Hamburger America (9 page)

 

 

T
he inside of the Shady Glen looks like a cheeseburger. The yellow-striped wallpaper, warm lighting, and low brown Formica countertops mimic the colors of their famous cheeseburger concoction. Ice cream may be the number-one seller at this Manchester, Connecticut institution, but the cheeseburger is what has made them famous. In 1949, Bernice Rieg invented the “Bernice Original,” which became an immediate success and still accounts for 80 percent of their sandwich sales today. The
four-ounce cheeseburger comes with four slices of cheese. The cheese is not just stacked atop the burger; it is symmetrically placed, centered on the burger as it cooks on the hot griddle. An understandably large portion of this cheese makes direct contact with the griddle. When the cheese cooks through it is curled skyward by the deft grillman until it resembles a cheese crown. Amazingly, I watched burger after burger leave the grill with the same dramatic cheese. The same burger, over and over, since 1949.

“It’s a special cheese, but that’s all I can tell you,” Michael the manager smiled. Michael started working at the Shady Glen over two decades ago as a dishwasher. “At 22 years, I’m still the new kid on the block.” Shady Glen is a very busy place. There are more than 15 employees in constant motion, waitresses in little ruffled aprons and grillmen in paper caps and black bow-ties. This is the real deal, not a mock-up like Johnny Rockets.

There are no menus at the Shady Glen, just wall menus, and they are basic. You can order a “cheeseburger” or a “big cheeseburger;” the latter comes with the four slices of cheese. The smaller “cheeseburger” comes with only three slices. It’s served on a white squishy bun and delivered to your spot at the counter with your own personal condiment tray of relish, raw onion, mustard, and ketchup. The Shady Glen can sell up to 4,000 Bernice Originals on a busy week. That’s a lot of cheese sculpture.

The Bernice Original

 

I stood by the grill and watched closely—the cheese, which looked like a house-sliced mild cheddar, really does not stick. One of the grill men offered some shaky science. “The carbon, uh, buildup on the griddle over the years acts sort of like Teflon.” I think he’s right. I had a hard time trying to figure out what do with my cheese wings once I had my burger in front of me. Two guys sitting near me at the counter had opposing views. One told me, “Fold the crisps onto the burger and eat it that way.” “Not me,” said the other, “I like to break them off and eat them separately.” A girl sitting on the other side of me was chewing on some cheese crown crisps with no burger in sight. “This is an order of Crispy Cheese,” she told me. This guilty pleasure is served on a bed of lettuce and is not on the menu.

In 2008 Bernice passed away and a longtime employee Bill Hoch and his wife, Annette, became owners of the 62-year-old restaurant. They did not change a single thing about the place, probably because Bill started working at Shady Glen in 1954. He told me with a chuckle, “I’ve been a lifer here.”

At first I was concerned about the large mural that spans the entire west end of the restaurant. It depicts strange elves having a picnic of burgers, hot dogs, and ice cream. As I left the restaurant I looked again at the mural and fully understood its significance—the Shady Glen is a necessary fantasy. I hope it never goes away.

 

 

I
f you are looking for a truly unique hamburger experience, go to Ted’s. If you are looking for a potentially healthy burger, go to Ted’s. If you are looking for a char-grilled cheeseburger, don’t go to Ted’s. Ted’s Restaurant is the epicenter of the steamed cheeseburger world—a burger that only exists in central Connecticut. A former owner of Ted’s Restaurant, Ted’s son, Paul Duberek, once told me, “Within 25 miles of here there are about seven steamed cheeseburger places, but we’re the only ones that make ten hot dogs a week and 800 steamed cheeseburgs.”

The steamed “cheeseburg,” as it’s referred to at Ted’s, is just what you’d think it would be—a steamed patty of ground beef on a bun. What you wouldn’t expect is that the cheese is steamed too, steamed to a molten goo. The process starts with a steaming cabinet that holds 20 small stainless steel trays. Specially ground fresh chuck is pressed into the trays and these are placed in the cabinet. The meat cooks through but stays
amazingly moist and unfortunately, looks like gray matter. The result is a burger that loses most of its fat content (it gets poured off) and retains a truly beefy flavor. A “secret” cheese (Paul told me it’s an aged Vermont cheddar, but that’s as far as he’d go) is also placed in the small trays in a separate steamer. Once gooey, the cheese is poured onto the burger, served with tomato, ketchup or mustard (or both), lettuce, and a slice of onion, and placed on a soft kaiser roll.

