I’m kitbashing a Walthers White Tower hamburger restaurant to look like a White Castle of the 1968-70 timeframe. I’ve done google searches but the only photos that seem to show up are ones from the 1920’s (when the business was first getting started) or from the 2000’s and later - nothing in between.
I know that their colorful orange-and-blue logo didn’t come into use until 2001, so I obviously can’t use that. The early pics show structures with the White Castle words in fancy script lettering, plain black & white. What I really need is to see a photo of a White Castle building that was taken sometime during the Sixties.
I had this in a Pinterest account. Not sure if you can view it or not. I don’t know what city it’s in, or anything about it, just that it must be close to your time line, judging by the vehicles.
White Castle hasn’t really changed its building designed since it still looks like a castle.
Sorry to say since the 60s their 'burgers went from good to terrible. Last two I had for old times sake I had to toss since it was like bitting into a greasy sponge.
Quite true, if I was modeling a Maryland right-of-way; but I grew up in the Rust Belt (near Detroit MI), and I’m modeling a Great Lakes steel mill and an auto plant. I don’t think the LT chain existed anywhere beyond the Baltimore-Washington metro region…
I love White Castles, now or then. I used to have to drive out of state to get them on my way by Ann Arbor, MI. Then we gotne here in LAnsing, but after just a few years, it closed. Sad.
You might contact White Castle directly, they always seem to have an interest in their own history.
My grandmother used to work at the White Castle at 6700 S. Western Ave in Chicago, long gone. Best hamburgers made back then. Whitey one biters ordered like 12 at a time for $.19 each. Everytime I go to Orland Park to see my sister I stop there for a couple and they are now terrible. I think its the old timers stomach (mine). White Castle used to throw great Xmas parties for the familes at Chicago HQ on Circero Ave near Clearing Yard. Thanks for the memories.
The Shurpy’s link is to the zoomed in view - but if you click on that and zoom back out, one of the first comments below the image (sadly from 2008) has a listing where you could buy one of the White Tower buildings for $1 (but had to immediately move it - not a cheap proposition).
Couldn;t tell you the last time I had a White Castle burger - the nearest one to me is over an hour away in a neighborhood of Philadelphia I’d rather not stop my car in. They do sell frozen ones in the grocery store you heat up at home, but they never were all that good to me. Got to hand it to them, they were selling sliders before anyone used that word.
You think White Castle has gone down hill, try Burger King. In the early 70’s their bugers could not be beat, White Castle was already on the down slope then. Now 5 Guys is or should I say was top dog for this type of place but they have already started downhill, seem to be cutting a corner here or there. Got to say White Castle was always cheap and the place to go during a time I had no money.
Tom,Judging by my appetite as a teen maybe we did have bottomless iron stomachs. How I remain skinny is beyond me since I was on a see food diet and Coke was my drink of choice. By all rights I should have been super size in Levis instead of size 30.
I do recall watching a White Castle eating contest one afternoon after school and while I can’t recall the number of burgers those two boys ate,I do recall it was a very,very large number.
Reminds me of an epic Root Beer chugging contest at an A&W Drive-In about 50 years ago. There were winners in the categories of speed of quaffing and total consumed. There aren’t many of those A&W Drive-Ins left. I like to stop at the one in Tallmadge, Ohio whenever I’m in the area. They still have carhops. That’s where the epic contest was held. For you young folks, if you think Sonics is innovative, you’re way behind the times.
There’s only one place I can think of that still tastes exactly as I remember from going there as a kid - that would be a small non-chain joint called Richard’s Drive-In - still owned by the same family. The place still looks and smells the same, adn the food tastes the same as I remember. The only real change is that there are no trains - it is located alongside a siding off the Lehigh Valley’s Easton & Northern branch and across the street was a rail-served scrapyard somplete with those big electromagnet cranes. We didn’t eat out a lot when I was a kid, but when we went there, if we didn’t see a train, at least the cranes were busy loading gons with scrap metal.
Yep, those old A&W Root Beer stands were the best. My wife and I stopped off at one outside Dodgeville, WI back in '96. Placed your order via the button on the call box and they brought out our rootbear floats in the frosted glass mugs. Combine that with ice cream from Wisconsin dairy country and it was the best rootbear float I ever had.[dinner] So good, in fact, I purchased another one in a to-go cup for the road home. [:P]
