Burger city: L.A. is America's hamburger capital. Don't believe it? Take a charbroiled tour of these classic burger joints

Sunset, July, 2005 by Matthew Jaffe

The remembrance of burgers past begins a block away. Prevailing westerlies carry the essence of the Apple Pan's hickory burger east down Pico Boulevard, past a bank building, and straight to my nose.

I'm not only smelling the burger--ground sirloin to be precise--but conjuring the full sequence of ingredients from the Tillamook cheddar and hickory sauce to the sharp crunch of lettuce. All that even before I make my order.

Better known for lats and lattes, Los Angeles would seem an unlikely burger capital. But landmarks like the Apple Pan are proof of L.A.'s thriving burger culture of counters, stands, and upscale restaurants.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

John T. Edge, regional food expert and director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi, came to town while researching his new book, Hamburgers & Fries: An American Story (Putnam, 2005; $20). He tasted almost 40 burgers in five days ("a frightening thing to reveal") and was struck both by the prominence and variety of burgers found here. "It just runs counter to the expectation of L.A. as a place of calorie-parsing X-ray starlets," he says.

Burgers have been a big part of the Southern California scene for more than 100 years. In 1902, when a vendor named Mike doubled his burger price from a nickel to a dime, it made news under the headline, "Sensation on the Tamale-Cart Route." More sensational was the reputed 1922 invention of the cheeseburger by Lionel Sternberger in Pasadena. And Bob's Big Boy is considered the birthplace of the double cheeseburger, in 1937.

After World War II, burgers became synonymous with Southern California's car culture. "Burgertechture" dotted the cityscape as designers created buildings flashy enough to attract drivers' attention. With its 35-foot-tall tower, Wayne McAllister's 1949 streamlined Bob's Big Boy is the grandest survivor, and a long preservation battle saved Downey's 1953 McDonald's, the nation's oldest, which features the original golden arches design. But other classics succumbed.

The Apple Pan could have easily been one of them. Opened on April 11, 1947 (a date memorialized on the menus), the cottage-style building stands in humble defiance across from that gigantic celebration of the 1980s color palette, the Westside Pavilion. Martha Gamble, who owns and runs the restaurant with her daughter, Sunny Sherman, says that despite offers from developers, they never thought of selling the business her parents started.

"It didn't tempt us because I know how important this was to my grandparents," says Sherman. "There wasn't a thing they would want to have changed."

"We do like our little place," adds Gamble.

Walk through the double screen doors, and invariably all 26 counter seats are filled. There are no reservations, not even a sign-in list. Instead, an honor system prevails, and with new arrivals constantly pouring in, it's essential to do a quick calculus to keep track of your place.

Seconds after I sit, Hector is there for my order. He's wearing an apron and one of those little white paper diner hats: retro-chic elsewhere but never out of fashion at the Apple Pan. Along with Gordon and Charlie and Roberto, Hector is part of a crew that has worked at the restaurant for decades. Charlie has been here for nearly 50 years.

Quick nod, and Hector is gone with the order before popping back with two gray cardboard plates: one piled high with fries, the second empty until he establishes a generous hillock of ketchup. The hickory burger, wrapped in its waxed-paper cocoon, arrives with a slap on the counter. And that first bite is everything that I imagined it would be.

The very design of the classic Los Angeles burger is highly architectural, the by-product of a need for structural integrity mandated by eating on the go. Celebrated as the city has become for rococo creations that bring new meaning to the term gut check--massive burger patties topped with pastrami, sliced hot dogs, ham, and Polish sausages, alone or in combination--the traditional burger is a model of restraint.

John T. Edge believes that the two indigenous L.A. forms both come tightly wrapped in waxed paper: the chili-cheeseburger and the linear descendent of Bob's Big Boy, a cheeseburger slathered with special sauce. "The commonality is that there's a container for unwieldy ingredients," he says. "These are substantial meals crammed within the confines of waxed-paper envelopes."

When it comes to burgers, I have long been a strict constructionist. And so I am also a big fan of Pie 'n Burger, the Apple Pan doppelganger in Pasadena. Opened in 1963, it's owned by Michael Osborn, who began working here in 1972, just after graduating from high school. He takes no credit for the burger's fundamental structure--"a perfect cylinder with a magical fold of lettuce," as he describes it. Instead, like Gamble and Sherman, he sees himself as the caretaker of an institution.

Osborn has done everything he can to preserve the restaurant and its burgers. He has even kept the original placard on the pie case that reads, "TAKE ONE OF OUR WORLD FAMOUS HOME MADE PIES HOME FOR THAT SPECIAL OCCASION ORJUST WHEN YOU WANT TO LIVE IT UP." Friends sometimes razz him for that decades-old "world famous" claim, but as Osborn puts it, "When you start making changes, it's a slippery slope. One thing is different, then 10 things are different."