The origins of the steamed cheeseburger are a bit murky, but it’s believed to have originated at Jack’s Lunch in Middletown sometime in the’30s. Ted Duberek opened his restaurant in 1959 to feed the immense local factory worker population. For over 100 years, that area of Connecticut was home to some of the largest silverware manufacturers and they had shifts around the clock. Ted’s used to stay open until 4 a.m., but started closing earlier as the factories moved their business overseas.

In 2007, suffering from back trouble, Paul Duberek decided to leave the business and sold Ted’s to his nephew Bill Cally. Bill was no stranger to the steamed cheeseburg and had worked at Ted’s on and off during high school and college. Not surprisingly Bill did not change much about the place and plans to own Ted’s for a very long time. He told me, “I count my lucky stars everyday.”

 

 

W
hen Charcoal Pit opened in 1956, it was way out on the Concord Pike surrounded by fields and very few other businesses. “It was all farmland and nothing but a two-lane road,” manager of 42 years Frank Kucharski said, looking out the window of this time-warp diner. “Hard to imagine now.” Yes, it is. Concord Pike today is a densely packed commercial strip. It’s a wonder this burger gem is still standing.

From the outside, Charcoal Pit looks virtually unchanged since the 1950s. The restaurant’s boomerang-inspired marquee with its pudgy pink neon lettering is authentically retro. The interior has seen a few upgrades and design changes over the years and blends styles from the past five decades. If you’re lucky, you’ll be seated at a booth with a tabletop jukebox. These are not props. They actually work. Holly Moore, Philadelphia area food writer and a man who knows where to find the best greasy food anywhere, told me, “Think Richie, Potsie, and Ralph Malph in a corner booth and Al flipping burgers behind the counter. There’s something unmistakably genuine about eating at Charcoal Pit that needs to be experienced.”

The burgers are cooked over an open flame, as the restaurant’s name implies. The large gas grill, in full view of the dining room, is outfitted with a bed of lava rocks that help to evenly distribute the heat. Grillman of 19 years, Lupe spends hours inches from the flames, flipping hundreds of burgers a day.

For some reason, for the first time in all of my burger exploits I did not order the burger suggested by my host. A burger at Charcoal Pit comes in two sizes, a thick half-pounder and a thinner quarter-pounder. He said to get the big one; I opted for the smaller. The thing about flame-grilling burgers is this—thicker burgers taste much better when cooked on an open flame because all of the moisture stays inside the burger. Thin patties have a hard time retaining that moisture. It’s much easier to cook a thin burger on a flattop griddle because the burger stays moist and tasty no matter what you do. I found myself eyeing a neighboring booth’s half-pound burger dripping with juices, cooked to temperature, and realized I should have listened to Frank.

The half-pound burger is served on a kaiser roll and the quarter pounder comes on a seeded, toasted white bun. Seems as though someone was paying attention to burger physics when bun decisions were being made. The fresh Angus patties are delivered daily to Charcoal Pit from a local supplier. “We probably go through over a thousand pounds of meat a week,” Frank told me, “and it’s always fresh.”

Not only are the burgers fresh, other items on the menu are house made, like their crab cakes, soups, and coleslaw. The first time I visited Charcoal Pit I found Frank and another employee in the kitchen straining what looked to be about 10 gallons of homemade vegetable beef soup. “We’re hands-on here,” Frank said as he hoisted the steaming vat of soup.

Outside of burgers, Charcoal Pit is ice cream nirvana. A sign out front proclaims simply, ICE CREAM CREATIONS and they are not kidding. The menu is heavy on ice cream and there is a sundae named after each of the nine local high schools. The thick, hand-dipped milkshakes are enormous and not to be missed.

Every year as the local high schools are letting out for the summer, Charcoal Pit can count on one thing—the prom. “It’s total chaos in here,” manager Joseph Grabowski told me, “They’re really into the Kitchen Sink.” For a minute I imagined a burger with enough embellishment to fill a sink, but Joe explained, “It’s 20 scoops of ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, etc., and two bananas.” Whoa.