Hamburger America (19 page)

 

 

W
hen I learned that Jack’s had sold I panicked. During research for this book I had visited the vintage 1950s Wichita burger joint, ate their double cheeseburger, and was thoroughly satisfied. I called to speak to Jack’s new owner Austin
Herron just to find out how things were going and if he had planned to keep things the same. “Well, we opened today and just served my first customer,” he told me. I almost dropped the phone and said, “So why are you talking to me!” Austin had much more important things to do.

Austin, who is only 25, somehow possesses the notion that some old things are good things, a trait that few twentysomethings have. With the help of his grandmother he was able to buy Jack’s at auction. “She knows I’m a hard-working person and she liked my business plan.” Fortunately, the only changes he made were for the better.

Jack Robards opened the tiny burger stand in 1951 in an absolutely brilliant location—directly across the street from the enormous North Senior High School. For decades, students have made the short walk and lunched at Jack’s. After Jack, the burger joint was passed to Nola Behan, who ran Jack’s for over 30 years. In 2007 the restaurant had a catastrophic fire and closed its doors. A year later a man named Joe Moore, whose dream it was to own a vintage burger joint, bought the burned-out restaurant and put everything he had into its rebirth. When it opened in 2009 regulars were happy to see that Jack’s was back, but 7 months later Joe suffered a massive heart attack at the restaurant and died. Joe’s wife ran Jack’s in her husband’s absence but her heart was not in it. She put the restaurant up for sale and eventually, at auction, the young Austin became the owner.

Austin has actually made Jack’s better. He switched from using one-sixth-pound patties to quarter-pounders and got rid of the frozen fries. “We now have fresh-cut fries, no frozen,” he told me. The burgers are still made the way Jack did it 60 years ago. A flat patty of fresh ground chuck is slapped on the flattop and sprinkled with a handful of diced onion. The onion is
pressed into the patty and cooks into the burger. Soft white buns are toasted on the griddle with butter and the burger is served with lettuce, pickle, ketchup, and mustard. Cheese, jalapeños, bacon, and chili are also available.

North High lets out for lunch around noon on weekdays and the Jack’s is instantly mobbed with students. “The people that live around here know not to come then,” Austin told me. “The old timers and regulars know to come after one o’clock.”

Seating at Jack’s is mostly limited to counters along the big picture windows that look out onto 13th Street and North High. In warmer months, take a seat at a picnic table outside. Also, check out the beautiful hand-painted menu board over the grill. Don’t get your hopes up, though. Twenty-five cent hamburgers are a thing of the past. The sign hails from the early days of the burger stand and depicts a mountain scene with teepees (North High’s teams are the Redskins).

I asked Austin why he bought an old burger joint and he told me, “It was something I had been looking for. I wanted to buy the burger place near my old high school but it was long gone.” Owning a Wichita tradition near a rival high school will have to do.

We owe thanks to Austin for having the foresight to own and operate a place with strong ties to the past. This is not an easy venture, but I’m glad he’s young and willing to take Jack’s into the future.

 

 

W
hen we rolled into Wichita looking for burgers I was shocked when we came across the NuWay Cafe. I know a lot about regional burgers in America and where these microcosms exist. I’m also pretty familiar at this point with how far certain burger trends have traveled, but most crazy ideas usually remain within the city limits. The Jucy Lucy has not gone much further than a handful of burger joints in Minneapolis, the steamed cheeseburg only exists in the geographic center of Connecticut, and as far as I know you can only find a Cuban Frita on Calle Ocho in Miami. So when expert burger taster Kris Brearton and I plopped down at the counter at NuWay, we found that the loosemeat phenomenon of Iowa may have found its way to Kansas.

Of course, the loosemeat sandwich is not really a hamburger. I put Taylor’s Maid-Rite in this book as a fine example of where to find the sandwich, a sort of deconstructed burger. All of the elements for a great burger are there—the soft white bun, fresh ground beef, pickles, mustard, and onion. But the beef, instead of being a patty, is crumbly and moist. It’s a sort of Sloppy Joe without the sloppy part and it’s heavenly.

