Home Is Where the Burger Is
During this period, customers who longed for White Castle hamburgers could now buy frozen patties and ship them to their homes. This led to the creation of a White Castle frozen food division in 1987, selling burgers to supermarkets across the US and helping people like me fulfill my long-distance cravings.
White Castle’s Contemporaries Profiles
In chronological order.
Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs
Year Founded: 1923
City Founded: Flint, Michigan
Founder: Samuel V. Blair
Number of Locations at the Chain’s Peak: over 400
Slogans: “Mity Nice Hamburger,” “Your Granpappy ate here!” and “Hamburg pickle on top, makes your heart go flippity-flop!”
▶Kewpee was one of the first drive-in restaurants.
▶In 1958, Bill Thomas purchased the Kewpee franchise in Flint, Michigan. Due to a trademark dispute in 1967, he switched the name to Bill Thomas’ Halo Burger. As of 2019, Halo Burger has ten locations operating in Genesee County, Michigan.
Entry door along to Kewpee Hotel Hamburgs in the 1930s with large Kewpie doll looking down.
▶In 1963, the Grand Rapids, Michigan, franchisees broke away as Mr. Fables. The name Mr. Fables came from the founding cousins’ surnames, Dick Faber and John Boyles. Mr. Fables closed up shop in 2000, twelve years after the founders sold the company.
▶In his autobiography, Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, said that Kewpee was an inspiration to him. He frequented the location in Kalamazoo, Michigan, when he was a child.
▶After being approved for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, the downtown Lima Kewpee location never made the list. The reason? The final application had “Owner Objection” stamped on it.
▶There are three Kewpees in Lima, Ohio; one in Lansing, Michigan; and another in Racine, Wisconsin; all still open for business.
Maid-Rite
Year Founded: 1926
City Founded: Muscatine, Iowa
Founder: Fred Angell
Number of Locations at the Chain’s Peak: between 300 and 400
Slogan: “We Do It Rite!”
▶While technically not hamburgers, Maid-Rite’s loose meat sandwiches are very close cousins. They’re made up of ground beef and spices served on a hamburger roll.
▶The original Maid-Rite sandwich came with pickles, mustard, and onion.
▶The Maid-Rite Sandwich Shop in Springfield, Illinois, predates the Maid-Rite company by two years. Since 1984, this location’s building has been a part of the National Register of Historic Places. They also claim to have the first drive-thru window in the US.
▶The Maid-Rite company has over thirty restaurants located in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio, not counting a few former franchisees.
White Tower
Founded: November 17, 1926
City Founded: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Founders: John E. Saxe, Thomas E. Saxe
Number of Locations at the Chain’s Peak: over 230
Slogans: “Buy a Bagful” and “Take Home a Bagful”
▶White Tower restaurants patterned themselves after White Castle. The founders thoroughly investigated White Castle, going so far as to hire a former White Castle operator before opening the first White Tower restaurant. All of this came out over the course of two lawsuits, one of which was brought in 1929 in Minnesota by White Castle against White Tower. White Tower then counter-sued in a Michigan court claiming that they had arrived in Michigan first. The 1930 Minnesota court ruling found in favor of White Castle, forcing White Tower to end all use of their similar name, architecture, and slogans.
▶While White Castle did not force White Tower to change their name as per the ruling, they were required to pay a onetime licensing fee for its use to the tune of eighty-two thousand dollars.
White Tower building moving from Washington Ave to Central Ave in New York on October 23, 1962.
▶White Tower hamburgers weighed one ounce and were served on a two-inch wide roll.
▶The Towerettes were White Tower employees who were dressed as nurses to promote the sanitary motif associated with the “White” in their name.
▶White Tower tested a “Tower-O-Matic” automated restaurant concept during the 1950s and 1960s that proved to be unsuccessful.
▶White Tower locations were slowly sold off, city by city, during the 1980s, until the early 1990s when its parent company left the restaurant business altogether.
▶The Tombrock Corporation, formerly known as the White Tower Management Corporation, still exists as a real estate investment and management company based out of New Canaan, Connecticut.
▶There is one independently owned White Tower restaurant still open in Toledo, Ohio.
Little Tavern
Year Founded: 1927
City Founded: Louisville, Kentucky
Founder: Harry F. Duncan
Number of Locations at the Chain’s Peak: almost 50
Slogan: “Buy ’em by the bag!”
▶During their first few years of operation, the buildings resembled White Castles of the era.
▶The third Little Tavern location in Baltimore opened on January 29, 1931. The Tudor-style building that housed its debut at this location would be the signature look for all future Little Tavern structures.
▶In Laurel, Maryland, you will find the last Little Tavern. It reopened in 2008 as Little Tavern Donuts after having been in operation for sixty-six years, then closing in 2006. The original recipe for the burgers is on the menu.
The Krystal
Year Founded: 1932
City: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Founders: Rody Davenport Jr., J. Glenn Sherrill
Number of Locations at the Chain’s Peak: 420
Original Slogan: “Take Along a Sack Full”
▶Krystal’s first customer was French Jenkins, who spent thirty-five cents on six Krystals (their signature slider) and a cup of coffee.
▶Company lore says that Davenport’s wife suggested the name of crystal with a ‘K’ after having seen a crystal ball lawn ornament. Krystal’s restaurants have often sported a crystal ball on the roof top.
▶The Krystal Square Off was an event sanctioned by the former International Federation of Competitive Eating (now called Major League Eating) held from 2004 to 2009. Contestants had to eat as many Krystal hamburgers in eight minutes as possible. Joey Chestnut set the current world record on October 28, 2007, with 103 Krystal hamburgers.
▶In a 2017 interview, Priscilla Presley mentioned that while in Memphis, Tennessee, Elvis Presley loved to eat Krystal hamburgers.
▶Krystal and White Castle’s locations only overlap in Kentucky (Bowling Green, London, and Somerset) and in Nashville, Tennessee.
▶Krystal currently operates over three hundred sixty restaurants in Alabama,