Great American Bites: A taste of hamburger history in Connecticut
— -- The scene: Connecticut makes a pretty legit claim as the inventor of the iconic hamburger, but while the burger has evolved into a pretty standard design elsewhere (a broiled/grilled/sautéed patty on a bun), here in its birthplace it remains, well, odd.
Louis' Lunch in New Haven is the establishment that says it invented the burger, and while there are many other claimants and conflicting stories, they have the Library of Congress and many historians on their side. In any case, Louis' is an institution that remains pretty much as it was more than 100 years ago, a standalone shack-like building with a World's Fair kiosk look in downtown New Haven, which grew up around the stand. They still cook on the original custom-made upright cast-iron gas grills, sort of vertical waffle irons for burgers. You order at the counter, there are only a couple of tables, and a half-dozen old-fashioned school seats with built-in "arm desks," set into recesses carved into a wooden wall. The décor consists mainly of handwritten signs and admonitions ("Leave bottles here," "Closed all August," etc.) and the back room has been converted into a souvenir stand for t-shirts and logo items. For some reason, pie flavors are intentionally and elaborately misspelled: Appul, Bluuberry, Cheri, etc.
20 miles away in Meriden, Ted's Restaurant is not much more ornate, a narrow diner-style eatery with three booths along one wall and ten stools at the counter along the other, plus two outdoor fair-weather picnic tables. As the sign proclaims, Ted's serves "World Famous Steamed Cheeseburgers Since 1959." The steamed burger is an anomaly of this little section of Connecticut, and there are a few competitors, but Ted's is by far the best known and most popular. Behind the counter is a custom metal cabinet with little drawers, not unlike a workshop parts cabinet, and either a slab of ground beef or cheddar cheese is inserted in each drawer, which are then shut. The cabinet is full of steam which cooks everything. If you get a cheeseburger, the oozy cheese is scooped onto the finished burger. It's a unique style of cooking burgers in a world that has tried every other approach, purporting to be juicer while draining off the fat, and Ted's has a loyal following.
Both restaurants have been widely featured on TV food shows and draw crowds from around the country for their unique appeals.
Reason to visit: Burgers, history
The food: You go to these places for burgers, period, and at Louis' Lunch, the entire menu consists of burger, cheeseburger, raw onion and tomato, with sides limited to bags of chips or a Styrofoam coffee cup of cold potato salad. They have pie for dessert. That's it. They famously refuse to serve ketchup and the biggest selection is beverages, which includes lots of soft drinks, most notably old-fashioned sodas from the local Foxon factory, also served at New Haven's famous Pepe's pizzeria. Louis' is frequently jammed with a line out the door, so on my last visit (my first was 27 years ago!) I went 10 minutes before their noon opening in summer, when Yale is not in session and students are gone, thinking I would slide right in. Wrong. The line was 10 deep, including a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who had ridden from Michigan and were bent on trying the burgers. Ten minutes later when the door opened, the line had grown to 30 - with one near fistfight argument - and when I left at 12:30, it was down the block.
