five guys – hail to the houseburger

When I was a kid, I used to spend a good portion of the summer at my grandparents’ house in east Macon. In the cul-de-sac where they lived, was one of the neighborhood’s many ‘candy ladies’, except with a couple of distinct differences. My grandparents’ neighbor (let’s call him, Mr. P) was not a lady, and – in addition to candy – he also sold home-cooked hamburgers.

Unlike stuck-up little Eddie Murphy who shunned the ‘houseburger’, my playmates and I knew that Mickey D’s didn’t have nothing on Mr. P. Most times we’d already squandered our little-kid per diem on all kinds of junk, so we’d often have to just sit on the porch and fill ourselves with the smell of pan-fried beef emanating from the kitchen across the street. But occasionally, if a couple of us were able to scrape up a dollar around the time Mr. P started cooking – we felt like we’d won the lottery. Mr. P’s burgers were the best of the basic: you could get cheese or no-cheese, and he served each one wrapped in wax paper and stuffed in a small paper bag with plain white napkins. Simple, satisfying, and cheap.

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