My Top 10 Burgers

They were as close as 17 miles from where I lived, and as far away as 2,514 miles. Only 3 were in my home State, and 1 was, in a manner of speaking, in a foreign country.

All were cheeseburgers. None was at the chain Cheeburger Cheeburger, but one was at the place that inspired that sketch.

Five of them were eaten with family. Two were eaten with a member of my family born in 1924, and another was eaten with 2 members of my family born in 2007.

One was eaten in a major league sports facility -- but not one you might expect, given my rooting proclivities.

One was good enough to make the Top 10, but it wasn't even the best burger, or the 2nd-best meal, that I had in a span of 54 hours. One of them ahead of it was good enough to be Number 4 on this list, and it still wasn't the best meal I had in a span of 8 hours.

And one was a desperate dash to avoid a bad burger -- and it became one of the luckiest breaks of my dining life.

10. Five Guys, Rio Grande, New Jersey, November 25, 2016. This was the day after Thanksgiving, returning from a family vacation in Ocean City, Maryland. My sister, my brother-in-law, and their youngest daughter got in one car, and only they know for sure how they got back and what they did. The other car was me, my mother, and my other 2 nieces, the twins Ashley and Rachel.

Five Guys started in the D.C. area, and worked their way Northeast, and are now all over the country. I first found them in Philadelphia, and wasn't impressed. Maybe it was just a bad day, because I've enjoyed them a great deal since. Even my mother likes them, and she's very much in the Smashburger camp. Ashley and Rachel like them, too. When Mom suggested that this was where we should go, none of us hesitated.

And since it's hard to separate one Five Guys burger from another, I chose the one I had with the 3 of them, at this place on U.S. Route 9, outside Cape May and Wildwood.

Five Guys opened a store in my hometown of East Brunswick earlier this year, with a Starbucks right next door. Mom heartily approves, since she's also a Starbucks addict.

9. Lum's, Richmond, Virginia, May 15, 1981. My mother, my sister (then not quite 2 years old), my grandmother and I (then 11) went to Williamsburg for this weekend, and stopped for dinner at this place, a chain that went out of business a year later.

They had a menu item called the Ollieburger. There was a picture of Ollie holding his burger. He looked like Les Nessman, the radio newsman on the then-current hit CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, played by Richard Sanders. Apparently, this burger had some interesting herbs and spices, a la Kentucky Fried Chicken -- which I'd never had to that point (but have since come to enjoy). Ollie and his burger did not let me down. What is a letdown is that I never got to go back.

8. Shake Shack, Flushing, New York, May 29, 2009. This was my 1st visit to the Mets' new ballpark, Citi Field. Restaurateur Danny Meyer founded Shake Shack, Blue Smoke barbecue, El Verano Taqueria, Box Frites and Papa Rosso, all of which can be found there.

I was reminded of the film Pulp Fiction, in which Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) talks Vincent Vega (John Travolta) into trying the milkshake at a 1950s-themed restaurant, even though it cost $5.00 in 1994 -- about $8.36 in today's money, which is still more than a "black and white" (mixed chocolate and vanilla) shake cost at Shake Shack in 2009 ($7.50). It's not worth $5.00, let alone $7.50 or $8.36, but it's a pretty good milkshake. The burger? Also really good.

The problem is, you can (and I did) lose an entire inning on line at Shake Shack at Citi Field. The Mets had years to plan this and get it right, as the Yankees did with the concessions at the new Yankee Stadium. The Yankees got it right. The Mets didn't. So what else is new?

Oh yes, the game: The Mets beat the team then known as the Florida Marlins, 2-1 in 11 innings.

7. Lindy's Bon Apetit, Washington, District of Columbia, October 29, 2011. In 2008, Andy Pollin and Leonard Shapiro published The Great Book of Washington DC Sports Lists. As with other books in this series, representing other cities, they included some non-sports lists. One was "DC's Best Burgers." This list was how I first heard about Five Guys. Number 1 on their list was Lindy's.

