Oklahoma's Classic Burger is a Tearjerker
On Route 66, a roadside shrine to onions and beef.
The sun sets at Robert's Grill off of Route 66.
A SQUAT LITTLE BUNKER on the main drag of El Reno, some 30 miles west of Oklahoma City, Robert’s Grill isn’t a book you judge by its cover. The stucco has seen better days. The awnings over the windows collect layers of Oklahoma grit. Between them, a neon sign shines a single word: OPEN.
But inside, the place is thrumming. Construction and office workers fill 14 stools ringing a red formica counter, passing around a copy of the daily Oklahoman. Behind the counter, hills of thinly sliced onions sizzle with hamburger patties on a time-seasoned griddle. Owner Ed Graham directs the show, one hand clutching his spatula, the other answering the phone and jotting to-go orders. He plates burgers, makes change and greets regulars with a two-word question: “The usual?”
Oklahoma's signature fried onion burgers are said to be products of the Depression, when cooks mashed onions into patties to stretch the meat. Tradition credits their invention to a since-shuttered El Reno spot called the Hamburger Inn (there’s another location, open since 1938, some 100 miles south, in Ardmore), and they’ve been a staple of El Reno burger joints as long as anyone can remember. The standard-bearer is Robert’s, which opened under a different name in 1926, the same year the street outside became part of the newly designated Route 66.
ROAD INTEL
El Reno’s Adams Park is great for a post-burger stretch of the legs, with a dog park, playground and disc-golf course. (There's even a free RV dump site.)
At his griddle, Graham presses the patties thin until their edges fray and caramelize, the ribbons of onion sweetening as they deepen to golden-brown. When he hands one over on a plate, the onions spill from the bun like a fringe. Graham was 12 when he started working at Robert’s in 1979; he bought it from the founding family a decade later. He keeps the menu simple: If you don’t want a burger, there’s always a $5.40 ham sandwich. Mention it’s your first time in, and Graham’s likely to hand over a sample of his beef chili, topped with secret-recipe slaw and lit up with a kick of spicy mustard.
Most days, Graham says, he turns out 250 to 350 burgers in his tiny space. Once a year, though, he’ll do a thousand: during the El Reno Fried Onion Burger Day Festival each May, when some 20,000 hungry visitors descend on the town. “I just unlock my door,” he says, “and we go at it.”
