History Out for a burger ! What's your favorite place ! let's see them !

Bob’s Beef Burger Split from In-N-Out about 1959-60 and the In-N-Out folks don’t talk about it…..at all in their history. The way I recall - In-N-Out Burgers came by way of a customer (that could’ve been family?) who bought Produce through “Snyder Produce” in Baldwin Park which would place the Baldwin Park location right in there. If you grew up in San Gabriel then @ 822 S. San Gabriel Bl. You’ll see a modified building that is an original In-N-Out Burger building that sells statues presently but was “Bob’s Beef Burger” up until the mid 80’s so about the time that the Arcadia location was lost due to redevelopment of the Huntington Dr. Corridor in the mid to late 80’s into the 90’s There’s another original In-N-Out location on Valley Bl. (Years ago In-N-Out used to have pictures of their original locations by #’s and this El Monte location was listed), Haven’t seen it listed since and there’s no history books on original locations other than local year book ads from the era. The owner of this location states that it predates In-N-Out by a year. There was a bitchen little go-kart track behind it and I remember the place as “EZ-Out-Burger”. The “Art’s” sign came later. There are other former original locations throughout the SGV.

 

AJ’S in Ct.

 

Tommy's in LA at Beverly & Rampart. Great burgers and chili tamale outstanding

 

A shame it closed, had a lot of different burgers, named after cars.

 

wow , I forgot about this thread I started in 08....Frisko Freeze still the go place here in North Tacoma

 

the only burgers we eat is In N Out and we have to travel all the way to Calf. to have one.
we travel to USA many times but due to covid our Govt would not let us fly 2020/2021 so we had withdrawal systems.
lucky we were allowed to fly again 2022 and we shot over for 2 months, as soon as plane lands
grab a rental car and shot down to Tustin St Orange and overdose on In N Out.
coming over again Sept/Oct and cannot wait for a burger

 

Got bought out with a name change...no longer there...in Sacramento, featured on Diners, Dives, Drive-ins....
Known for the "cheese skirt"...great burger...was called the "Squeeze In"

 

@Jim Bouchard ^^^^^^ Cool photo of your coupe

 

Hands down,LAZY DOG. The fries are delicious too.

 

We were there at new location on Tustin & 17th st. Santa ana,ca .Off 55 fwy. @ 17th st exit.

 

Anybody mention The Varsity Grill (I didn't read the whole thread) downtown Hot-Lanter Ga.
6sally6

 

No pictures, but I found myself in Angels Camp, Ca and hungry. I thought I’d just grab one of those cheapie double cheese burgers at Burger King with a chocolate shake and call it good. Well, BK closed and was replaced by a place called Frostys. Not related to Frostee’s. I got a large diameter bun with two large diameter patties, lettuce, tomato, red onion, thousand island, like a BK double Whopper looks in advertising photos. Awesome. That big ‘ol dbl burger, a huge pile of good fries and a drink for $9.95. I almost couldn’t finish it. Glad I stopped in.
Friendly staff too, actually acted like they enjoy what they are doing.

 

Thank you!!!! Christmas Eve 2022 at about 10:00pm.
Went for a late night snack after a Christmas Eve cruise and just parked there. While inside eating and looking at my car through the window (gazing) I saw the “ultimate photo opp” and had to reposition the car a little to get it just right. Onlookers in the parking lot looked at me like WTF is this dude doing???
But when I started taking pics, the onlookers started taking pics too!!!! It was a great moment with my car. 40 years of owning it this month.

 

I'm in total agreement with 1320fan. We would visit Tommy's after the drags, after working on our cars and after the motocross at the Coliseum. But then again we're LA natives and Tommy's was and still is a favorite. They were great and messy.

 

In the ‘70s, Tommy’s in LA was a regular dinner run for my GF and I. We rode my ‘37 knucklehead there many a Friday night. It was a pleasant ride from the LAX area through the city back then, no cell phones and fewer idiot drivers.

