Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [224]
Meers itself is a sight. In the southwest corner of the state, it is a ghost town that sprung up in the wake of a gold strike in the 1890s, but is now populated by exactly six citizens—the Maranto family, who run the Meers Store. The Store is the only open business, located in what was once a mining-camp emporium. Its walls are blanketed with antiques, memorabilia, pictures of famous and not-so-famous customers, and business cards left behind by happy Meersburger and Meerscheeseburger eaters.
Murphy’s Steak House
1625 W. Frank Phillips Blvd.
918–336–4789
Bartlesville, OK
LD | $
Murphy’s calls itself a steak house, but to us it looks more like a diner: counter and stools, bare-tabled booths, and a staff of superquick waitresses. The menu does include a bevy of steaks in the double-digit price range—sirlons, filets mignon wrapped with bacon, T-bones, and rib eyes—and those that we’ve seen on other people’s plates look good. Nevertheless, it’s not for steak that we recommend a visit to this 1940s-era eatery just east of the Osage Indian reservation. It is for a hot hamburger.
If you picture in your head some sort of beef patty in some sort of bun, erase that image and consider this: pieces of toasted white bread spread out on a plate topped with a large hamburger that has been hacked into pieces, the burger topped with a mountain of French fries, and the French fries topped with a large spill of dark, beefy gravy as rich as Mexican mole. It’s a magic combination, especially the way the crisp logs of fried potato soften in places where the gravy blankets them, imbibing a rich beefy savor for which squiggles of onion (an optional component) are an ideal accent. Even folks who come for steak instead of chopped-up hamburger know to order a side dish of fried potatoes with gravy.
Variations on the theme include a hot cheeseburger, hot beef, hot steak, and hot ham. Extra gravy is available at thirty-five cents per bowl.
The front of Murphy’s menu is emblazoned with a motto that is one of our favorites: “Gravy Over All.” When anyone orders a hot hamburger, the motto becomes a question. The waitress asks, “Gravy over all?” We can’t imagine saying no.
Robert’s
300 S. Bickford Ave.
405–262–1262
El Reno, OK
BL | $
Robert’s is a museum-piece town café, El Reno’s oldest hamburger shop, going back to 1926. Starting at six in the morning, its fourteen-stool counter is occupied by regulars who come for coffee and eggs and home fries or—even at dawn—a brace of onion-fried burgers. Proprietor Edward Graham, who started in the business by slicing onions as a kid, slaps a round of beef on the grill and cooks it with a fistful of onions until the onions become glistening, limp squiggles that only partially adhere to the meat and tend to fall from inside the bun as soon as the sandwich leaves its plate. The hamburger, infused with the sweet taste of onions, is juicy and rugged-textured. Some people add bacon and cheese, but we recommend this burger au naturel.
Robert’s is a good place to sample El Reno’s second passion (after onion-fried burgers), slaw-topped hot dogs, which are known here as Coney Islands. Mr. Graham makes a coarse, pickly slaw that seems to be an ideal complement for the chili sauce that tops the dog.
As for ambience at Robert’s, there is none, other than pure, unadulterated American hash house. Décor is nothing more than a picture of the pro stock race car that Robert’s cosponsored along with Don’s Muffler Shop in 1995.
Rock Café
114 W. Main St.
918–968–3990
Stroud, OK
BLD | $
The Rock Café opened in 1939 when the last stretches of the Oklahoma section of Route 66 were paved. While most of the historic road from Chicago to Los Angeles has vanished, as have the colorful tourist courts, service stations, and short-order diners that once made it a festival of highway kitsch, this solid little restaurant