Persian food at an Okie barbecue restaurant February 10, 2012
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This Land Press a few months ago produced this video about the Golden Saddle restaurant, which is on Tulsa’s Admiral Place alignment of Route 66.
Not only does the Golden Saddle serve such typical Oklahoma delights as steak and barbecue, but also Persian dishes. That’s because the restaurant is owned by an Iranian immigrant:
Middle Eastern cuisine isn’t that unusual in northeastern Oklahoma. A whole bunch of Lebanese-Americans arrived during the initial Land Rush in 1889, and more streamed into the Sooner State when oil was discovered during the teens and ’20s.
A good many of those Lebanese-Americans opened steakhouses in Tulsa and the surrounding region, where it’s not unusual to get kibbe, cabbage rolls, and tabbouleh as appetizers. In fact, the Lebanese influence is so pervasive, it’s common to see tabbouleh at small-town Okie groceries and potlucks.
Incidentally, Tally’s Good Food Cafe, on the more-prominent Route 66 alignment of 11th Street in Tulsa, is owned by a Lebanese immigrant.
Enjoy a tipple in Edwardsville February 9, 2012
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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch today mentioned two wineries that operate on the metro-east side of the region — including one on Route 66 in Edwardsville, Ill.
On the outside Springers Creek Winery may look like a corner bar, but the two-building winery has received state and national attention. Last year, the Edwardsville winery was inducted into the Route 66 Illinois Hall of Fame, a designation that recognizes people or places that have made significant contributions to the character or history of the Illinois portion of Route 66.
“It’s worked very well because we’re right on Route 66 and the Madison County bike trail,” said co-owner Colette Andre of her 817 Hillsboro location. “It brings us a lot of traffic. We get tourists from all over the world.”
Springers Creek even offers a Route 66 semi-sweet blush wine and a Mother Road red wine. Springer Creek’s Facebook page is here.
It should be clarified that Springers Creek itself wasn’t inducted into the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame, but the building it occupies did. Its address was the longtime site of Halley’s Cash and Carry Market. The distinctive building was built in 1914, and was a Barns Cash Market before it became Halley’s.
Route 66 enjoys a number of wineries along its path, especially in Missouri and eastern Oklahoma.
The Sooner State’s best BBQ January 28, 2012
Posted by Ron Warnick in Food, Restaurants.2 comments
I’m sticking my neck out, but I’m going to say it anyway — Burn Co. BBQ in Tulsa serves the best barbecue I’ve had in Oklahoma.
I’ve visited great places in the Sooner State, including Van’s Pig Stand in Shawnee and The Boundary on 66 near Luther. But I’ve eaten three times at Burn Co. BBQ — which is right on Tulsa’s 11th Street alignment of Route 66 — in the past few weeks, and have sampled something different each time. I’m ready to declare Burn Co. my personal champ of Okie barbecue.
Amazingly, Burn Co. has been open only about a year, and it’s already got quite a following.
This well-produced video by This Land Press a few weeks ago shows the restaurant (and its critical Hasty Bake connection) very well:
The catch is this: Burn Co. BBQ is open only for lunch, and only from Tuesday through Saturday. And if you don’t get there early, it tends to run out of its most popular entrees, especially ribs.
But if you happen to be cruising through Tulsa about lunchtime, I highly recommend that you stop there.
Dublin Dr Pepper is no more January 14, 2012
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, Food.1 comment so far
Dublin Dr Pepper, a regionally popular soda pop made in small-town Dublin, Texas, soon will disappear from store shelves after the corporation that owns Dr Pepper forced the small bottler to stop production.
Dublin Dr Pepper was notable because it was made with cane sugar, not the high-fructose corn syrup that flavors regular Dr Pepper. Customers would drive literally hundreds of miles to pick up cases of the soda at the plant.
The Dubin bottler also has been operating since 1891 — just a few years after Dr Pepper was invented in nearby Waco.
Dr Pepper Snapple Group sued the bottler in June, alleging that Dublin Dr Pepper was diluting the main Dr Pepper brand and cannibalizing sales.
If Dublin Dr Pepper was hurting sales, it was hard to tell. According to MSN Money:
The Dublin bottler had sales of $7 million a year. Dr Pepper Snapple Group had sales of $5.6 billion in 2010. And, the Journal reported, Dublin Dr Pepper makes up less than 1% of Dr Pepper’s annual U.S. volume.
To settle the lawsuit, the bottler changed its name to Dublin Bottling Works, and will no longer produce Dublin Dr Pepper — or any Dr Pepper, for that matter. The Dallas Morning News said that anything with a Dublin Dr Pepper logo on it is being destroyed. Details of the lawsuit settlement were revealed Thursday.
Naturally, the news could have an adverse impact on Dublin itself, population 3,800:
You could find Dublin Dr Pepper scattered throughout Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri, including Route 66. One of the biggest and most prominent sellers of Dublin Dr Pepper was Pops on Route 66 in Arcadia, Okla. It sold Dublin Dr Pepper both in the small 8-ounce bottles and from soda fountains. It had long been one of Pops’ biggest sellers.
According to Pops’ Twitter account on Saturday, it still had “plenty” of Dublin Dr Pepper left, but was limiting purchases to one case per customer.
