Paul Simons

Jean Ager - can you name a few of the NJ towns with White Castles? Any near Trenton/Princeton or shore points farther south? Of are they all closer to NY  - Newark, Hoboken Paterson etc?

Jerry Ochs

Paul,

Toms River is due east of Philadelphia (as the hungry crow flies), I think.  There's a belly-bomb joint there.

Paul Simons

Jerry your are a god. Thank you!! Not too far, not for White Castles.

https://www.whitecastle.com/locations/312

And also Forked River, a few miles south -

https://www.whitecastle.com/locations/1003727

Both are right off the Garden State Expressway. The Forked River one is on Rt 9 which Bruce talks about - the road, not the restaurant.

Florence (Now Jean) Ager

Paul,        The closest White Castle to Princeton is 1/2 hour north on Route 18 in East Brunswick, NJ. I drive through for my fried clams "fix" en route from NYC.

Richard Murdock

All this talk about White Castle motivated me to do a little research.  Lo and behold, my down-the-street Safeway carries them.  OK - they only have the frozen sliders, but hey, it's better than nothing.   So I just finished off a box of the frozen sliders.  There are 3 packages inside the box, each package containing two small sliders.   Much to my surprise they were good.  If you add a couple slices of heirloom tomatoes and a touch of  mayonnaise they tasted even better.    Never would have thought I would find WC sliders just down the road.  

Paul Simons

Thanks Jean, I remember driving up 18 to Long Branch some years ago. This would have been before they were there. If there was a White Castle there and I didn't know it, then shame on me!

Glad to hear a good report on the frozen sliders Richard. I have had them too and I agree - the experience isn't the same as being there but it's close enough. Whether fresh or frozen I generally take two of them, toss the bottom bun elements, and put the rest together so that 1 + 1 = 1 but it's got a better beef/bun ratio.

Philip Spiess

The two ingredients that are missing from the frozen White Castles are the hot, fresh-from-the-grill onions, and the pickles; those make the esssential White Castle.  When I was in my prime (which is to say, when I was living in Cincinnati), I would often put down six at midnight with a cup of coffee.

As to Toms River, New Jersey (Jerry and Paul), that is where my older niece was born.  My sister and brother-in-law were living in Barnegat, New Jersey, at the time I was a graduate student at the University of Delaware, so I often spent the weekend over there in the Pine Barrens.  (Never saw the Jersey Devil, though.)

Paul Simons

Phil if you look back a page to post #5078 you’ll see that I went into a bit of detail concerning the onions . It’s true that I neglected the pickles.

Jerry Ochs

For want of a pickle, the taste was lost.

Bruce Fette

WC!

Like Phil, I used to down a bag on various occasions.

Some of you may know that I lived in Arizona for 40 years, but on numerous occasions, I traveled to either Baltimore or DC, or Cincinnati. During this time, the AA often stopped in Chicago or St. Louis for a 2+ hour transfer. It just  happens that in either of these locations, it was possible to take a taxi to the nearest WC, grab a bag and get back in time for the next flight. Of course the bag would then share a WC smell throughout the cabin, making others wish they had also made the trip to the local WC too.

At the WC in Ft. Monmouth, they put ketchup on them as standard practice. Well that was long ago now.  But I will bet that one of you out there has experimented with how to make the frozen sliders just as good as the fresh off the griddle. I hear mayonaise or pickles may help. Any other experimental reports on approaching perfection? Perhaps butter?

Dale Gieringer

One of the diversions we used to enjoy at White Castle was reading the White Castle House Organ, a glossy magazine that featured short letters and comments from White Castle employees, along with their bios and pix in B&W.  It was passable late-night entertainment while we waited for our order.  I haven't visited a White Castle in years;  no doubt the house organ has long gone the way of  TV Guide, Look and the Saturday Evening Post.  Or maybe it survives somewhere in cyberspace - on the White Castle website, perhaps?  I leave it to others to investigate.

Steven Levinson

It turns out that there is a White Castle in Honolulu's Ala Moana Shopping Center.  Son of a gun!

Jeff Daum

We also have 4 White Castles located right on Las Vegas Blvd- the "Strip" and around the Vegas area.  It has been very popular since opening 2015.  And they taste just as good as the ones I used to get 5 for 25 cents (with coupon) as a Patrol Boy at Bond Hill elementary school. 

Paul Simons

Maybe intrresting - a quote from the head of the company 

White Castle burgers aren't grilled, they're steamed. They stack a pile of onions on the grill, then put 30 patties (exactly the number in a Crave Case!) on top. The steam travels through the onions and cooks the burgers, while the holes in the burgers let the steam get inside and through the patties. This ensures an even cooking surface across the patties and eliminates the need to flip the burgers (remember, they are being steamed). It also means they need to spend less time on the grill -- and they can get out faster.

