# White castle hamburgers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [May 27, 2003, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723 "2003-05-27T07:27:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/61 "2022-07-18T00:14:29Z")
> [@GUINNESS](#): > > “We got determination - bass and highs > White Castle fries only come in one size I saw the title and immediately thought of the Beastie Boys. And this thread is older now than Licensed to Ill was when this song was checked. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/62 "2022-07-18T00:19:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And (as someone already brought up) why would they add a more expensive cut of meat? Especially since so many people detest the taste of liver. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/63 "2022-07-18T00:24:50Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I think cheese was a whole extra dime, which seemed a ripoff to me. I wouldn’t do the cheese next visit, which may be sooner than I’d thought. I’d earlier described the texture as soft, and, it is, but perhaps ‘gummy’ is a bit more apt. The cheese is not bad but doesn’t add much to the slider besides cost and can easily be left off without much downside. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/64 "2022-07-18T00:25:50Z")
I can’t digest onions very well (they make me really sick) so White Castle burgers have always been inedible to me. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/65 "2022-07-18T00:35:07Z")
I remember White Castle from New York, but the nearest one is now in Phoenix. Maybe its because we have more meth addicts that potheads in NM? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/66 "2022-07-18T00:45:38Z")
White Castle and Harold’s Chicken are nostalgia foods that I sometimes consider indulging in but usually resist. The real experience can’t be as good as I remember them. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/67 "2022-07-18T00:47:19Z")
There are no White Castle joints here on the west coast, so I have to settle for their frozen sliders. I kind of like them, as long as I don’t eat them more than about once a year. But I’d like to try a freshly made one at a WC restaurant someday. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/68 "2022-07-18T01:00:04Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I remember White Castle from New York, but the nearest one is now in Phoenix. Maybe its because we have more meth addicts that potheads in NM? I grew up in Connecticut and remember seeing a White Castle off the highway on our way to NYC. I always wanted to stop there but we never did. And when I was a kid, they ran a commercial about a group who were living in Arizona or California or some other place out west and could no longer get White Castle, so they arranged for a whole truckload to be delivered to them. (Possibly [this commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy9OiAZz3Fc).) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/69 "2022-07-18T01:02:29Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > And when I was a kid, they ran a commercial about a group who were living in Arizona or California or some other place out west and could no longer get White Castle, so they arranged for a whole truckload to be delivered to them. Ideally by Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/70 "2022-07-18T01:09:07Z")
I was gonna say: liver has an obvious taste of myoglobin even in small amounts. Certain cuts of beef will even have this livery taste. I don’t detect the least bit of a livery taste in White Castle, and it doesn’t make a lick of sense given the economics not that it would falsely advertise as 100% beef and no regulatory agency has caught whiff of this scheme. If you’re gonna stretch the beef to be cheap, you’re gonna use bread or something grain based for it to be worth it. I love the things, for the record. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/71 "2022-07-18T01:15:30Z")
I eat White Castle an average of once-a-week, and for over 40 years (minus the 5 or so years that I didn’t live near one). I remember biking home from little league baseball practice, circa 1980, and my dinner was 6 White Castle cheeseburgers and a coke (as I was fortunate to have a White Castle on the way home). My parents gave me exact amount to buy that, or a Big Mac meal, which was the other option for my friends and me. Those were the days! ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/72 "2022-07-18T01:25:15Z")
The internet has grown up a lot since this thread was a toddler. Here’s the ingredient list of all the White Castle products. A text search for “liver” returns zero results. > **[WEBSITE%20INGREDIENT%20LIST%2002.16.22.pdf](https://www.whitecastle.com/pdfs/nutrition/WEBSITE%20INGREDIENT%20LIST%2002.16.22.pdf)** ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/73 "2022-07-18T02:28:53Z")
There are videos on YouTube showing how to make copycat WCs at home. Some of the recipes look pretty good. I occasionally find the frozen boxed sliders at the supermarket here in Toronto. I wish they’d open a restaurant nearby. The ones I went to in Minneapolis were on Lake Street and downtown at 10th and Grant, I think. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/74 "2022-07-18T03:04:30Z")
