Hamburger America (41 page)

Steve has three sons and plans to bring them up in the business if they are interested, but makes a point to tell them his secret to success. “I tell them if you are going to own one of these you have to come down and talk to the people.” But he doesn’t plan on ceding control to anyone just yet. “If I’m going to do something the rest of my life, I want it to be here.” Like I said, Steve is a dedicated man.

 

 

O
klahoma has no shortage of great burger joints and Tulsa is no exception. It was very difficult to choose from the bounty of burger options in Tulsa but this tiny, bright yellow and red painted cinderblock box stood out. That may be because their signature burger, “The Westside,” is a double-meat double cheeseburger served on Texas Toast and is a sight to behold.

Linda-Mar sits just outside the cloverleaf where I-44 meets Route 75. The neighborhood is called the Westside and when I asked manager Tiffany, “What is The Westside?” referring to the burger, she told me, “We’re just a close-knit group over here.”

The place is spotless and the décor is NASCAR-themed with an image of Winston Cup champion Rusty Wallace’s Blue Deuce taking up one entire wall of the dining room. There are also framed shots of dirt track racecars everywhere,
some bearing the Linda-Mar logo. Owner Mike McCutchen, who at one point was an owner at Tulsa Speedway, used to sponsor a Sprint racecar team. Not coincidentally, his brother, Danny, was the driver and the entire McCutchen family worked on the team. Today, Mike owns two bars, an automotive shop, and Linda-Mar.

The restaurant opened as Warren’s in the early ’60s and around 1970 was sold to the bun supplier, Walt Cook. He named the restaurant after his two daughters, Linda and Margaret, and eventually sold it to his son-in-law, Jerry McCutchen. Various members of the McCutchen family have owned and run Linda-Mar over the past 40 years, with Danny nearly running it into the ground. In 2009, Mike stepped in to take the reins at the restaurant because, as he put it, “He was sick of it. He had let it go downhill.” Under Danny it had been open for business only 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. “Everywhere people were bitching about the hours and asking why it was not open on Saturdays,” Mike told me, “So I said, ‘To hell with that,’ and took it over from Danny. I went in, gutted it, and cleaned it up.” Mike also expanded the menu, the hours, and changed the work ethic in the kitchen. “I always tell the kids [that work at Linda-Mar], ‘Every time you cook something, make it like you would for yourself.’”

Linda-Mar uses fresh beef from Tulsa’s favorite meatpacker Tulsa Beef and they make quarter-pound patties at the restaurant every morning with their own patty machine. The machine makes the patties wide and flat so on the well-seasoned flattop they cook quickly. “The Westside” comes with tomato, shredded lettuce, pickles, mustard, and mayo by request. It also comes with diced onion that is cooked next to your patties on the flattop.

The Westside is a colossal pile of cheesy, greasy goodness. The major difference between a regular double cheeseburger and The Westside is in the Texas toast. The thick-sliced, regional favorite is brushed with butter on both sides and toasted directly on the flattop with the patties. A burger bun only gets toasted on one side whereas the Texas toast gets toasted on both sides. The Westside also comes with not two but four slices of gooey American cheese. It’s a lot to handle but not as much of a mess as you would think. If the half-pound grease and cheese intake from The Westside doesn’t frighten you, indulge in Linda-Mar’s deep-fried sides, like fries, tater tots, onion rings, cheese balls, and mushrooms. They are all great, but the real winner here is the jalepeño chicken—deep-fried bits of chicken in a buttermilk jalepeño batter. Mike told me, “We marinate the chicken in the batter overnight. Makes a huge difference.”

One curious element to the Linda-Mar experience is a small television that plays episodes of
The Andy Griffith Show
non-stop. “My mom loved
Andy Griffith
and that sumbitch would play until I whistled myself to sleep,” Mike told me. It has become an integral part of the restaurant, so much so that when an employee recently tried to put on something else (
The Addams Family
) the customers rebelled.

I was tipped off to Linda-Mar by friend and local burger expert Joe Price. As we were leaving we spotted an ancient milkshake mixer behind the counter and almost fell over. “Do you still use that?” I asked, not because it looked like its best days were behind it but because I was fully aware of its historical significance. “We use it every day,” Tiffany told me as she reached over to start it up. The mixer slowly came to life and I could hear the whir of the friction-driven mechanics inside. This was the same mixer, the Multimixer, that Ray Croc sold as a traveling salesman in the’40s, the same mixer that led him to McDonald’s for the first time and the rest was history.

“Have a very Linda-Mar day!” Tiffany shouted out as we left. “That’s just what we say here.” I wish I could have a Linda-Mar day more often.

 

 

T
he Meers Store is way out in the country. About two hours from Oklahoma City and four from Dallas, the “Meersburger” had better be good because it’s the only reason you got in the car this morning. The burgers are better than good, they are excellent, and the drive is beautiful. Joe Maranto, the latest owner of the 95-year-old burger mecca, put it best when he told me, “We’re out in the
middle of nowhere, but the good thing is we’re the only thing in nowhere.” Meers is not as desolate as it sounds. The restaurant is a short drive from the entrance to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Preserve and the next town over is Medicine Park, former hideout of Bonnie and Clyde and turn-of-the-century resort for Oklahomans.

The restaurant is made up of a bunch of cobbled-together old buildings and newer ones, the older left behind when Meers did not produce the copious amounts of gold it promised. Remnants of the tiny post office have been incorporated into the newer buildings, all of them strung together like a pile of shoeboxes. Joe is responsible for the larger additions. The expansion is a result of the popularity of his Meersburger and the need to accommodate the 500 plus daily burger seekers, bike tours, and other backcountry tourists.