Hamburger America (29 page)

A large, four-sided knotty pine counter takes up just about all of the real estate in the dining area of the Holiday. In the center, proudly displayed, are homemade pies and cakes that all counter patrons are forced to stare at, making a meal without a slice an impossibility. The kitchen
adjacent to the dining area is where most of the menu is produced but in one corner of the dining room sits a tiny 2-foot-square flattop griddle. There’s even a stool at the counter that can’t be more than 3 feet from the griddle, a great front-row seat for the burger-obsessed. “In August the griddle is jammed,” owner Glenn Warfield told me. Glenn and his wife are only the third owners of this Jersey Shore landmark that was opened in 1948 by the Whiting family. Glenn bought the restaurant in the ’80s and with the purchase gained the Holiday’s famous recipes.

Glenn is adamant about preserving the history of the Holiday Snack Bar and is hesitant to change a single thing about the place. One curious phenomenon I noticed at the Holiday was a dual menu system. If you ask for a menu you are handed one whose contents, for the most part, date to 1948. It includes classics like onion rings and burgers but also a strange old-time favorite, the Tomato Aspic Salad. Glenn has added items to the menu but did not want to add them to the original so he posts these items on a separate menu on the counter. I asked him why he hasn’t merged the menus and he told me, “We don’t want to stir it up too much.”

The classic “Holiday Hamburger” is not the burger to order at the Holiday Snack Bar. Ask for that and you’ll end up with an unadorned three-ounce patty on a toasted white bun. Ask for the double cheeseburger and you are getting somewhere. The ratio of meat-to-cheese-to-bun for this burger is perfect. Be sure to add some house-made sweet pepper relish that sits on the counter in plastic tubs.

One item on Glenn’s separate menu sells as well as the burgers from the original menu—the “Slam Burger.” Lettuce, tomato, and a large onion ring are piled high on a single-patty cheeseburger. A homemade Russian dressing is added and the entire creation is held together with a large toothpick. As you can probably imagine, the additional ingredients dwarf the three-ounce patty so I would suggest a double Slam Burger.

The burgers at the Holiday are made from fresh ground 90/10 lean chuck steaks that are ground in the kitchen daily. After grinding, a team of two use an ancient manual patty press to make the burgers. It’s easy to assume that this contraption pre-dates the electric patty press. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. A large canister holds 15 pounds of ground beef that is extruded through a hole in the bottom. One person handcranks the press while the other slides a plate back and forth on the bottom that has a cutout the size of the patty, effectively “slicing” off a perfect patty every time. Glenn is clearly in the market for a new, fully automated patty, press but I don’t think he’ll be getting one anytime soon. He told me, “We’ve paid mechanics to fix it.” Glenn does not want to change a thing about the Holiday Snack Bar.

The Holiday is run almost entirely by high school and college kids and this is their summer job. When I asked Hunter if she sees orders for the Tomato Aspic Salad, she winced and said,
“Never.” Then after a moment said, “The people who do order it go crazy for it. But most people come here for the burgers.”

 

 

“N
ow we’ll see if he knows how to eat a Rossiburger!” Sharon Jemison, part owner and Rossi family member, was heckling me and warned, “If you cut it in half, you’re a wuss.” As I stared at the enormous, inch-thick burger, I did the smart thing—I put the knife down.

Most great burger joints have their share of multi-generational family pride, but few are as proud as Rossi’s. Throw in an Italian-American pedigree and you have a recipe for a burger born of unrelenting pride.

In the early 1930s, Michael Alfred Rossi bought a corner soda fountain in the Italian neighborhood of Chambersburg in Trenton, New Jersey, and lived upstairs. When prohibition was repealed in 1933, Rossi promptly turned the fountain into a bar. “Back then,” Sharon told me, “they just had a meatball sandwich [on the menu].” Rossi eventually expanded the menu to include other Italian fare and made a dining room out of the family’s living space. But it was Michael’s son, Alfred Michael Rossi, who would bring their now-famous burger to the menu in the early 1960s.

Al Rossi had a promising career in professional baseball and played for the Washington Senators farm team for 11 years. Just as he was offered a spot on the Philadelphia Athletics roster, his brother shipped off to fight in World War II. Al’s dad told him to leave baseball, come home, and help run the restaurant. In this family, that’s just what you did.

Maybe if Al Rossi had continued on his path to be a major league ballplayer there would be no Rossiburger, a thought most would probably not like to entertain.

There’s only one burger to order at Rossi’s and it is very large and only comes in one size. “That’s the million-dollar question, ‘Can we get a smaller burger?’” Sharon told me, “Nope.”

