Hamburger America (14 page)

 

 

T
he Moonshine Store is one of those places you hope no one finds out about. I never would have known about the Moonburger if I had not seen a clip on
CBS Sunday Morning
calling it the “Best Burger in America.” A claim like that makes me a skeptic from the start but naturally my interest was piqued. I had all but written the place off when I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Believe me, this is not an easy thing to do. Thanks to Ryan Claypool, a resident of nearby Marshall, Illinois, I was coaxed into giving the Moonburger a shot.

The Moonshine Store is at a crossroads in east central Illinois surrounded by cornfields. The drive to Moonshine (population two) is a blur of cornstalks and soybean fields for hours on two-lane roads and the nearest city is Terre Haute, Indiana. There’s a reason the lines are not out the door with city people—it’s too damn far away. But it’s true; the Moonshine does make one of the best burgers in America.

The large country-store-turned-burger-spot does a brisk business regardless of its remote locale. There are no tables inside, just recycled church pews and chairs that line the counters and cases. You place an order at the back of the
store and when your burger is ready, you take it to the bountiful condiment table in the center of the room. If you can’t find a spot on a pew, there is ample seating out back at the picnic tables.

The staff is a sight to behold—a bevy of chatty country women all taking turns at the grill and register. “I don’t work here, I’m just helping today,” laughed one behind the counter. Helen Tuttle, owner and grillmaster, explained, “Friends and family all come down for the lunch hour to help out. When we’re busy we’ll even ask someone in the store to do dishes—we’re not bashful.”

The Moonburger is a beauty: pure and simple, 80/20-ground chuck cooked on a hot gas griddle until moist inside with a delicately crunchy exterior. I asked what the size of the burger was and Helen told me, “All sizes. Depends on what my hand grabs.” They look to be around a third of a pound and served on an untoasted, white squishy bun. Cheese is treated like a condiment and tossed on cold. Trust me—this burger needs no cheese.

The three new gas griddles can hold up to 150 burgers, which is an improvement over the previous electric griddle that only held fifteen. “We can sell 50 to 600 burgers a day depending, and at least 400 on a Saturday,” Helen told me. Many motorcycle tours make the Moonshine a destination for burgers every year, and one visit on April 8, 2010 resulted in a new record. “We made 1908 that day.” Helen once told me, “We do no advertising. I believe the Lord has a hand in this business.” Believe it. These burgers are touched by something.

 

 

I
was tipped off to Top Notch by a friend in Chicago who is a key grip in the film business, the same friend, incidentally, who told me about Mr. Beef on North Orleans (for which I am eternally grateful). This is definitely the kind of spot you need to be tipped off to because it is very far from downtown Chicago. In fact it’s about 25 minutes by car south of the Loop in a neighborhood called Beverly. The journey to Top Notch is worth it because they make, without a doubt, one of the best burgers in Chicago.

Top Notch has the standard-issue brown Naugahyde booths, fluorescent lighting, and wood paneling from the ’40s but takes it a step further to include Bob Ross–inspired oil paintings of soothing waterfalls and mountain scenes. The staff is extremely friendly and the menu lists true diner fare. The shakes, fries, and tuna sandwiches are all good, but the reason to visit Top Notch is of course for the “beefburgers.” They come in three sizes—the quarter pounder, the half-pound “King Size,” and the three-quarter-pound “Super King Size.” A deal breaker for me is the absence of fresh ground beef in a burger restaurant, so I always ask the question “fresh or frozen?” I was directed to the manager of 19 years, Sam Gomez, who, without asking for credentials, dragged me into the kitchen and into their small meat locker. There I was surrounded by the real thing—about five sides of beef and various cuts waiting for their turn in the grinder. Sam told me “our burgers are very fresh.” I had a hard time doubting him.

