I don’t know about you, but every time I bite into a seemingly well-crafted burger at a cheap diner, I have a honest hope as to what it would—and should—taste like: the toasty buns, the fresh tomatoes, the melted bit of cheese, the juicy slab of beef…and, so often, I’m let utterly down and out. Sure, it might have bits and pieces of those important parts, but it doesn’t have the whole thing, something that I so desperately crave.
Until now. Let me introduce you to a joint that gets the whole burger done right: Brownie’s Hamburgers, 2130 S. Harvard, in Tulsa. Apparently around since 1956, they’ve had plenty of time to perfect their menu and it has done them wonders, the intoxicating aroma lifting me off my feet as soon as I walked into their narrow diner set-up that I just happened upon this weekend.
As I took a seat to the counter, a waitress handed me a menu and a smile. Brownie’s, it seems, is famous for two things: their Homemade Root Beer ($2.50) and their handmade pies, something I ordered almost immediately, along with a few primo burgers that really aroused my dangling meat-tooth.
As she handed me my root beer in a frosted mug and put in my order, I looked around to see what kind of clientele was in here; this wasn’t a theme restaurant, as it was mostly working-class joes, an elderly couple or two and a burnout that was trying to keep awake as he munched on his cheese fries, though eventually sleep overtook his dreadlocked soul.