Don’t be put off by the enormous mound of meat in front of you though. Despite its size, the burger at Rossi’s is moist and loosely packed, its center almost pebbly. It’s actually a breeze to eat, especially if you are hungry.

Rossi’s gets a delivery of fresh-ground 87/13 chuck daily and can go through 250 pounds over the weekend. The burgers are unmeasured but are around a half pound. They are loosely hand-pattied by Rossi family member and head chef Ted and cooked by indirect heat in a steak broiler. Nothing is added, no salt, no pepper, and it’s served on a freshly baked kaiser roll with
nothing but a slice of raw onion.

Just about everyone involved at Rossi’s is family. Sharon explained, “When we run out of family, we pull in other people.” Today, Rossi’s is run by Al’s children, Sharon and Michael. They have both been at Rossi’s for almost 40 years. The Chambersburg neighborhood is also like one big family. At one point during my interview with her in front of the restaurant, Sharon stopped a passing car for some fact-checking on the history of Rossi’s.

Thanks to his involvement with professional baseball, Al Rossi had an impressive roster of buddies. Joe DiMaggio was a frequent visitor, as were Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams. Joe D didn’t go to Rossi’s for the burger though, he went to see his good friend Al and have a bowl of his lentil soup. The restaurant is filled with authentic baseball memorabilia and the bar evokes a time when baseball greats might have mingled freely with their fans. For years, a pair of Mickey Mantle’s cleats that were given to Al hung in a corner of the dining room.

Al worked at Rossi’s right up until the day before he died in 2007. “He loved it,” Sharon recalled of her father, “People came here just to talk to him.” Al was involved with the business his entire life and, according to Sharon, “He’d see a pasta dish go out that wasn’t right and he’d send it back.”

 

 

W
hite Manna is, beyond a doubt, one of the most historically important burger joints in America. As the burger business began widespread franchising in the 1960s, most of the tiny burger counters across America were wiped out. Amazingly, White Manna survives and thrives, even with a McDonalds directly across the street.

There was a time in America when the burgers you ate were small and came from a tiny stainless steel or white porcelain paneled diner. Thanks to the success of White Castle in America, most burger counters used the word “white” in their names to convey cleanliness. In the case of this diner, the biblical word “manna” is used, as in
bread from heaven
.

White Manna is a vintage Paramount diner that still proudly serves the early-century American classic “slider” burger. The diner is the descendant of the 1939 Worlds Fair “Diner of the Future” that was built to represent the future of fast food. The original White Manna was purchased by Louis Bridges and brought to Jersey City, where it remains today. Louis built four other White Mannas around northern New Jersey, but only the Hackensack and Jersey City locations survive. Inside and out, the tiny diner remains true to its original design. The structure is sheathed in stainless steel, has vertical white porcelain panels beneath the windows, and includes Paramount Diner Company’s signature use of glass block throughout.

The interior cannot be more than 130 square feet. Behind a small horseshoe counter surrounded by stools, a short-order cook takes one order after the next, never putting pen to paper. You sit patiently, taking in the thick oniony aroma, until the cook makes eye contact with you. When you place your order, the cook reaches into a pan below the counter, grabs golf ball–sized balls of meat, presses them onto the tiny griddle, and places a wad of thinly sliced onion on top. If you ask for a double, two of the small balls of beef get pressed together. The cook uses a right-to-left system on the griddle to keep track and miraculously keeps all of the orders straight. Similar to the original White Castle system, buns are placed atop the cooking burgers to soften and soak up the onion essence.

The sliders are served on soft potato rolls on a paper plate with a pile of pickle chips. If you order cheese, expect not a picture-perfect burger, but a glorious pile of tangled beef, onions, and cheese that is barely contained by its bun. The burgers at White Manna may not look pretty, but they sure are delicious. You’ll need more than a few sliders to fill you up. Order doubles to accomplish a better beef-to-bun ratio. Esteemed food writer and blogger Jason Perlow prefers to make a meal out of four doubles.

Ronny and Ofer Cohen bought White Manna in 1986 as a business venture, but were also seduced by its charm. “You just fall in love with this place,” Ronny told me. They have changed very little about the White Manna, but admitted an attempt to add potato salad and coleslaw to the menu early on in their ownership. “People walk into White Manna to buy burgers.” Ronny feels the crush of commercial fast food all around him in Hackensack, New Jersey. “The only way I can survive is to do things the old-fashioned way.”

Before walking into White Manna, strip down to the least amount of clothing. Not because it’s hot in there, but because after you leave, your clothes will be infused with the unmistakable fragrance of grease and onions. There’ll be no hiding the fact that you just dined at the famous White Manna.