(Update: Some time in 2013 this place closed, I haven’t seen anything else re-open in the spot)
After a day driving around the Detroit neighborhoods and suburbs, including Corktown, New Center, Hamtramck, and Dearborn, we decided we wanted a light meal to tide us over for dinner. One place that caught my eye was an converted White Tower burger stand in Dearborn that was simply labeled “Hamburgers”. As I’ve discussed previously, the Detroit area is filled with all sorts of converted or knockoff White Castle of White Tower locations, most of which are still serving up burgers of some kind (usually sliders), although I’ve seen a few that were turned into Greek diners as well.
This one, however, grabbed my eye primarily because of the lack of a proper name. It still looks like it’s waiting for some neon sign guy to come along and put the actual name on the place (you can still faintly see the old “White Tower” outline above the “Hamburgers”). But, even when asking the waitress, this is essentially the place with no name (which also made it hard to figure out the address… try googling “Hamburgers in Dearborn, MI”, and you’ll get all sorts of places but this one). However, the inside is your basic burger joint. Particularly, Hamburgers still has the classic “two U” style serving counters like most donut shops had growing up.
Hamburgers isn’t a slider joint, however, it serves normal-sized non-slider burgers, as well as a pretty decent array of basic diner food, with a variety of hot dogs, melt sandwiches, salads, your basic meat and eggs breakfasts, etc. And they still serve things up with counter service, although take-out was obviously a good portion of their business as well. Looking over the menu, and since we were basically snacking, I opted on the basic burger and fries, which as a “Deluxe plate” was served up with lettuce, tomato, and grilled onion, with fries, for a whopping $3.25. Carol opted for pretty much the same.
While nothing fancy, this was a pretty decent basic burger. It’s a small patty (what do you expect for $3.25?) but it was nicely seared, with a toasted bun, good grilled onions, and fresh tomato and lettuce. The fries were decent as well, so considering that with my drink, I was only in for $4.50 and tip, I thought it was quite good. To be honest, if I was craving a burger in this neck of the woods, I’d probably head a few miles west to Miller’s Bar, but Hamburgers did it’s job well, serving up a basic, no-frills, well-cooked burger and fries served up in a nice converted diner.
