A Hamburger Today
Dear AHT: 'A Lost Burger Maker'
We received this plea for help in the AHT inbox asking to help identify a burger joint in Temple City, California, from the 1950s. Alas, we are not very familiar with burger joints from that time and place. Can any of you help out Joe?
In the mid 1950s there was a small hamburger stand on Las Tunas in Temple City, California, not far from Rosemead Blvd. It was in a small wood sided building that may have once housed a small one-man real estate office.
This too was a one man operation with a small counter for maybe 4 people. A lot of the business was "to go" with orders placed by phone. My family had to watch its money but these burgers were so popular that we ordered them often for Saturday lunch.
The menu was limited the specialty was a hamburger. The patty was rectangular and served on a split French baguette. The meat was good and the bun was fresh and chewy and absorbed a lot of the juice. However, the best part of the hamburger was the sauce. It was a dark brown, thick sauce that was very tasty. I was about 12 and I am not sure I can add more than that it was very good. It was possibly the most sophisticated hamburger sauce I had ever tasted. It wasn't sharp or spicy like a chili sauce, it wasn't like a ketchup, and it didn't seem to be like a sweet barbecue sauce. At the time I thought it tasted a little like Worcestershire sauce. I don't think the hamburger was sold with any vegetables on it at all.
The owner was older than my parents by quite a bit. We moved away from Temple City in 1957 and a few years later when I could drive I went back to Temple City and the restaurant had closed. The neighbors said he may have opened a larger place in Pasadena. I never found were his new restaurant was located. The owner's daughter was an acquaintance of my parents. It was understood that she remarried and moved to northern California somewhere. He too may have moved north.
Too much time has passed for the man to still be operating a hamburger stand, but perhaps someone is still making hamburgers to the same recipe. Does this info ring any bells? If so I would love to have one of those hamburgers again. I would love to have the recipe for the sauce.
Sincerely,
Joe Alexander