A quick search for Dublin Dr Pepper on eBay on Saturday afternoon revealed that one seller was wanting $9,999 for a case. Prices of $10 to $20 for one 8-ounce bottle were common.
You have to file Dr Pepper Snapple Group’s actions under the Corporate Stupidity Department. In an effort to “protect” its brand from a piddly regional producer, the behemoth has created a public-relations disaster that very likely will prove more costly. Boycotts and other angry campaigns seem certain.
Don’t be surprised if the Dr Pepper Snapple Group tries to walk this back in the coming weeks. Whether it can is another matter.
Was the cheeseburger invented on Route 66? January 14, 2012
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The Pasadena Sun newspaper investigates the claim that the cheeseburger was invented in a diner on Route 66 in Pasadena, Calif.
It turns out the case is fairly strong:
Legend has it that teenage short-order cook Lionel Clark Sternberger invented the cheeseburger one fateful day in the mid-1920s at a restaurant called “The Rite Spot” on Colorado Boulevard, west of the Colorado Street Bridge, then part of Highway 66. [...]
The first stop on a scavenger hunt for proof of Pasadena’s cheeseburger birthright was the archives of the Pasadena Museum of History, where reading room manager Anuja Navare found a menu for The Rite Spot. Among steaks, sandwiches and a chicken-and-noodle dish is listed the “Aristocratic Burger: the Original Hamburger with Cheese.” The price was 15 cents.
The menu places The Rite Spot at 1500 W. Colorado Blvd., on the corner of Avenue 64, where a credit union office stands today, and lists a second location at 606 E. Colorado in Glendale, both operated by an L.C. Sternberger. Though undated, the menu was produced by the Trapp Printing Co. in Glendale, which according to records, closed in 1939.
The Sun also checked other records to see when a restaurant in that vicinity was operating. Then there’s this supporting evidence — Don Sternberger, the son of Lionel’s brother, Van.
Van’s son Don Sternberger, 67, of Murietta, heard the story behind the “Aristocratic Burger” as a child serving them at a restaurant the family later opened at 6138 N. Figueroa Street in Highland Park, also called The Rite Spot.
“Lionel was a big eater. One day he just decided he wanted a hamburger with cheese on it and started doing it. That’s how my dad described it to me,” said Don Sternberger, uncertain of the year. “My dad was proud of it. I tried once to get him to go to In-N-Out with me and he wouldn’t.” [...]
Sternberger said his father claimed Lionel grilled the first cheeseburger while working at a roadside fruit, tobacco and hamburger stand that the family had operated prior to building the first Rite Spot on those same grounds in the late 1920s or early ‘30s. The only known photograph of that stand went on display at The Rite Spot in Highland Park after the family sold the Pasadena restaurant and it became known as Henry’s Rite Spot. It appears the photo was labeled “Rite Spot” at some point to identify the unnamed stand as the Pasadena restaurant’s origin, he said. That could explain why the restaurant was not listed as The Rite Spot in the 1927 city directory.
To celebrate the occasion, the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce launched Pasadena Cheeseburger Week to help promote the city’s restaurants.
Restaurants in Denver and Louisville, Ky., also make the claim for the first cheeseburger. But those claims date only to the mid-1930s.
Cookin’ from Scratch will appear on Travel Channel show December 28, 2011
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The Cookin’ from Scratch restaurant off Route 66 in Doolittle, Mo., will be featured in an episode of the Travel Channel’s “Truck Stop Missouri,” according to The Rolla Daily News.
According to the newspaper:
A segment on the Doolittle restaurant’s recent Route 66 Burger Challenge was filmed last week [...] and a followup session was recorded Tuesday at the Phelps County site.
The focus of the show is on the Route 66 Burger Challenge that began in February at Cookin’ From Scratch.
The challenge featured a 66-ounce King of the Road burger. Those willing to take on the task had 66 minutes to finish their meal. The contest drew diners from throughout the region.
Leftfield Pictures, based in New York, was filming the segment. Leftfield has also produced “Pawn Stars” and “American Restoration,” both on the History Channel.
“Truck Stop Missouri” takes place mostly at the Midway Travel Plaza off Interstate 70 near Columbia. The truck stop also boasts an eating challenge — 70 ounces of mashed potatoes and gravy.
Here’s one brave soul who conquered Cookin’ from Scratch’s King of the Road challenge:
Typical day at Carl’s Drive-In December 17, 2011
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Rich Dinkela of HookedonRoute66.com filmed this slice-of-life video at the typically busy Carl’s Drive-In restaurant in Rock Hill, Mo.
Carl’s remains one of the treasures of the old Manchester Road alignment of Route 66 in the St. Louis area. Carl’s has fewer than 20 stools to serve its customers, and nearly all of them are filled throughout a typical day of operation.
Norma Maret Bolin’s excellent “Route 66 St. Louis” book contains a lot of interesting stories and history about Carl’s, including these:
- The building was built in the 1920s as a gas station.
- It became the Foot Long Hot Dog Company in the mid-1930s, then the Good Food Drive Inn during the 1950s.
- It became Carl’s Drive-In in 1959.
- Carl’s uses the original recipe to make its draft root beer, which reputedly became the basis behind the nationally distributed IBC Root Beer.