The burgers are cooked on a large vintage cast-iron griddle in plain view of the counter patrons. They are griddled wide and flat, allowing more of the beef to have contact with the griddle surface. A favorite condiment is the grilled onions, so much so that burgers requested without onions still gather an onion essence. The bun is my favorite kind—white and squishy with sesame seeds, probably six inches across, toasted in the same upright conveyor toaster that Louis’ Lunch in New Haven uses. Sam describes the fries as “pre-WWII,” which I took to mean from a time before fries were frozen. Sure enough, there in the kitchen one employee had the task of gathering up fresh-cut fries that soak in cold water and bringing them to the fryer. The fries are excellent.

I want to have a party there someday—the place is huge and can hold over a hundred hungry burger lovers. Bring your appetite and order at least the half pounder with cheese.

 

 

F
riend and food columnist Marshall King led me to this hamburger. He told me about a decades-old bar down by the train tracks in an industrial part of town that had been serving burgers forever—I was sold.

When I first visited Heinnies, Bill DeShone, third-generation owner, was doing what his grandfather and father did for decades before him—he was walking around the dining room, greeting people, and checking on their food. “There’s always a family member here,” Bill told me, “whether it’s me or my brother.” It’s that kind of pride of place that keeps people loyal. That, and of course, a world-class hamburger.

In the early 1950s, Henry “Heinnie” DeShone chose a spot for his tavern that was a bit remote for the residents of Elkhart. His new venture would be located across the street from one of the busiest railroad hubs in North America. “There was nothing else out here,” Bill explained, and told me that most of the clientele were railroad men. “It has always been a place where the working man could come get a burger, though back then it was a beer and a burger.” True to its roots, the area is still very industrial, though today the local industry is focused on motor home repair and manufacturing.

When Heinnies opened in 1951, the lowceiled bar had a sign on the door prohibiting women (but by 1956 the sign was removed). A small dining room was added to the bar in 1983, and in 1996 a full renovation was completed. Bill’s younger brother, Troy, did the decorating and his obsession with NASCAR is apparent—the walls are lined with an impressive collection of American racing memorabilia.

The menu is loaded with burgers, but the ones to focus on are the classic “Heinniecheeseburger” and the “Claybaugh.” The latter is a larger version of the classic that includes two one-third-pound patties and a wild pile of ingredients including, but not limited to, bacon, mushrooms, and four types of cheese. This one should be reserved for the truly starved. The burger is named after a local policeman and regular named Scott Claybaugh who, Bill explained, just like the burger, “is big and full of shit.” But it’s the Heinniecheeseburger that they come back for, a moderately priced, well-seasoned, great-tasting burger.

Made from fresh-ground prime beef, the Heinniecheeseburger in its simplest form (no condiments, on a bun) is a taste explosion. That’s because of a not-so-secret ingredient included in the DeShone family burger recipe—chopped onions mixed into the beef. “We used to mix in bread crumbs and egg too,” Bill told m e , “It was sort of like a meat loaf.” But because the meat turned bad quickly, the DeShone family decided to stick with
the basics—chopped onion, salt, and pepper.

The meat for the Heinniecheeseburger comes from a local butcher, the same butcher Heinnies has been using forever. The butcher uses scraps from sirloin, filet, and strip steaks and grinds them for the restaurant. After the ground prime arrives, it is blended with chopped onion and pattied on an ancient family heirloom. The tool is a unique patty maker that presses the burgers one at a time to the proper thickness without forming the traditional cylindrically “squared” sides. The result is a patty with craggy edges that looks hand formed.

Bill is slightly befuddled by a newfound group of fans who have discovered the decades-old tavern—the Amish. On Friday nights the back room is full of people from the nearby Amish communities of Nappanee and Shipshewana. Bill assumes that they are drawn to the restaurant by the huge, horse stable–themed dining room that was added in 1985 to the back of the restaurant called “Heinnies Back Barn.” Knotty pine frames each booth like a horse stall and vintage farm equipment lines the walls. “They come in by the vanload,” Bill told me. “Strawberry daiquiris and steak for two!”

The Heinniecheeseburger

 

 

P
owers is the real deal. Not unlike White Manna in New Jersey or The Cozy Inn of Kansas, Powers is a complete time-warp hamburger joint. You’ll be sent straight back to 1940 and a simpler time when the all-American slider was made with fresh-ground beef and your only option was with or without onions.