It's a small place just east of the campus of George Washington University, in the basement of a townhouse. I won't say it's worth a trip to D.C. all by itself. I will say that, once you're in D.C., it's worth a visit to that neighborhood all by itself. (It's not like the neighborhood is bad, but neither is it particularly noteworthy.)

This was the day that Arsenal beat Chelsea 5-3 at Stamford Bridge, and I watched that game at D.C.'s foremost "football pub," Lucky Bar, off Dupont Circle. Sadly, they didn't serve breakfast. So Lindy's was, essentially, both breakfast and lunch for me.

6. Billy Goat Tavern, Chicago, Illinois, June 1, 1999. Allegedly, this place was the inspiration for "Olympia Café," a sketch on Saturday Night Live, in which John Belushi, playing a Greek immigrant running a diner, would say, "No hamburger: Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger..." (Not "Cheeburger." I've also seen it written as "Chizburger" and "Cheeseborger.") Also, "No fries, chips!" and, "No Coke, Pepsi!"

That was the claim of Don Novello (SNL writer, better known as the character Father Guido Sarducci): That the sketch was based on the Billy Goat Tavern. In fact, Belushi himself, despite being born in Chicago and raised in nearby Wheaton, Illinois, said he'd never set foot in the place. His younger brother Jim Belushi backed this up, saying the sketch was based on their uncle, an Albanian immigrant who had a hot dog stand on the Northwest Side of Chicago.

But the brothers' father, Adam, owned a diner called The Olympia in Wheaton. And there was an Olympia Café on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, not far from NBC's Rockefeller Center studio where SNL was staged, in the late 1970s when the sketch aired. So, at the least, we know where the name came from.

The Billy Goat Tavern opened in 1934, on Madison Street on the West Side, across from the Chicago Stadium arena, then home of the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks. Greek immigrant William Sianis, a.k.a. Billy Goat, bought the bar, previously known as the Lincoln Tavern, with a check for $205 -- about $3,800 in today's money. He knew the check would bounce, but he made the money up on his 1st weekend. Ever since, a sign has been hung in the place, saying, "We don't accept checks, not even my own. -- Billy Goat."

In 1944, both major political parties held their Conventions at the Stadium, and Billy, a Catholic immigrant -- not to mention someone who needed the favor of the city's Democratic establishment just to stay open -- was, naturally, a Democrat, and put up a sign saying, "No Republicans Allowed." This led to angry Republicans demanding to be served, and Billy made money like a Republican that week.

He had a mascot for the bar, an actual goat. In 1945, he took the goat to Wrigley Field for Game 4 of the World Series, and bought 2 tickets, 1 for each of them. At the time, this was perfectly legal, if a bit weird. (Today, only licensed service animals, like seeing-eye dogs, are allowed in sports venues.)

But the fans complained about the goat's odor, and they were ejected. The Cubs lost the Series in 7 games, and Billy sent a telegram to Cubs owner Phil Wrigley, saying, "Who stinks now?" Supposedly, he put a powerful Greek curse on the Cubs, saying they would never win another Pennant -- and the Curse of the Billy Goat, or at least its legend, was born.

The Tavern catered to the Stadium's hockey, boxing and concert crowds (the NBA's Chicago Bulls didn't debut until 1966), until 1964, when Sianis moved operations to 430 North Michigan Avenue, actually the lower deck of that double-decked street.

Why there? Because it was surrounded by the offices of the city's 3 major daily newspapers: The Chicago Daily News (which went out of business in 1978), the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune, the self-described "World's Greatest Newspaper" -- which also ran a radio station and a TV station with those initials: WGN.

Columnist Mike Royko would end up writing for all 3 papers, and the Tavern was essentially his office; he mentioned it in many columns, making it famous long before the Cheeseburger Sketch. When Billy Sianis died in 1970, Royko wrote that it happened in the middle of the night: "Of course. Billy couldn't die during operating hours."