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/why-white-castle-burgers-have-holes

Jeff Daum

I remember that from their early ads Paul, along with that the beef is USDA certified.  Regardless, they are unique and damn good 

Paul Simons

Jeff you have jogged my memory - you were a "Patrol Boy" - an elite squad of intrepid international agents, protecting Bond Hill school students from hit-and-run drivers careening up California Ave, just barely making the turn onto Reading Rd and also just barely not crashing into Lowenthal's drugstore. They didn't come close to the White Castle because it was at the center, not the perimeter, of the arc. I had already got my nerd on - I was a lowly "Movie Boy" and probably still am - I just got a box set of early B & W Perry Mason shows on DVD. Now there was a dude for the Supreme Court job although at times he did bend the law a bit.

But that isn't the main concern. Besides those 12-cent wonders at the corner of California and Reading there was another place on Reading Rd maybe a block towards Swifton that would have been the inspiration for John Belushi's SNL hamburger joint if he had lived in Cincinnati.  They had great burgers,  it was always crowded, and the owner/cook called them "Hangaburgers". Any memory of that? 

Larry Klein

Paul - I think you may be referring to the Red Barn.  They had a location on Reading just north of Swifton, and another on Montgomery about a mile north of Blair Ave.  In HS, Colangelo and I would jump in the green machine and zoom up to Red Barn and back during our 30 minute lunch period. In '66 I had a night job at Gibson Greeting Cards in Amberley and would zip down to the Reading Red Barn for dinner break.  Alas, when I got back stateside from Nam in Dec '69, they were all gone.

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Bruce, I don't know how that ketchup was added but they do that in NY too. I always have to say NO Ketchup when ordering. 

Larry, In 1966 I lived in a house that backed onto Gibson property. You could have said hello.  I also liked Red Barn. The chickens were more like pigeons they were so small but we liked it anyway. I don't think any chicken was as small as Jack in the Box which we used to have in NY but Red Bard was close.  I was happy to see one on the corner of my street my last year in College in East Lansing.  I was in an apartment by then and had no car.  I ate Red Barn too much in those days. 

Paul Simons

Thanks Larry, I remember the Red Barn, liked it too but the place I’m interested in was much closer to that corner of California Ave and Reading Rd. The Red Barn was all the way to Seymour Ave. I went there a few times with Ashley Brown - he had the use of a red Chevrolet Corvair. But the “hangaburger” joint was not part of a chain. It was a mom-and-pop place with the touch of a vaguely European accent behind the counter, running the grill. Maybe Greek immigrants who did NOT open a chili emporium but rather went in a different direction? Maybe from some unfathomable country farther East - Serbia? Macedonia? Cyprus? There are those who say alien beings from distant solar systems walk among us - have they mastered both our languages and our cuisine? An intriguing question. If so, perhaps an alien being could find a way to political power- what would that be like? 

Jeff Daum

Paul, the only place I recall near the Reading Road and Dale Road intersection was the drug store.  It had a soda fountain and may have cooked hamburgers but I only recall the soda and icecream sodas.

Bruce Fette

Perhaps many of you will remember taking a bus toward home after school. The College Hill crowd took a bus to Knowlton's Corner, and then we caught the 17 to go upHamilton Ave to College Hill. At Knowlton's Corner there was Okrents' and next door to it, there was a hamburger stand. When Paul mentioned a hamburger stand, this one at Knowlton's corner came to mind. And I particularly remember it because when it was terribly cold and snowing, nearly all of us would try to squeeze into this place. It probably had 6 stools.  But the burgers were absolutely fabulous, and just what was needed when it was too cold to wait for a bus. Can anyone remember the name of this little burger joint?

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I just happened to pass the White Castle's at Reading and Benson while taking the non-I-75 route back to Glendale after dropping off my ballot at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Norwood (located, among other buildings where the old General Motors Plant stood). My route took me north on Montgomery Rd., west to Losantaville, and north again on Reading Rd. through Roselawn. It was very nostalgic, and equally sad, to reminisce about Roselawn in its day.  Many places long gone, such as the Mandarin Chinese Restaurant on Section in the building at the corner of Reading and Section, the Valley Shopping Center, the Valley Theater, the Fortune Cookie restaurant, the Carousel Inn, Frisch's, and of course the Wishing Well.  Crossing Galbraith into Reading, that little town hasn't changed!

I ended up getting two double cheeseburger sliders to bring home.  Even freshly made, the experience still wasn't the same as eating them hot off the "steamer".  

Steven Levinson

Ann, do you remember when the Mandarin restaurant was in North Avondale on Reading Road across from Lenox Place?

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Ann, the Valley Shopping Center is gone?  I haven't been there in many years - but used to go there when I lived there. There was a dress shop and movie theater. 

Steve, I do remember that Chinese restaurant in Avondale. It was the only one when I was young. When my parents took my sister and I we ordered fried chicken because we had no idea what Chinese food was and never tried it. Now I love it and we ordered in last night here.  We don't eat in restaurants but we sure don't cook every night and bring food home. 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Steve and Barb, I remember when the Mandarin was on Reading Rd. The owner's name, as I recall, was something similar to the former president of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen. That restaurant was a favorite of my mother and her sister. I distinctly remember going to the Mandarin after I having learned to read and allowed to place my own order from the menu. When the server asked what I wanted, I replied, "I want the chicken, but I don't want it half fried." Lol!!