tesg's guide to big chain road food consumption

CHAIN -- White Castle
Owner -- Privately held
Primary Operating Region -- A select group of markets: Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, Minneapolis, Nashville, Northeast Ohio, New Jersey, New York City, and St Louis.
Number of Locations --  384 (2003)

You may love McDonald's.  You may love Burger King.  You may love any number of hamburger chains.  It doesn't matter.  You have White Castle and those little five-hole hamburgers to thank for paving the way.

Walt Anderson was a short order cook in Wichita, Kansas when he began experimenting with hamburger.  According to "Selling 'em by the Sack" (David Gerard Hogan), Anderson got frustrated with a meatball and flattened it on the grill one day, thereby effectively inventing the modern hamburger.  Anderson found the flattened patty cooked faster that way, seared on both sides.  His customers liked them, especially with onions served on a bun.

Anderson started his first hamburger stand in 1916 on an $80 loan, modifying an old shoe store with an iron griddle, a table, and three stools.  He had to effectively borrow the meat and buns from a grocer for the first day (repaid at noon).  The sign on the building said "Hamburgers 5 cents".  It was an overnight success and led to expansion.  In 1920, there were four stands.  But the stands were considered shabby by many, and getting space or funding for additional stands proved difficult.  Enter Edgar "Waldo" Billy Ingram, an insurance and real estate broker handling a deal for leased space, who co-signed on a lease and became a principal investor in the business with $700.  Ingram became convinced that the poor image of hamburger stands and hamburger itself needed to be overcome and he came up with a complete makeover for the company.  "White Castle System of Eating Houses" was incorporated in 1921 ("White" for purity, "Castle" for strength, stability and permanence.)  The partner's first building, loosely based on Chicago's famed Water Tower, was the basis for all future building design.  The building design wasn't the end of changes.  From the utensils to the clean white uniforms on the employees, everything was to be sparkling.

Growth was phenomenal.  White Castle grew by picking a city as a territory and adding stores.  By concentrating several stores in a small area, White Castle could easily supply them from central sources, also operated by White Castle.  White Castle had its own meat cutting facilities in each city, as well as their own bakery to make the buns.  There was even a paper division to make napkins and disposable folded paper hats (which were sold to other restaurants as well.)  Ultimately, White Castle also built its own buildings.  PSB (Porcelain Steel Buildings) built complete White Castles, from the steel fixtures to the walls, which could be shipped to a location and assembled.  This was also a popular form of construction for service stations.  White Castle set the benchmark for standardization.

Competitors copying the whole concept right down to the sandwich itself sprung up almost overnight, including the still-thriving Krystal chain.  White Castle didn't bother with a lot of them unless they attempted to compete on White Castle's turf in White Castle markets.  An example of a chain that was forced to radically change nearly everything they did was White Tower.

The company moved its headquarters to Columbus, OH in 1934 to be more central to their regions.  More cities popped up and some were pulled out of.  Wichita is no longer a White Castle market.  Kansas City was an early White Castle market that was later abandoned...the re-entered again in the 1980's only to be re-abandoned again in 2001.

Every store is company-owned, and White Castle does everything out of cash flow.  They simply do not believe in debt.  White Castle has never franchised.  Thus while the Mc Donald's and Burger Kings of the world infiltrated pretty much every town in the country (and most of the world), White Castle still operates in a concentrated group of major metros.  They ARE operating some "Cravers Express" units attached to gas/convenience stores, but again in existing territories.  For those who cannot satisfy the White Castle craving in a restaurant, pretty much every major supermarket chain sells the Castles in frozen six-packs.  It's not quite the same because the microwaved product will naturally be dryer, and the frozen versions don't come with pickle.  But adding a pickle is easy and it helps a lot.

The White Castle hamburger, known as a "slider", is something you eat in fours or eights.  You don't order one, fries, and a drink.  They're too small.  But they're also priced for multiple burgers.  They're even popular as ingredients in recipes.  The Slider is a dinner roll-sized bun with a thin beef patty that has five holes in it.  The patty is steam cooked one-sided on top of a bed of onions with the bottom bun on the patty so it soaks up the meat flavor.  The current "five-hole" Slider originally debuted in 1949 thanks to price freezing and a need to cut costs.  It also proved to cook more efficiently and more evenly.  Few complained about the change and some thought they actually tasted meatier this way.  Amazingly, it was 1962 before somebody thought to offer cheese on the burgers.

My personal favorite way to eat sliders is to order eight of them, discard the top buns, and pair two together for an end result of four double-meat sliders with all bottom buns.  Why?  The bottom bun soaks up the meat flavor when cooked.  You'll never eat them the regular way again.  They'll just taste too plain.

White Castle offers several mini sandwiches now, including chicken, fish, and breakfast sandwiches.  The burger line also includes doubles and a bacon cheeseburger.  The usual fries are available, as are onion petals, chicken rings, and regular breakfast plates.  White Castle makes a pretty good chocolate shake.

If they're nowhere near you now, they probably won't be anytime soon.  But if you find yourself in one of White Castle's markets, enjoy!

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