Every day at Lankford’s Grocery in Houston’s 4th Ward is a special day.
The specials, she are enchiladas on Wednesdays, chicken fried steak on Thursdays and the super tacos on Friday; but it’s the burgers that keep the doors open.
This place was around way before McDonald’s.
Here’s some history while you’re chewing on all that beef.
“It originally started as a little mom and pop,” says owner Eydie Lankford Prior. “It was a grocery store and neighborhood grocery store and my parents ran it.”
That was in 1939. Now Eydie runs the place with her grand-daughter Shelby by her side.
They weren’t always serving up burgers at Lankford’s, “As the neighborhood changed, they opened a big Kroger, the big grocery stores and people quit coming to the little mom and pops. So they started making sandwiches they first started with ham and cheese and bologna and cheese.”
It wasn’t until the late 70’s that these half-pounders came to be.
“We had a little old electric grill and we could make like three hamburgers at a time. So we started out that way and we might make 10 hamburgers a day.”
Now Eydie says they’re up to 300 burgers on some days.
“We’re only open from 7-3, but we have people sometimes who get burgers at 7:00 in the morning.”
To each his own...We don’t mind fighting the lunchtime rush to sink our teeth into one of these.
