Hamburger America (39 page)

 

 

I
f you didn’t know what you were looking for, you could drive right by Folger’s. The unassuming little ‘50s prefab on the east end of downtown Ada has only two neon signs in the window—one that reads FOLGER’S, the other OPEN. A short flight of red concrete steps leads directly into hamburger heaven. Inside you’ll find a bright, sunny, clean restaurant filled with the friendliest people. I’m not kidding. Within 15 minutes of my visit to Folger’s, I knew everyone in the place.

Folger’s is definitely a family-run business. In October 1935, G.G. and Christine Folger opened a hamburger concession in the local movie theater
just up Main Street. They opened the current location in 1950 and eventually turned over operations and ownership to their two sons, Jim and Jerry Folger. Today, Jim and Jerry spend the better part of their day behind the large flattop griddle and Jerry’s wife, Wanda, works the tiny 12-stool counter. Orders to-go come in on the pay phone by the front door and Jim makes change at the register between burger flips.

“We have a few other things on the menu but hamburger baskets are 90 percent of our business,” a very busy lunchtime Jim told me. I stood and watched him methodically flip and manage 12 quarter-pound burgers on the griddle at the same time. The Folger brothers engage in a sort of silent culinary dance in their open, narrow kitchen—Jim flips burgers, Jerry dresses them, and Wanda delivers. The dance is repeated over and over again for hours at lunch until hundreds of burgers have been dispensed to happy customers.

“We’ve been open 75 years now,” Jim told me. “We have quite a bit of loyalty and now five generations of families are coming in.” A regular customer named Mike, smiling and rubbing his belly joked, “You can tell I’ve had a bunch of them.” The burger at Folger’s comes with mustard, onion, lettuce, and tomato. Ask for an “Educated Burger” (not on the menu), and you’ll get a burger that replaces the onion with mayo. Make it a “basket” and you’ll get to experience the other reason you came to Ada—for their outstanding fries. Every day, Folger’s manages to go through over 200 pounds of potatoes
for their fresh-cut fries.

“The produce and meat are fresh, every day,” Jim told me as he flattened another hand-formed patty on the griddle with a long spatula. Jim uses large Wonder buns that are perfectly toasted on the griddle. The finished product is a wide, flat burger that is bursting with greasy goodness and flavor.

“The grill used to be right behind the counter, and was smaller,” Bill Peterson, the district attorney in Ada, told me. If it had not been for Bill and mutual friend Tom Palmore, I may never have found Folger’s. Both Bill and Tom grew up in Ada and were classmates of Jerry Folger’s. They agreed that Folger’s was not to be missed on the hunt for great burgers in America—they were right.

 

 

L
egend has it that there used to be two Hamburger Kings in Oklahoma, one in Shawnee and one in Ada, and the Ada location was lost in a craps game. The owners of both were George “The Hamburger King” Macsas and his brother, Joe. The Macsas brothers emigrated from Beirut to Oklahoma and opened the successful hamburger venture in 1927. Today, more than 80 years later, the Hamburger King still stands in Shawnee and proudly remains in the Macsas family.

Dusty downtown Shawnee, Oklahoma, feels proudly American. A restaurant named Hamburger King is almost required in this setting, along with the Rexall Drug store, the furniture store (with layaway plans), and the enormous grain elevators on the edge of town. The Hamburger King exists in its third location in Shawnee; the other two were only steps away and the previous one burned down in a grease fire in 1965.

Soon after the fire, the Macsas family rebuilt a much larger version of their burger restaurant a block up Main Street. Today’s Hamburger King is a large, airy diner awash in pastels. The walls are pink-and-white striped Masonite panels. Two long rows of booths and a small counter in the rear service customers and there are the
constant sounds of sizzling burgers and the whir of the milkshake machine. Since 1965, at least, nothing has changed. “We switched to Pepsi once and the people rebelled,” Colleen Macsas told me. Colleen is the restaurant’s manager and met her husband, owner Michael Macsas, at the Hamburger King in 1975.

