We have a little trolly car cafe here in my town called The Busy Bee Cafe, it seats about 12 people. After traveling all over the world, the best hamburger I have ever had, was at The Busy Bee. They make the best tasting greatest, juciest, hamburger on earth in my opinion.
I asked the guy behind the counter one time why their hamburgers are so delicious and he looked at me with a serious deadpan face and said. “Grease.”
However “SONIC”,a southern driveup chain gets honorable mention here, they ALWAYS toast the bun. Ummmmmm good. And besides they had Frankie Avalon for their spokes person for a while. (snicker snarf snarf)
Where’s the best hamburger I’ve ever eaten? Well, part of it is distributed throughout my body in the form of fat and protein, and the rest of it … never mind.
I do like Sonic, and you can’t get a burger there without their wonderful greasy tater tots. But the best hamburgers are the ones you grill yourself, with THICK slices of onion and tomato; the kind you have to turn your back to other people when you bite into, because you open your mouth so wide it’s probably too gross to look at.
My personal favorite is the Bellaire Broiler, in Bellaire, Tx. A city inside Houston. Definitely a good burger joint. They don’t try to overwhelm you with 1/2 pound burgers, though you can get a double. I like mine with mushrooms and cheese.
Then there’s Red Top here in C Springs…seriously, the entire burger is the size of a dinner plate. You can order them in a half burger…but they are sooo tasty!
Anyone that visit’s C Springs should check it out, it’s worth the trip ( I think they have 3 restaurants now).
In my house, cooked on my “Lean, Mean, Grilling Machine”. On lightly toasted sourdough, with grilled onions, poop-on mustard, mayo, and tomato. Lots of freshly ground pepper.
Second place: Al’s Big Burger, in El Cerrito, CA. Nothing fancy, but cooked over mesquite coals. And they toast the buns. Very important.
My mouth is watering!!!
Peace,
mangeorge
I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000
It’s in Oklahoma, in a little town just across the Ok/Tx border called Hugo. Population 7000, Saaaaaaalute!
A lady from New Mexico came to visit her kinfolks in Paris, Texas which is just across the redriver State line from Hugo. She had heard her friends in Paris Tx talk about The Busy Bee. She told her them that she was coming into town and wanted to eat there and to please make reservations…The place seats 12 people!!
Baaahhaaa
The Rockaway Athletic Club, right here in the Capital Place to Be, Columbia, SC.
Everyone I’ve ever taken there to try the cheeseburger agrees it’s the best, but we haven’t figured out what makes it so good.
(It isn’t really an athletic club, BTW, just a bar with an extensive menu.)
Close call for me, but both happen to be here in Houston. Cooldude, you should try these places out (although they are both a tad expensive, but I think well worth it).
Hueys on I-45 North near FM-1960
&
Rio Ranch on Westheimer. The Rio Ranch “Fork-n-knife burger” is advertised as having been awarded the title of one of the five best burgers in the country by “some national food magazine that I wouldn’t recognize if someone whacked me across the nose with it”.
Things are random only insofar as we don’t understand them.
The very best burger ever made was from a little place called Joy’s that was outside of Barstow, CA in the early-to-mid 70s. This was a very small building with a counter. The front door had a wood-framed screen door on it. You remember the kind. A squeeky spring kept it closed; and it closed with a sound that cannot be produced by the aluminum-framed doors available today.
The burgers were fried. “Joy” would toss a patty on the cooking surface and liberally sprinkle it from an aluminum salt-cellar. I don’t know what was in it; but whatever it was made this the best burger I’ve ever eaten in my 30-some years on this planet.
Sadly, Joy had an infirm mother and she closed the diner to take care of her. Too bad. She also made a killer mac’n’cheese salad. Never found anything else like it.
The SECOND-best burger was at the Kittyhawk Cafe at the Santa Monica (CA) Airport. Huge patties of ground chuck with just the right amount of grease. Actually, everything they served there was kinda greasy. The breakfasts were great. The burgers were second only to the long-gone Joy’s.
Unfortunately, they sold out and the new place is the Spitfire Grill. (The writer of the movie of the same name has/had his office above the diner. When he needed a name, that’s where he got it.) The Spitfire Grill has okay food; but they must clean their grill or something because the burgers aren’t nearly as good as Kittyhawk’s.
My (now ex-)girlfirend and I flew in to the California City airport once. The burgers there tasted like a picnic. Pretty good, but not “the best”. That place burned down and I haven’t been up again to try the new place.
By the way, pilots are always looking for “$50 hamburgers” (so called because by the time you figure in the rental of the plane, that’s how much they cost). I actually had a “$250 lemonade” once. But I was in a helicopter. L
God, I wish I could duplicate Joy’s recipe!
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”
If you’re ever in town en route to Big Bend National Park and are looking for a good burger, it’s on the road to the park; last chance for a kick-ass burger. (Although I admit that I haven’t had one in a long time.) And try their Menudo on Suday mornings! Alicia’s for anything kicks the shit out of anything that that fancy-shmancy Reata.
Honorable mention, since the joint closed down several years ago, the only place that edged out Alicia’s:
Boatman’s Bar and Grill
Study Butte, Texas
…you could have 'em with fried okra, onion rigs, french fries, and deep fried jalapeños. And Lone Star was the only beer on tap.
…and I’d like to also throw in my vote for Sonic for best burger chain. Mmmm… Cheese Fries…
I haven’t had a good hamburger, I mean a really good hamburger, I mean an orgasmic, religious experience eating a juicy char-broiled hamburger with just the right amount of hot mustard and tomato… ahh… melting just thinking about it… since I quit smoking pot.
If Cecil Adams did not exist, we would be obliged to create Him.
Used to be the U.S. Restaurant in North Beach (San Francisco’s Italian area.) They were very plain, served on a french roll with a weeks worth of fries! Sad to say, US got gentrified… and I can’t bear to try the new place.
We still have Hamburger Mary’s, a place where it’s as much about atmosphere as food!
Great “things hanging from all surfaces” place, and fabulous mushroom burger
Now I am hungry too…
I am a redhead, you see, and I do not tempt. I insist. -Cristi
Mmmmmm burgers… This post is right up my alley!! nothing better then a backyard grilled BBQ’d hamburger in Kansas City Missouri!!! I grew up on them… I could LIVE on them… and I love them… funny though… I know people that have NEVER HEARD OF BBQ’D HAMBURGERS! OHMIGAWD! the poor poor saps… Second though, since I moved to Vegas, is an eating establishment here called “Red Robin” they are a real “wait to be seated, what can I bring you to drink” bar and grill type atmosphere place. They have ONLY burgers for the most part… but you pay for them… $6 - $7 average but you get unlimited fries… Mmmmmm…
There is a small fast food chain here in Mid-michigan that sounds like a Porn title:
Hot n Now. They make the best fast food burgers I’ve ever tasted and their service is spectacularly fast. Well priced too.
