In-n-Out: Overrated.

Such as?

 

Thin-crust pizza (Fuck you, New York)
Hot dogs
Gyros
Italian beef
Italian sausage
Heavy metal hamburgers
Etc.

Also, the worldwide leader in greasy spoons. Nowadays, my parents are older, so they inevitably drag us to to nicer, suburban breakfast joints. Impossible to turn down a free meal, but I'd much rather be sitting at a crowded counter, eating a five-egg omelette and a heaping of perfectly crisp hashbrowns, drinking black coffee out of a white mug that weighs 12 pounds and listening to the beautiful sizzle of a stainless steel grill. Just typing that has my mouth watering.

 

I'm with you on a lot of that, but Chicago hot dogs suck something fierce.

Chicagoans put so much shit on a hot dog that it makes me wonder whether you can even taste the meat in it. Relish, tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc., etc. I wouldn't be surprised if they threw some pubic hair on there just to be garnishment completists.

They stray close to the same edge on pizza, but I also prefer a thicker pizza to the pieces of paper you get in NYC. I'm in the middle when it comes to pizza thickness. I don't mind a thin crust, but it better have some shit on it, like the excellent Bazbeaux's does in Indy.

You're right about the Chicago-area greasy spoons, though, especially for breakfast. There's some local joint in downtown Elmhurst, I forget its name, which has absolutely divine omeletes.

 

Because half the damn Midwest has ended up in Mesa or Scottsdale. That's why there's a half-dozen Culver's out there, too.

 

I like Culver's . . .

 

Culvers is another one of those chains that people kept telling me how good it was and then when I finally went there, I could not for the life of me figure out what the big deal was about the burgers. Mediocre at best.

 

For the Whataburger haters, the problem with them is the problem you have with a lot of places -- you can get crap if the manager doesn't do things right. The one right by my house right now is excellent, but I've been to others where the burgers were just OK or were bad.

Of course, the best burger I've ever had was at Hank's Hamburgers here in Tulsa. The Big Okie is amazing. A heart attack in a single serving, but it was pretty damn good.

 

Carytown Burgers and Fries (carytownburgersandfries.com) has the best burger in town. The Barnyard Brawl (chicken tenders, bacon, egg, white American, usual fixings) is a sight to behold. They also used to have the hardest Ms. Pac-Man in creation, until they replaced it with one of those things that lets you choose from 30 games. But it's not a cabinet, it's a glorious tabletop, a former mainstay of Pizza Huts the world over.

 

Was going to throw some love for swenson's on here, but I was beaten to it.

If you're ever in the Columbus (OH) area, and have 2 hours to kill, it's worth checking out Thurman Cafe for a burger: http://www.thethurmancafe.com/

The burgers are great, but the place seats like 7 people (slight hyperbole), so you're going to have to wait a while.

 

Everyone hating on Whataburger can go DIAF.

The truly best burger joints are the ones that grind the meet on location. The patty doesn't become a patty until you order it. Nothing ever, ever frozen.

You'll spend a little more and die a little sooner, but the wait time wouldn't be much different than the gigantic lines I hear about at places like In-N-Out.

 

At In N Out, even if the lines are long, if the place is run right, it moves quickly. The one in Barstow is the obvious to-or-from-Vegas stop. We went in instead of the drive-thru. Order line took 1-2 minutes, our order number was like, 85 and they were announcing 42. Still look less than 10 minutes.
The one by LAX, supposedly their busiest, still gets you through in less than 10 minutes.