The burgers at Hamburger King are fantastic. Fresh 80/20 patties are delivered to the restaurant daily and cooked on a large, well-seasoned flattop griddle. Quarter-pound singles and doubles are offered. Order a double and you’ll get double the cheese as well. Waitress Beverly pointed out, “Most men order the double meat burger.” I was not about to let my manhood be challenged and naturally ordered a double, a half-pound burger loaded with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, and mustard on a toasted, white squishy bun. This burger is not small. Order a “basket” and you’ll get deep-fried potato wedges or tater tots, not fries.

The method for ordering your burger at Hamburger King is one of the most unique in America. If you sit at the counter, expect normal interaction with a counterperson. Sit at one of the many booths and you’ll need to place your
order by phone. That’s right, each table is equipped with a red phone and a single button—your lifeline to the kitchen. On the other end of the red food phone is a switchboard operator who relays your order to the grill cook. The funny thing is, the restaurant is not so large that you can’t just call out your order, but the quirkiness of the phone system can’t be beat.

Regulars in a place like Hamburger King are as expected as good burgers. “See those guys over there,” Colleen said to me, pointing to a group of older men at a booth in trucker hats, overalls, and plaid shirts, “they come in here every day and they bring in their wives on Saturday.” Naturally, I had to approach and ask them the obvious, “Do you guys phone in your order?” One guy, smiling, told me, “Naw, they know what we want.”

 

 

A
s I savored the first bite of my “Men’s Burger” at Harden’s, owner Rick West said in his quiet Oklahoma drawl, “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” This smiling, intense burgerman with piercing blue eyes wasn’t asking about the specifics of the burger in my hand. And he wasn’t asking my opinion of this glorious pile of beef and cheese either. I could tell by the tone in his voice that his question had a larger meaning, as if to say, “Isn’t this what everyone really wants?” Oh yes, most certainly.

Rick started his career in burgers at the age of 12 working at the long-gone Tanner’s Drive-In on Admiral Place and Garnett Road. “I knew that I wanted to be in the hamburger business after working for Tanner,” Rick told me. But it wasn’t Tanner that had the largest influence on Rick. In 1987, after spending many years outside the restaurant business, Rick bought the decades-old burger joint from the hamburger icon Johney Harden. Johney taught Rick the secrets to his success.

As my friend (and local hamburger expert) Joe Price clicked off names of past and present Tulsa burger flippers, Rick said with a serious tone, “Johney trained a lot of those guys.” His influence today is far reaching and can probably be felt in every corner of Tulsa. At one point, Johney even consulted for Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas and designed his first hamburger kitchen.

A large sign hanging underneath the menu at the register says “We cook ’em with a light pink center.” The burgers come in four sizes. The Girl’s Quarter Pound, the Men’s Double, the Triple, and the 4-patty, one-pound B.O.B. which stands for “Big Old Burger.” “If you are a guy and order a Girl’s Burger, you’re gonna get flak,” Rick warned, “but I love it when a girl orders the Men’s Burger.”

The most popular burger on the menu is the Men’s Burger, two quarter-pound patties neatly
stacked on a toasted, white squishy bun. The burger is cooked on a flattop and is actually cooked with a bit of pink in the middle. The large, well-seasoned burger explodes with flavor and is incredibly moist. Just after the patties of fresh beef hit the griddle, they are sprinkled with a top-secret seasoning. Rick is one of the only people who actually know what is in this seasoning and the company that blends the spices for Harden’s has strict orders to keep it to themselves. “People actually call the spice company all the time for the recipe,” Rick told me.

Rick Harden

 

The onion rings at Harden’s are legendary. Size alone would be a reason to order and ogle these rings. They are so large that they resemble bangle bracelets. They taste amazing. Where most battered onion rings separate on contact, these stay together. Whatever process Rick uses has the batter sticking to the onion like glue.