 

Speedys, Shrewsbury Street, Worcester, Mass 1964

 

Wow Jim, great looking coupe! How did you get it so low?
I had a ‘47 Ford short door coupe with a big old Olds and a hydro just after high school. Different style, mine had a chrome tube axle, white fender well headers and radiused rear fenders with big old Inglewood slicks. I loved that car.

 

@bchctybob
Hey Bob,
Thanks for the compliments. I love your Sam Conrod roadster and your build thread, its one of my favorite threads. And your ‘47 sounds really cool too.

There is a great long story I could write about the how and the why of how the car is so low but I’ve been moving houses and I’m beat so I’ll save the story for another day.

The short version is that I fabricated a 3” dropped front crossmember before one was available from the aftermarket and installed it with a Super Bell 4” dropped axle and a Posies Super Slider “low” front spring with leaf removal by me. It has split wishbones and I cut and fabricated pockets or notches in the frame to give the tops of the wishbones a little extra space. The axle is for a ‘40 ford, because nothing was available at that time for 46-48’s
The ‘40 axle is 3” narrower than the ‘46 allowing the tires extra narrowness for fender clearance.

The rear is set up with SAC parallel ‘40 ford rear leafs, as nothing was available for ‘46’s then, with the ‘40 brackets purchased un welded so I could use pieces of them along with other parts I fabricated.

The good for me thing is the rear ‘40 kit from SAC and the way I made and mounted the brackets allowed the car to sit lower in the back that anticipated.

Part of the long story is that I ended up getting a job at SAC and other shops as a teenager because of all of this work above. My first job there was to develop from my “prototype” a kit to sell to the customers. We ended up making springs that made the cars sit higher as a lot of people didn’t want it so low.


Here is a picture of the car outside at SAC in 1987 and the first installation of my new kit later that year

 

Very cool Jim. Nice that you’ve kept it all these years. Smart move.
I had SAC build the frame for my ‘31 Tudor sedan because I was so busy at my shop I didn’t have time to do it. I really liked their work and workmanship.

 

If it was between 87 and 89 I probably worked on your frame.

 

Bob and Jeans at Santiago Canyon rd and Chapman Orange Park Acres.

 

With Willy’s on Macleod being long gone, these two in cowtown are about it for me.

 

@Jim Bouchard Thanks for the history on your car, neat to hear. I plan on making my own mounts for Posies rear parallel leafs on my 34 Victoria.

 

Bitchin Coupe. I from the east but whenever I am out west, In-n-Out is a stop I always make.

 

In the Westside of Long Beach, the best hamburger was made at the Golden Star Restaurant with a new technology called “Char-Broiled.”

At first, charcoal was used to bring out the flavor of the hamburger. But in the end, gas grill and drippings made the flavor outstanding in all items. That was the best hamburger in all of Long Beach from an always hungry teenager and friends/family.

As far as outstanding hamburgers? Golden Star was the top, with a small walk-in restaurant called Russell’s of Bixby Knolls, was a very close 2nd. As popular as some hamburger stands are today, there is no comparison to quality cooked and presented hamburgers from those teenage days. Everywhere we went on our teenage So Cal adventures, we always looked for the best hamburgers... still there was no comparison...

Golden Star Hamburgers, Long Beach, 60 years old and still going…

Hello,
The high school cruising days were winding down with the aspect of college or a job looming ahead. We had plans to work and save money for traveling before the long grind of 4 years at any college. So, when we saw a neighborhood place to hangout, start up, we were happy.

For a couple of growing older teenagers, we loved the usual hamburgers and fries to supplement my mom’s cooking. This place was now known for “Char Broiling” the hamburgers, so, it tasted like those we made at home on the old barbeque grill set up in the backyard.

Char-Broil was the latest thing. Just down PCH closer to our house, there was a fast food hamburger place that served fantastic burgers and fries, but the burger was flat grilled with oil, not char broiled. (a ketchup squeeze bottle with olive oil in it...squirted on the burger.) The new Golden Star place used an open space grill and let the juices drop on what we thought were barbecue briquettes. That created smoke that went right back through the hamburger patty.

