Hamburger America (3 page)

The Apple Pan looks completely out of place on Pico Boulevard in the neighborhood of West Los Angeles. The small white-shingled burger
cottage is directly across the street from the towering behemoth Westwood Pavilion Mall. All of Westwood has built up around the tiny burger spot but the Apple Pan remains. Where the four-story mall stands was once a pony ride field. If you look directly at the Apple Pan and block out all of the surrounding urban chaos, you will be transported to a burger shack on a quiet country road somewhere in rural America.

Clark Gable used to visit regularly when he was working down the street at Paramount. Jack Nicholson and Barbra Streisand are regulars, as are many other Hollywood stars looking for a late-night burger fix.

The interior looks the same as it did on opening day in 1947 with its scotch plaid wallpaper and now worn terrazzo floor. A horseshoe counter with 26 red leather stools and two clunky old mechanical cash registers surrounds an efficient short-order kitchen. The counterand grillmen all wear crisp white shirts and paper hats and take your order the minute your pants hit the stool. If you ask for fries, out comes a paper plate and the
thwock-thwock
of a counterman pouring ketchup for you. Ask for milk and you’ll receive a metal cup holder with a paper insert. It’s almost as if someone forgot to tell them the ’50s were over. I hope no one does.

The burger menu consists of only two choices—the “Steakburger” and the “Hickory Burger.” Both start as fresh ground beef that is formed into quarter-pound patties in the restaurant daily. “We’ll patty up to a thousand a day,” Sunny Sherman, the owner and granddaughter of the man who started the restaurant told me. The most popular burger at the Apple Pan is the Hickory Burger. What separates this burger from most is a proprietary, tangy hickory sauce that goes on the burger, along with pickles, mayo, and a sizable wedge of crisp iceberg lettuce (no tomato). All of this (and a slice of Tillamook cheddar if desired) is placed on a toasted white squishy bun and served the way most burgers are in Southern California—wrapped in waxed paper, no plate. The Steakburger replaces the hickory sauce with a sweet relish.

Iceberg lettuce on a burger is an LA tradition, but no burger I’ve met takes this condiment so seriously. “We only use the middle layers of the head, not the core or outside,” grillman Lupe told me. “Just the crisp part.” A prep chef slices perfect chunks of the crisp lettuce—one head of iceberg can yield only seven to eight chunks. That’s a lot of heads of lettuce when you are cranking out up to a thousand burgers a day.

The result of biting into this pile of textures and flavors is pure bliss. The softness of the bun, the tang of the sauce, the warmth of the griddled beef, and the snap of the lettuce and pickle synthesize in that first bite like no other. It’s nearly a perfect burger experience.

Walking into the Apple Pan at peak times can be daunting. There’s no real order to who sits where. The trick is to position yourself behind someone who looks like they are finishing (look for half-eaten pie). If you are alone, the wait is
minimal. For groups of ten—forget it.

Ellen and Allan Baker opened the Apple Pan in 1947. Allan had succeeded with another venture across town called King’s Kitchen. From King’s he brought the Steakburger. With the Apple Pan he introduced the Hickory Burger.

Allan built the Apple Pan as a business to retire on and had not planned to work there but did anyway. He hired Joe Kelly, his caddy from his golf days in Chicago, to be the general manager. In 1973, when Joe fell ill, Charles Collins took his job. Charles celebrated his fiftieth year of employment at the Apple Pan in 2007 (and retired after 52 years in 2009), but he is not alone. Many of the countermen have been donning paper caps and serving up burgers and pie for decades. Today the Bakers’ daughter and granddaughter, Martha Gamble and Sunny Sherman, own the Apple Pan. They are committed to keeping the Los Angeles landmark as vibrant as it has been for 60 years.

The timeless quality of old Los Angeles is a draw that is hard to ignore. The Apple Pan does its part to remind us of what can endure in this town of disposable careers and an ever-changing cityscape. But there’s no need to rush down to the Apple Pan. It’ll be there forever.

 

 

W
hen a classic burger joint starts to fade, people tend to look the other way and wait for its demise. And when the icons of the burger business move on or sell out, there’s always the temptation to jump to the conclusion that “It’s just not the same as it was.” Cassell’s tends to fall into this category for most who see the 62-year-old hamburger restaurant as a has-been. I’m here to tell you that the burger at Cassell’s is amazing and this vintage Los Angeles burger cafeteria has most definitely not lost its way.

In 1948, Al Cassell opened a burger joint across from the Bullock’s Department store on Wilshire Boulevard in what is now part of Los Angeles’s Koreatown. He successfully ran the restaurant until 1984 when he sold the business to Hakbae Kim. Mr. Kim, as he was affectionately known, was smart enough to not change anything. In 1986, he moved the restaurant to its current location on 6th Street, just a few blocks from its original location. Today, Mr. Kim’s son, Jon Kim, owns Cassell’s and amazingly, the place has stayed true to its roots.