Billy's nephew, Sam Sianis, inherited the place. Royko asked him if he would lift the curse on the Cubs. No, he said, not as long as the Wrigley family still owned the team.

In 1981, William Wrigley Jr. sold the team to The Tribune Company, and they invited him to come and lift the curse. He came, and brought the bar's current goat mascot, and walked him around the field, and, upon completing his circuit, said, "The curse is lifted!"

Except the Cubs had postseason defeats in 1984 (a disaster), 1989, 1998, 2003 (an even more notorious disaster, and at home, no less), 2007, 2008 and 2015. So whatever was standing in the way of a Cub Pennant, it wasn't the Sianis family or their goats.

I visited Chicago on Memorial Day Weekend 1999, and went to the Tavern. There are contradictory signs, saying, "Butt in anytime" and "Enter at your own risk." Sam was there, and was friendly enough -- but there was one notable difference from the SNL sketch: To my dismay, "No Pepsi. Coke." But it did serve a damn good cheeseburger.

Mike Royko did not live to see the Cubs win the World Series in 2016. Sam Sianis did. Sam has also opened locations elsewhere in the city: A few blocks away at the Merchandise Mart, at the Navy Pier, at O'Hare Airport, and a few steps from the original location, on Madison Street, taking on foot traffic from Chicago Stadium's successor, the United Center, which opened in 1994. He also opened a location in Washington, 3 blocks west of Union Station, which appeals to Chicago transplants, including Illinois natives working for the federal government.

5. Hualapai Ranch, Peach Springs, Arizona, March 28, 1991. When I turned 21, Grandma decided I should go to Atlantic City and learn how to drink and gamble. But our intended bus trip got snowed out. So she decided to send me right to the major leagues: She booked a 4-day vacation in Las Vegas. Let's just say that the great burger on this trip wasn't on the flight out, or on the flight back, or at the McDonald's I ate at in Vegas.

We took a side trip to Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, and the Hualapai Indian Reservation. The burgers they served there were from beef raised on the Reservation, meaning they had traveled not 2,000 miles, but less than 100 miles. They were very fresh. And they were very good. At the time, the best burger I'd ever had.

4. Bull On the Beach, Ocean City, Maryland, November 23, 2016. The aforementioned Thanksgiving Weekend vacation not only ended with the family split into 2 separate cars, but began that way. I had looked at the map, and decided that the best place to have lunch would be at the Christiana Mall in Delaware, which was not only pretty close to the halfway point between EB and OCMD, but had a Panera, which I like and Mom loves.

The best-laid plans of Mike and men went astray -- to our advantage. We were just short of Exit 3 on the New Jersey Turnpike at 10:40 AM, when Mom said she was really hungry. And I remembered The British Chip Shop, serving food in the style of the British Isles, in the Philadelphia suburb of Haddonfield, which I described to Mom as seeming a lot like Princeton, which we both like. Had she waited 2 more minutes to tell me, we would have been past that exit. The only problem was, the place didn't open until 11:00, so we had to wait outside for 5 minutes.

She had a shepherd's pie, and I had fish and chips and a bottle of "Scotland's other national drink," the orange soda called Irn Bru (pronounced like "iron brew"). We shared a Scotch egg, which she'd never had before. This was not the healthiest of meals.

We got to Ocean City on time, and our hotel was literally a few steps from the most famous restaurant in the town, Bull On the Beach. I ordered French onion soup and their Bull Brisket sandwich: "Tender brisket smoked over charcoal for 12 hours. Seasoned with a savory, sweet and salty dry rub than completed with sauteed onions and melted cheddar cheese. Served on a fresh toasted onion brioche roll -- Smokey Goodness!" I wholeheartedly agree. And, yes, while it wasn't ground beef molded into a patty, I'm counting it as a "burger."

