Outside of his hamburger stand, he hung a sign that read “Hamburgers 5¢.” Anderson made $3.75 in sales on that first day. He launched the catchphrase, “Buy ’em by the Sack,” to encourage customers to buy his burgers by the half dozen.
Walter Meets Billy
Anderson’s first location proved to be successful, and by 1920 he had added two more stands. Around this time, he met Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram, a real estate broker and insurance salesman. Ingram also helped Anderson get the lease for his third location. It was when Anderson attempted to get a lease for a fourth location that some issues arose, and Billy intervened. This new partnership was called White Castle, a name was chosen by Billy, who said that White stood for purity and cleanliness, while Castle represented strength, permanence, and stability.
To get the first stand open, they borrowed seven hundred dollars in bond money, which they paid back in about ninety days. In 1926, the cost to open a burger stand was $3,500, or about fifty thousand dollars today. The first White Castle building had only five stools, measured fifteen by ten feet, and was made of cement blocks. It opened at 110 West First Street in Wichita, Kansas, on March 21, 1921.
White Castle was such a hit that by the end of 1921, copycat restaurants started to pop up.
These stands not only sold hamburgers but used a variation of the “Buy ’em by the Sack” catchphrase. A few straight-up used, copied, or were inspired by White Castle architecture. The best known were Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs (Flint, Michigan), The Krystal (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Little Tavern (Louisville, Kentucky), Maid-Rite (Muscatine, Iowa), Royal Castle (Miami, Florida), and White Tower (Milwaukee, Wisconsin).
Even the cities where White Castle opened faced the same issue. Once they established themselves, new competition would show up. Indianapolis was different. A former employee opened a shop there before White Castle had even arrived.
White Castle Innovates
Billy Ingram started to differentiate White Castle from everyone else through innovation, pioneering new methods and ideas:
Better spatulas
Pancake turners were used to cook hamburgers, but they were not made to stand up to the job. So they cut old saws into pieces that were roughly about two inches square, then soldered a handle to make a custom spatula. Eventually, they found a manufacturer.
Electric dishwashers
White Castle was one of the first to install under-the-counter electric dishwashers. These forced them to redesign their mugs so that the rinse water would drain through slots on their bottom rims.
Better exhaust systems
Billy created an exhaust system that allowed the fumes from the hot flat-top to escape upwards via an enamel hood and later a glass hood.
Improved meat sources
As they expanded into new cities, White Castle would locate a meat supplier that only used US government-inspected beef from specific cuts to give it the right flavor.
Paper hats
They procured a patent for folded-paper hats to replace the linen ones of the day. Four years later, as the Paperlynen Company, they manufactured paper hats not only for themselves, but for other restaurants.
Custom buns
White Castle had two bakeries making all of their buns.
Special cartons
A cardboard carton with heat lining was created (the first of its kind in the food industry) so that the burgers at the bottom of the sack would not get soggy or crushed.
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In 1924, the company transitioned from partnership status to incorporating as the White Castle System of Eating House Corporation. The following year, they opened their twentieth location.
To encourage closer relationships between the home office and its employees, plus customers who might be interested, Billy Ingram created a company newsletter named the Hot Hamburger. The name was later switched to The White Castle Official House Organ after a December 1925 contest.
The creation and patenting of a moveable, all-metal White Castle building design with enamel panels on the outside happened in 1928. Due to constant design changes in their early days, fifty-five of them were built. Six years later, White Castle created a new division, Porcelain Steel Buildings Company, to fabricate their castles and equipment.
The switch to frozen beef from fresh happened in 1931 when one of the larger meatpacking companies was able to ship square frozen beef patties to anywhere that White Castle wanted. As they rolled out the frozen patty program over the next few years, it also helped to standardize the hamburgers at every restaurant.
Advertising Works
June 3, 1932, was a historic day for the company. They ran a “buy two, get three for free” coupon ad in the local newspaper for the following day at three in the afternoon. Some experts in the marketing field told them that very few, if any, customers would be interested in using a coupon for a free hamburger. By two o’clock the next day, most of their locations had lines of eager hamburger consumers ready to cash in their coupons. It was such a challenge to keep up with the demand that the next time the ad ran, it was good for five to seven days instead of just one.
Another ingenious idea was a program White Castle created to educate mothers and homemakers about the sanitary conditions of their restaurants and the quality of their food. There was a “Julia Joyce” in every city who would act as the company hostess and guide the ladies around their local White Castles. Upon the completion of the tour, the women were presented with one coupon for five carryout hamburgers for ten cents, and another coupon valid the following Saturday for hamburgers for children.
Billy Goes It Alone
In 1933, Walter Anderson sold out all his interests in White Castle to Billy Ingram for $340,000. The following year, Billy decided to move all company operations from Wichita to a more centralized location at 555 Goodale Street in Columbus, Ohio. The White Castle general offices, along with the Paperlynen Company and the new Porcelain Steel Buildings Company divisions, would have homes there.
By April 1933, White Castles were in 125 locations in sixteen different cities. The mid-1930s found White Castle adding carhop service to their restaurants to compete with the growing drive-in culture. Curb service ended in 1972, as drive-thrus were now the next big thing.
During World War II, Porcelain Steel Buildings Company was not allowed to produce anything that did not support the war, so they accepted contracts to build amphibious vehicles. Meanwhile, the White Castle locations had to deal with meat rationing by selling whatever they had available to them.
“If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs—if we had some eggs,” said Billy Ingram in 1943. “If we had enough help, we could do a good business—if we had something to sell.”
White Castle Sliders Evolve
In 1943, there was a significant change in White Castle cooking technique as Billy Ingram visited every Castle. Dehydrated onions were laid out all over the griddle, and the burger patties were placed on top of them. The buns then covered the patties and onions. This method minimized waste from flipping, which tended to break patties, and shortened the cooking time. By the time rationing ended in 1946, the price of a hamburger was ten cents, double what it had been just seven years earlier.
Between 1949 and 1953, White Castle developed a new hamburger patty with five holes in it. The new patty sped up cooking times with a new steam grilled technique. It also steamed the buns better. The idea was so great that they took out a patent on it.
As the economy began bouncing back in the 1950s, White Castle expanded into high-traffic cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Miami, and New York.