty loyal,” Director of Operations Karen Turner told me. Be smart and go where the locals go.
37
UTAH
CROWN BURGER
118 NORTH 300 WEST | SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84103
801-532-5300 | WWW.CROWN-BURGERS.COM
(MULTIPLE LOCATIONS)
MON–SAT 10 AM–10:30 PM | CLOSED SUNDAY
Behold the “Crown Burger.” At first you see what appears to be a pastrami sandwich, then, upon closer inspection, realize that your wildest fantasies have just come true—you are gazing at a cheeseburger stuffed to bursting with warm, thinly sliced pastrami.