At NuWay, they call them “Crumblies,” or
the “Crumbly Sandwich.” The menu lists them as the “Original,” and I’ve also heard them referred to as simply “NuWays.” Whatever you decide to call them they come in various sizes and configurations at NuWay. The traditional size is the large, which is around a third of a pound of super-moist, crumbled meat that has been scooped by a spatula into a soft white bun and served with pickle, onion, and mustard. The amount of meat you’ll find in a NuWay varies but usually in your favor. “It’s a very unscientific method,” owner Neal Stong said of the amount that gets scooped into a NuWay. “We try to overserve rather than underserve.”

Neal did not open the first NuWay in Wichita but he is certainly the protector of this Wichita tradition. In 1930, Tom McEvoy opened the first NuWay on Douglas Avenue after leaving a partnership behind in Iowa of (you guessed it) a new concept called the Maid-Rite sandwich. In search of warmer weather he headed south and settled on Wichita. He found a potato patch to lease just east of downtown for 25 dollars a month and built the location that still exists today. McEvoy brought with him his patented cooker for making the crumbly beef sandwich and guarded the process. People would try to get a glimpse of the cooker in action and according to local legend McEvoy would chase them out of the restaurant.

The cooker is still out of view and the process of making the NuWay sandwich kept a secret. “We only use high quality USDA ground beef but we have a secret grind,” Neal told me. And unlike the chain of Maid-Rites in Iowa and beyond (with the exception of Taylor’s in Marshalltown) the meat is not spiced. As Neal put it, “Tender love and care is the only thing we add. People think we put something in there but we don’t.”

The NuWay is similar to the Maid-Rite sandwich but actually beefier and definitely moister. “The fat is where the flavor is,” Neal told me. Some call it sauce, some call it grease, but in reality, the NuWay is so good because some of the fat is not drained off when you get your sandwich. “You can ask for it ‘light,’” said Neal, but the sauce, soaked into the soft bun, is where the flavor is.

In the beginning, NuWay only served NuWays, malts, and root beer. Today the menu has expanded greatly, but the core menu is still available. A regular at the counter named Vicki told me, “I’ve been coming here for 40 years and back then there was only NuWays on the menu.” Everything is made fresh in the restaurant, including the popular garlic salad (which is basically coleslaw spiked with garlic) and the homemade root beer.

Neal became a partner in the business in 1981 with Gene Friedman after buying out McEvoy’s widow, and Neal has owned NuWay on his own since the late 1990s. Under their leadership four new locations have been opened around Wichita and the original location has been kept intact. “It’s an icon,” Neal told me. “I see it as a museum. Other than a coat of paint we’re not going to change a thing.”

 

 

B
ozo’s is not the kind of place you’d expect to find a great burger. The restaurant is a destination for fresh oysters and excellent fried seafood and the burger is listed at the bottom of the menu. Southern food writer and friend, John T. Edge, led me to Bozo’s, calling their burger a “sleeper.” Nevertheless, Bozo’s has sold the same amazing hamburger po’boy (Louisiana vernacular for submarine or hero sandwich) for over 80 years.

Bozo’s sits in a fairly nondescript industrial neighborhood in Metairie, a half block from the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. The low wooden building is set back from the street with a large parking lot in front. If you didn’t know what you were looking, for you’d drive right past. No ostentatious signage or loud neon here—just a small stained-glass window with the name Bozo’s subtly printed on it. The dining room is pure function, clean and well lit with wood-grain Formica tables and sturdy industrial seating. The only real decoration is a floor-to-ceiling mural of two fishing boats near a dock. “Those were two
of my dad’s boats,” former second-generation owner and septuagenarian chef Chris Vodanovich pointed out to me.