Hamburger America (54 page)

6537 E.
NORTHWEST
HWY | DALLAS, TX 75231
214-368-1209 | OPEN DAILY 10 AM–MIDNIGHT

 

 

T
he 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.

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 prepped 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.

88 DENNIS ST
|
HOUSTON, TX 77006
713-522-9555 | MON–SAT 7 AM–3 PM
CLOSED SUNDAY

 

 

“T
here’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.”