Speaking of heart, this may have been the day when I most put myself at risk of a heart attack. Having had that soup, I took one bite of the burger, loved it... and realized that I wasn't going to finish it. I also realized that the next day, Thanksgiving Day, was going to present the big meal about halfway between the traditional times for lunch and dinner. So I had the sandwich packed up in a to-go box, and put it in my hotel room's refrigerator, heated it up the next day at noon, and went to town on it. Nice town.

I highly recommend The British Chip Shop in Haddonfield, New Jersey. I highly recommend Bull On the Beach in Ocean City, Maryland. I highly recommend not dining at both on the same day. I want you to live long enough to tell me about it.

UPDATE: The British Chip Shop closed on December 23, 2018. As they say over there, Bloody hell!

The owner was getting on in years, and didn't think he could physically meet the demands that would come with another 5-year lease. He and his familiar still run the English Gardener Gift Shop across the street, and the Victoria Freehouse in Philadelphia's Headhouse Square.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE: The Chip Shop was saved, bought by a new owner who kept it open.

3. Molly Maguire's, Clark, New Jersey, February 7, 2010. My sister invited me to watch Super Bowl XLIV with friends of hers from work at Molly's, near where they (except for her) lived. She told me they had the best burgers she had ever had.

By the time New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton made that gutsy onside kick call, I was convinced she was right. At the time, I hadn't had a burger that good since, and except for...

2. Triangle Waffle, Dunn, North Carolina, July 19, 1993. Members of the youth group at Aldersgate United Methodist Church, including myself, went down to Kingstree, South Carolina to assist a local church with fixing up their parsonage.

Lots of things went wrong on this trip. I made the mistake of wearing good pants, and got paint on them. We lost power for a couple of hours. Our closing-day trip to nearby Myrtle Beach got rained out. But, for the most part, we had a good time.

On the way down Interstate 95, we spent the night at a church in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The next morning, I got into a discussion with one of the kids about how I can usually tell that a restaurant with a good name -- literally, not just its reputation -- is going to have good food.

He was originally from Philadelphia, and told me about The Rib Crib in Germantown, in Northwest Philly. I told him it sounded great. The next morning, we gassed up the vans, and across the road was a rib joint called Oinkers Away. I wanted to eat there so badly, but it was breakfast time, we had to go, and I've never been back to Fredericksburg.

Remember that book of D.C. sports lists I mentioned? Well, there's a Philly version, written by all-sports WIP hosts Big Daddy Graham and Glen Macnow, and they asked former Temple University basketball coach John Chaney to name his Top 10 Philly eateries. He mentioned The Rib Crib. Unfortunately, I keep treating it as one of those places I'll get around to visiting eventually, and never have.

UPDATE: Oinkers Away closed later that year. The Rib Crib lasted until 2017.

Anyway, we went down I-95 through southern Virginia, deep into North Carolina, and turned off into the town of Dunn. Everybody wanted to go to Burger King. You'll notice that Burger King doesn't appear on this list. Nor does McDonald's, but McDonald's is filet mignon compared to Burger King.

In desperation, I looked around, to see if there was an alternative. There was: Across the highway, there was a diner. I never wrote the name of it down. Big mistake. Years later, Google Maps helped me find out it was called Triangle Waffle.

I went in, and ordered a cheeseburger. This was a church trip. God blessed me the with the greatest beef sandwich I'd ever had. It was so good, I ordered another to go, and enjoyed it as we stopped to gas up again in South Carolina. I've never been back to Dunn, either, but I want that burger again!

I thought I could never top it. I'm glad I was wrong:

1. The Ugly Mug, Cape May, New Jersey, May 2, 2015. As I said, you can usually count on a restaurant or bar with a great name. The Ugly Mug is not quite the southernmost bar in the State of New Jersey, but it might be the best.

It serves the Ocean Burger. That's it in the photo. It's a burger with shrimp salad. Maybe the funkiness of Cape May, or the salty Shore air, or something else added to it. But I've never had a better meal in my life. Not even at a wedding reception in the fanciest of banquet halls.

The Ocean Burger at the Ugly Mug is a beautiful thing.