Hamburger America (6 page)

A butcher dressed in all white with a white paper cap starts the burger-making process by trimming a large chuck steak behind glass, for all the patrons to witness. The meat is coarsely ground, measured, and portioned into balls using ice cream scoops, then gently pressed into patties six at a time with a special press of Joe’s design. When the patties hit the griddle they contain 6 to 8 percent fat.

Driving down Mission in the Excelsior neighborhood, it’s hard to miss Joe’s. A huge sign, larger than the one with the actual name of the restaurant, announces with incredible candor, JOE GRINDS HIS OWN FRESH CHUCK DAILY. He really does and it makes all the difference.

 

 

I
n a town where finding old, established anything is getting harder and harder, look for this tiny burger stand in West LA for a genuine blast from LA’s past. What’s more, Marty’s has been serving up quality fast food made with fresh ingredients and has never succumbed to the temptation to serve processed frozen food. For nearly five decades almost nothing has changed. “Nothing,” Vicki Bassman told me. “Never will.” Vicki is the daughter-in-law of Marty himself. She told me without pause, “There’s nothing like fresh meat.”

Marty’s is the “Home of the Combo” and this fact is proudly displayed on a sign on the roof of the stand. The combo is so basic you’ll wonder why more restaurants have not followed suit. Invented in the 1950s, the combo at Marty’s is a hamburger with a hot dog on top. It’s a great-tasting way to be indecisive and order both fast-food icons together.

Both meats for the combo come from high-quality ingredients. The hot dogs are Vienna Beef foot-longs and the burgers are pattied on the premises everyday from fresh ground chuck. Longtime grillman Geraldo told me, “We take a three-and-a-half ounce measured scoop of fresh ground beef and press each patty by hand.” They use a single press that produces an almost paper-thin patty, one at a time. On the original, perfectly seasoned griddle, the combo is cooked separately, then wed. The foot-long is halved lengthwise, flattened, and then halved again, resembling a small square red raft. The burger is cooked for less than a minute on each side before the hot dog raft is placed on top. The stack of America’s two favorite fast foods piggybacked on the griddle and separated by a square of yellow cheese is a sight both absurd and beautiful, a sight that makes you proud to be an American.

Burgers come standard with mayonnaise, ketchup, lettuce, onion, and a tomato slice (which Angel slices as your burger comes off the griddle). Mustard and pickles need to be requested. One time a guy on line in front of me asked for his combo “my way,” which naturally sounded very folksy and personal, but he told me, “That just means extra mustard, extra mayo.”

Marty Bassman opened the roadside stand in 1958 and worked the griddle until the late 1960s when operations were handed over to his son, Howard. At the time Howard assumed the business, he was only 17 years old. Today, Howard and his wife run the stand, as well as a successful catering business that focuses on supplying local schools with high-quality lunches and private barbecues around Los Angeles.

I never would have discovered Marty’s had it not been for my LA cousin Dan Appel. The tiny blue and orange burger stand is a blur to most as they speed down Pico. Wedged between a gas station and a fire department, and down the street from popular Rancho Park, the stand is a daily lunch spot for firefighters. “They have a gym upstairs,” former manager Angel told me, “they have nothing to worry about.” The hard-working crew at Marty’s takes orders without writing a single thing down. “I can remember up to 25 orders at a time, in my head,” Angel told me once, tapping his temple.

A throwback to simpler times, the stand offers walk-up service and a few outdoor stools and narrow counters along the sides of the structure. A patio behind the stand (that I only discovered recently) has enough seating for 50.

Howard told me, “When I was a kid, there were mom-and-pop hamburger stands like Marty’s all over Los Angeles. They’ve all disappeared.” Across the street from Marty’s stands the ubiquitous golden arches of a popular American burger chain. Its garish presence, though, doesn’t seem to affect the brisk business being conducted at Marty’s. It seems that the waiting customers are smarter than that. They know where to find a real burger.

 

 

“T
hat was the last slice of butterscotch pie. Hope you didn’t want one,” the waitress said to me on my first visit to this forty-plus-year-old burger counter. The customer I had just been speaking to, who had told me he was visiting from London, said he was not leaving California without a slice of butterscotch pie from Pie ‘n Burger. No big deal. I didn’t know what I was missing. Then I visited two more
times and ran into the same problem (one time I showed up on a day they were not even offering the fabled pie). Finally, on my fourth visit, I got my slice. This pie is not to be missed. Their pie motto (written on the pie safe): “Take home one of our famous homemade pies for that special occasion or just when you want to live it up.”

But the obvious reason to visit Pie ’n Burger is for their incredible hamburgers. Since 1963, the long, faux-wood-grain Formica countertop has seen its share of burger perfection. The burger they made in the ’60s is the same one that is served today. Even the local retail butcher that supplies the ground chuck has not changed in over 35 years. Longtime employee and owner Michael Osborne told me, “The beef we use is top quality and ground coarse. That’s why they taste so good.”

Two other important factors that go into the great-tasting burgers are the original, well-seasoned, flattop griddle, and the homemade Thousand Island dressing. “We go through about 100 pounds of dressing a week,” Michael told me. The recipe came directly from Kraft in the ’30s. Original owners Benny and Florence Foote were in the restaurant business long before opening Pie ’n Burger. According to Michael, Benny contacted Kraft and they gave him the recipe. “We still make it the same exact way, using Kraft mayonnaise.”

A burger with Thousand Island dressing may sound familiar. California’s own burger phenomenon, In-N-Out, also uses the dressing on their burgers. If you order a double-double at Pie ’n Burger, you basically get the same burger, only much better. Both burgers are made with fresh ground beef that has been griddled, served on toasted white buns with iceberg lettuce and the dressing, wrapped in waxed paper. Pie ’n Burger takes a giant leap forward by doubling the quantity of the beef to a quarter-pound per patty. The burgers at Pie ’n Burger are also somewhat hand formed. Quarter-pound balls of fresh beef are measured with an ice cream scoop then smashed flat with a huge can of tomato juice.

The system for cooking and assembling the burgers is all about efficiency. One person flips the burgers while another preps buns with a wedge of lettuce and dressing. The grillmen are seasoned professionals—one, Franciso, told me enthusiastically, “I’ve been here for 37 years!”