Sacred Cows and Other Legends

And this is probably the time to eulogize White Castle's presence in Kansas City. The Ohio-based chain of burger palaces (founded in Wichita in 1921) closed its KC stores in 2001. I wouldn't call those soggy little burgers the best of anything, but if you ever developed a passion for them, there are no substitutes (and that includes the ersatz versions in the supermarket freezer case).

Another Kansas City icon, radio personality Walt Bodine, says he can still smell the intoxicating aroma of sizzling onions and frying burgers wafting through his neighborhood, where there was a White Castle at 32nd Street and Troost in the 1930s. It was just around the corner from his father's drugstore, where Bodine worked as the soda jerk, overseeing the Broilator grill behind the counter. On a good day, he could cook five or six burgers at a clip; they sold for 10 cents each.

"But there were days I walked right past our Broilator, out the door and around the corner to White Castle for lunch," Bodine recalls. "You could get a bag of six burgers for a quarter."

He won't tell which restaurant serves his favorite burger today — he says he's fond of a lot of burger joints.

"No matter what kind of restaurant it is, you can't go wrong with a good cheeseburger," he says.

It's a sacred tradition.