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Mom and Pop Shops Tops in Oklahoma by Ron Stahl Around lunchtime, a tantalizing smell drifts around the courthouse square in Mangum. It’s the pungent odor of frying onions and it is an olfactory magnet that irresistibly draws the hungry to a small white building on the corner. The Hamburger Inn has been serving up tasty fried onion burgers since 1927 or 1928, depending on who is telling the story. The original solid concrete building is scarcely bigger than the nine-stool counter where diners still sit elbow to elbow but this popular Mangum “eating ‘ place” has expanded now to take in three buildings and an ally. The menu has expanded too. “We still serve onion burgers every day but on Friday nights and Saturday nights we’ve added steaks, catfish, shrimp and prime rib,” says owner Bonnie Parker. Parker has owned the Hamburger Inn since 1996 and she admits that owning a piece of Mangum history brings with it a certain amount of community responsibility because people want to hold on to the past. “Do not change a thing,” she says. “They want to bring their great grandchildren to sit on that stool where they proposed to their wife thirty years ago.” So tradition continues at the Hamburger Inn as it does at so many Oklahoma mom and pop diners, drive-ins and cafes. The most lasting tradition seems to involve a unique Mangum practice-topping your onion burger with hot sauce. Lee Garret, who owned the place fifty years ago, developed the hot sauce and started the trend. “When you buy the place, you buy the recipe”, Parker explains. “Whoever works here, they are just sworn to secrecy”. Almost every town has a small, locally owned place where children grow up eating; bring their own children and then their grandchildren. The secret to survival for these local treasures seems to be holding on to old favorites, while adapting to the times. |
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Made by Time-Master Will Sanders |
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Click on this picture for the story |
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Established in 1928, we offer breakfast and lunch, daily specials, dine in or carry out. |