It gave the flavor we have all come to love in our backyard hamburger cookout gatherings. If the afternoon West winds came up from the ocean, we would get the smell of char-grilled burgers to go along with the smell of fiberglass resin from the boating industry nearby. What a combo.

If we took off for a long road trip South to Baja, Mexico, a quick stop at Golden Star was necessary. It was a long road ahead and nothing tastes better than a char broiled hamburger as a late night snack. The caffeine in the real Cokes was enough to keep us awake. By the time we arrived in Baja, the dawn was breaking and we were usually the first guys out surfing some pristine waves.

The best thing about this place is that it was across the street from the gas station where I got reclaimed oil for my first 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery. It was a few blocks from our Westside of Long Beach house. At night, if the activity from Bixby Knolls died down sooner than expected, we always knew of a place that had fabulous char-broiled hamburgers and huge chunky fries for a very late night, teenage snack.

It sure seemed like we were eating a ton of hamburgers. But, the high energy teenage metabolism from our lifestyle must have played a part of growing taller and bigger as we grew up, without becoming a rolling ball of whatever. It was so good that we could have had a Golden Star charbroiled burger for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Throw in a foot long charbroiled hot dog and now that was a full meal.

Jnaki

Little did we know that this place, Golden Star Burgers would last so long. Years after high school, my wife and I were coming to my mom’s house for a quick visit. Since my wife loved the char broiled burgers, she wanted to surprise my mom. So, we stopped at the Golden Star for the other “best” item on the menu: huge foot long chili dogs, too. We ordered several char broiled burgers and several of these fabulous chili dogs for the impromptu dinner.
photo by Vnak
My mom was amazed at the food that we brought over. She loved the chili dogs, but could only eat half, the other portion of her meal was the char broiled burger. This style of food was not normally on her lists of dinner menus, but loved the new food. (a variety of fresh sushi, teriyaki steak and chicken was usually on the menu, when we visited… yum!)

Every time my wife and I visited the Westside of Long Beach, the Golden Star was a destination. The neighborhood was drastically changing, but the taste from this restaurant was still as good as ever. This place was around the main intersection of Santa Fe and PCH, near Mickey Thompson’s shop, too. Anyone or any shop still in the area knows of this place as the reputation has done its job from those early years ago.
The late night hangout always had one or another of our teenage cars sitting in the parking lot.

The Golden Star Burger Place was for us, a place to rest, relax, and park our hot rods/cruisers on the main PCH side of the parking lot. So, any of our friends cruising by could see the 40 Ford Sedan Delivery and other times, my friend’s modified, white 57 Chevy Bel Air Hardtop, or the 58 Impala sitting in the parking lot. Despite the fact that the 1957 Chevy Bel Air Hardtop lived in Bixby Knolls, distance did not play a part of great food when teenagers were hungry.

They have been making this fabulous food for 60 years and it is still going strong.

The Golden Star Hamburger place located on PCH going South towards the LB Freeway. The tall water tank tower in the background is the remnant from the place of my first production line job: working at the Kit Trailer Company…for two weeks. Clay Smith, McEwen/Legrand Speed Engineering, Venolia Pistons and other shops were directly under or near that tall tower location.

Drag race parts shops, nearby, char broiled hamburgers/hot dogs and thick homemade fries were all the best parts of the location at this restaurant. The best cruising food for the hot rod folks and friends… bar none. In and Out may have some hot rod connections from its owner, but nothing comes close to the original Charbroiled Hamburger from Golden Star. YRMV

To quote a late singer, Sinead O’Connor:
“Nothing Compares to You…”

 

Not only a good burger but either homemade chips or the best potato salad in town.

 

The Canteen in Ottumwa Iowa. It opened in 1927 and is in an alleyway downtown.

 

Carls in Brentwood, MO. In business since 1959.
Great burgers and homemade Rootbeer. Mmm!

 

S/S Poncho, I too have eaten at Carl’s and it is indeed a fine establishment!