Found this article a while back. The view is looking roughly south. By the early 1960s, the site of the old library had been turned into a giant parking lot next to a large White Castle. (The Chestnut Tree restaurant, where my dad used to hang out, was adjacent to the WC, a little farther down the street. Beyond that, there was a shoeshine place on the corner, and just up the next block was a used bookshop that had stacks and stacks of old comics I spent hours going through on my knees.) What is especially interesting about this photo is the Green Shoppe hamburger joint, which was still operating after WC opened right across the street. My dad would take me there on occasion before they closed sometime in the mid-60s. There were a number of such chains that sprang up in hope of copying the success of WC after the first one opened in 1921. I’ve tried tracking down the origin of the Green Shoppe but can’t find anything on it. I don’t know if it was part of a larger group or a purely local thing. > **[Long-lost Burger Chain?](https://www.startribune.com/long-lost-burger-chain/90862774/)** > > Odd name, really. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/75 "2022-07-18T14:19:59Z")
I thought I recalled contributing to this thread back in the old days. Turns out I was wrong. There is another thread of similar vintage in IMHO with the exact same title. I’d contributed there, not here. For your reading (but probably not reviving) pleasure: > [@White Castle Hamburgers](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/228443): > > I have yet to meet a person who is ambivalent about [White Castle](http://www.whitecastle.com) burgers. Everyone I’ve met either loves them or hates them. For those who don’t know, White Castle is a hamburger chain found mostly in the Midwestern U.S. At least, that’s the theory. Apparently in Ohio and Indiana they’re in every dipshit little town, but in Illinois they’re only in major metro areas (such as Chicago and suburban St. Louis). Grrrr! :mad: The burgers are about one inch square and are boiled, for lack of a bette… ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/76 "2022-07-18T14:41:58Z")
I had bad GERD for years (it’s 85% resolved with weight loss, but can still flare up), and so many people would say “ah so you can’t eat spicy foods.” Nope–capsaicin had no effect on my heartburn and never did. But onions and tomatoes of any kind, if I wasn’t on a PPI or taking heavy chugs of something like Mylanta, would cause WWII in my stomach for the next 5-8 hours. Which sucked because onions and tomatoes are used in a huge % of foods I enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/77 "2022-07-18T23:27:26Z")
_emphasized text_Question: is anyone else seeing this popup ad when browsing this thread?: [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/xllTzzD.jpeg "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/xllTzzD) I don’t recall Boston ever having a White Castle (there used to be a White Tower in Central Square, Cambridge; that’s the same thing right?) Two years ago I was in South Plainfield NJ, and saw a White Castle. I’d heard they started selling veggie sliders, and being a vegetarian (sort of, don’t grill me okay?) I had to try them. They were perfectly good enough - would order again if they still exist. The vanilla shake I got to go with it was _huge_, couldn’t finish it but next day it was still on my car seat and I finished it; the ice cream didn’t even melt, how do you like that? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/78 "2022-07-18T23:35:55Z")
> [@Hatchie](#): > > The vanilla shake I got to go with it was _huge_, couldn’t finish it but next day it was still on my car seat and I finished it; the ice cream didn’t even melt, how do you like that? It wasn’t ice cream. 😱 ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2022, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/79 "2022-07-18T23:52:00Z")
I once brought a White Castle shake home during a heat wave. I forgot that I left it on the kitchen table, and wondered why, during the hottest week of the year I needed no air conditioning in the house! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2022, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723/80 "2022-07-19T05:03:30Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Except for some notable farting, White Castle has never otherwise disturbed my bowels. There. Same here. For all its supposed legendary gut-ruining, my sole negative digestive experience came from trying to consume some stupid amount at once (20? 25?) back in my younger days. White Castle is fine as a 2-3 times a year thing in my book. More than that and familiarity breeds contempt. On a similar note, I don’t especially like Taco Bell but it doesn’t make my stomach do anything awful either as reputation would suggest. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-castle-hamburgers/177723.md?page=5)