Memories of Fast Food

Boise, Idaho, has its innumerable charms, but there's one thing it doesn't have -- a White Castle. Nevertheless, I suppose I'll go on living here if I have to.

Growing up in Miami, I'd never heard of White Castle, but we did have its tropical knockoff, Royal Castle. Both chains were much the same, the chief feature being sliders, those miniature burgers with the pickles, the grilled onions, and the soft, soft buns. I believe, though I'm no longer certain, that each patty had five holes in it, like its northern counterpart, so that it would cook faster and wouldn't have to be flipped over. But Royal Castle had one thing White Castle didn't -- birch beer. The champagne of soda, nectar of the gods. It was like root beer, only it wasn't. I'm amazed that I've never seen it sold anywhere else in the country. If you've seen it, please let me know where and what their shipping address is.

The term "sliders" was originally a derogatory term. So was "belly bombers." The two chains eventually capitulated and made "sliders" part of their business vernacular. ("Belly bombers" never did catch on.) These days, many restaurants offer "sliders" on their menus, but most of the ones I've tried are just your basic ground beef cooked the way any other hamburger would be made. The magic is gone. So are Royal Castles. In fact, only one remains today (or did as of last year), on 79th Street in Miami. It should be declared a historical landmark and birch beer placed on a list of endangered species.

Miami was also the birthplace of "the king on the bun," Burger King. My sister's first job was at a Burger King; I think she might still have her name tag. The jingle went, "It takes two hands to handle a Whopper," and when I was a kid it was certainly true for me, anyway. Burger Kings were everywhere; I don't know when McDonald's first appeared, but I was in high school before I ever saw one. Burger King was the first restaurant down there to encourage patrons to "have it your way." I often did -- I went to Royal Castle.

In the early 1960s, we had a drive-in restaurant at the end of our block called the Majorette. This was a holdover from the previous decade, when carhops wore roller skates and you had to lower your windows halfway so trays could be hooked onto them. When we were in first grade, my best friend Mike and I had never had tasted French fries. So one day we pooled our lunch money and bought one small order of fries from the Majorette on our way home from school. My parents weren't home yet, so we sat on the steps in front of the apartment and savored our first bites. I remember they were a little bit crispy and a whole lot salty. Mike immediately encouraged his mother to buy big bags of crinkly fries to keep in the freezer, and the two of us gorged ourselves on them whenever I spent the night there.

Like many cities nationwide, Miami was blessed with Woolworth's lunch counters. My favorite was downtown on Flagler Street. It was actually called Woolworth's 5&10, as in you could actually buy a few things for five and ten cents. It was more than a drug store and less than a department store, but the lunch counter was its true claim to fame. Their hamburgers were notes for their sublime greasiness. The fries, like the buns, had a nice crispiness to them. The counters were amazingly long, and the tireless waitresses, who worked hard and looked as if 40 were the new 80, must have put in a few miles each day. Unfortunately, the kitchen windows weren't nearly as long as the counters, so the waitresses often had to shout your order for the cook to hear. I imagine pedestrians on Flagler must have wondered what the racket was about.

A local restaurant chain called Lum's was famous for its hot dogs steamed in beer. That might not sound appealing, but you'd be surprised. One of its managers, a man named Hal, opened his own restaurant in North Miami Beach and called it Hal's Mug 'n Munch. He served hot dogs and fries in the same red plastic dishes as Lum's, and I think he had a few other things Lum's did as well. I'm sure he came by them honestly, but I never wanted to ask. (His dogs weren't steamed in beer; Lum's surely must have had a patent on that.) My first job was at the Mug 'n' Munch, working in the kitchen. Hal was, oh, how to put this gently . . . parsimonious? I earned a dollar an hour and, after a year or so, had to pledge my future firstborn child to get a twenty-five cent raise. But he was a great guy, and he never forgot me. Four years after I'd left Miami to join the Navy, I dropped by the Mug 'n Munch when I returned home. He was elated to see me, and he served me a Coke while we stood on either side of the counter and recalled old times. Good old Hal. If he hadn't charged me for the soda, I would have been disappointed.

Because my parents both worked, we had a catering service deliver suppers to our door, which whoever got home first would find on the outside steps. They came in stacked tins, and the food was still hot when my mother opened them on the kitchen counter. It wasn't a bad meal, but the menu got old pretty quickly, and some of the selections were less than stellar. (To this day, my sister won't go near candied yams.) But on those weeknights when we felt like a change, the four of us would eat dinner at Walgreen's, which had a small dining area in those days. I wouldn't exactly call what they served fast food, but, like meals at Woolworth's, you ate quickly because the noisy retail environment discouraged leisurely dining.

In North Miami Beach, we had a Coney Island, part of the Northeast chain of outdoor fast food restaurants. Coney Island sold egg creams, which I had avoided all those years until my friend Rich insisted I have one went I returned for a visit in the mid-1980s. Just the sound of it -- "egg" and "cream" -- conjured up all kinds of unsavory associations. But it turned out to be delicious. It had nothing to do with either eggs or cream; instead, it was milk, soda water, and chocolate syrup whipped together to create a kind of fizzy confection. If it had only been called "chocolate surprise" or something alluring like that, I'd have been drinking them all those years.

Ultimately, though, when my sister and I recall our favorite childhood restaurants, one place stands high above the rest, even Royal Castle. It was Fun Fair, a long since defunct outdoor fast food emporium located along the Biscayne Causeway between Miami Beach and the city. After a day at the ocean, the four of us would stop by there in our bathing suits on the way home. My mother and sister would wait at one of the picnic tables under the large covered patio while my father and I ordered at the counter. I always got a foot-long hot dog. It's funny how some sensations stay with you. I can still taste that hot dog today, the juiciness inside, the slightly overcooked skin outside. When we were finished eating, my sister and I would climb on a few mechanical rides in back. I do believe that sometimes she and I went along to the beach with our parents just so we could stop at Fun Fair at the end of the day.

I began this post by mentioning White Castle. When I moved from Florida to New Jersey in 1977, White Castles became my new go-to place for comfort food. One of them was just half a block from where I was living, and sometimes late on a Saturday night I would walk over for six burgers and a large order of fries, then bring the sack home ("Buy 'em by the sack") and eat while watching Saturday Night Live. It wasn't the same without birch beer, though; even the flavor of the burgers wasn't quite the same as the sliders I grew up on. The employees served you through an opening in wire mesh that protected them from crime, and the parking lots were scavenged by pigeons instead of seagulls. But the stomach aches were still the same, and after eating that late, I had all night long to remember those candied yams and the first French fry I ever tasted.


Tomorrow: Restaurants I Have Known and Loved (a sequel)