Cassell made a name for himself by employing a unique method for cooking burgers on equipment of his own design. The large, high flattop
griddle behind the counter also contains two smaller flattops that slide out from underneath. These smaller, sliding flattops are actually the bottom half of a double broiler. When the patty is placed on this flattop and slid back in, the burger cooks simultaneously from the top as well as the bottom. I’m guessing that Al’s invention was designed for speed but he inadvertently invented a method for keeping the burger very moist. When a burger is placed in this contraption, it is not touched until it is placed on a bun. No flipping or pressing is necessary. Manager and Jon Kim’s brother-in-law, Tek Kim, explained, “It holds the juice in. That’s the difference.”

Get in line at the rear of the large, sparse restaurant and grab a tray. Order your burger (the #23, a one-third-pound cheeseburger, is the most popular) and watch the double broiler in action. When your burger is ready, slide down the cafeteria-style stainless steel rails and prepare to dress the burger yourself. I’ve become so accustomed to having classic burger joints prepare their signature burger their way that I was lost at the toppings bar. The choices are limited but great. Choose from standards like sliced tomato, sliced raw onion, pickles, and iceberg lettuce, all very fresh, and add mustard, mayo, and ketchup at will. There’s also a homemade Thousand Island dressing, a recipe of Al’s that you must put on your burger. The amazing mayonnaise is also made in-house and was a recipe of Al’s. “We just follow his way,” Tek explained. There’s no limit to how much you can put on your burger but be sure keep it simple so you can taste the beef.

You’ll want to taste the beef at Cassell’s because it’s unbelievably fresh. Sitting in the front window at Cassell’s is a large meat grinder. “We grind it right here,” Tek explained, and told me that every morning they grind chuck steaks for the day’s burgers. “That’s why we have customers of 30 or 40 years coming back.” He then paused and said, “I don’t think many other places still do this, do they?”

The burgers come in 2 sizes—one-third-pound and two-thirds-pound. The latter is large and sticks out from the super-wide, soft white bun. Even the one-third-pound burger seems really big since the entire package is wide, soft, and floppy. I’d be happy at Cassell’s with a one-third-pound cheeseburger with nothing but Al’s homemade Thousand Island on top.

The Kims have introduced fries to the menu, something that Al never offered. One menu item of Al’s that remains today is a potato salad like none other. Totally unique, this uncomplicated salad is really just boiled potatoes and horseradish and it blew me away. “Some customers come in just for the potato salad,” Tek told me. It’s that good.

Don’t show up for dinner at Cassell’s. The burger restaurant has never been open past its peculiar closing time of 4 p.m. Tek explained that Cassell’s is only open for lunch to feed nearby office workers. Incidentally, if you arrive 30 minutes before closing time the double broilers will be shut off. Fear not though, the large upper flattop, used for warming buns, is where your burger will be cooked.

So before you judge a burger joint on how it looks or make assumptions about its new ownership, get your butt there to judge for yourself. Or take it from me and go to Cassell’s because this place continues to crank out great burgers. It seems to me that the only thing missing today from Cassell’s is Al Cassell himself. “If we are different, the customer won’t come,” Tek told me, and added, “They come here for the name.” I guarantee that Al would be proud of how his place turned out.

 

 

T
he drive to Gott’s takes you right through the heart of the Napa Valley. You’ll pass rows and rows of vineyards and welcoming wineries with products to sample. Take a deep breath and smell the dense, pungent odor of freshly pressed grapes. It seems like the last place you’d find a good hamburger joint. That is, of course, until you pull into Gott’s Roadside.

Gott’s is in the center of it all. Most of the patrons of this updated classic ’40s burger drive-in seem to be the buttoned-down wine-tasting types, but the stand does get its fair share of working-class locals as well. A bit of an anomaly in this part of the Napa Valley, Gott’s has endured the influx of luxury hotels, inns, and spas, as well as a number of high-end restaurants.

The burger stand opened in 1949 as Taylor’s Refresher. In the late ’90s, two brothers with a
long family history in winemaking, Duncan and Joel Gott, bought the ailing stand. The structure received a first-class face-lift, but they made sure to maintain the integrity of the original stand. The city of St. Helena allowed the Gott brothers to expand only slightly, as Duncan put it, “for health reasons.” He explained, “Before we bought the place, the refrigerators used to be outside, out back.” Today’s Gott’s is a super-clean, contemporary version of the former stand with an upgraded kitchen and menu full of gourmet road food. In 2010, the Gott brothers, proud of the burger stand they had resurrected, decided to change the name from Talyor’s to Gott’s Roadside.

The hamburgers at Gott’s are well thought out, tasty, and like so many quality hamburgers of the Pacific Northwest, socially conscious. Duncan explained, “We spent weeks of testing to come up with the right blend for the burgers.” The one-third-pound fresh patties come from naturally raised, hormone-free California cattle. They are cooked on an open-flame grill and served on locally made soft, pillowy buns. A “secret sauce” also goes on all of the burgers at Gott’s. It’s a creamy, tangy mayo-based sauce, a sort of proprietary version of “Goop,” (see page 346) the standard
condiment on most burgers of the Northwest. “The spices in the sauce we keep secret,” manager Dave told me. All of the burgers are served with lettuce, pickle, and tomato in a red-checkered paper basket.