More than 80 years.
More than 380 restaurants.
More than 500,000,000 burgers sold last year alone.
But when you add it up, the by-the-numbers White Castle math just can't compare to the steam-grilled science of creating that signature Slyder.® Or the consistent history of high quality and great taste that turned fast food into big business and jumpstarted the nation's first hamburger century. (Well, almost a century: meat rationing during World War II forced us to sell hot dogs and eggs.) Or, most of all, the shared secret language of committed Cravers across the country, the words and senses that turn all of you into One of Ours.
Still, math is pretty fundamental. Mostly because, in White Castle mathematics (crunched at our Columbus, Ohio, headquarters), the number one keeps popping up.
First fast-food hamburger chain ever. First industrial-strength spatula. First mass-produced paper hat. First to sell a million hamburgers. First to sell a billion hamburgers. First frozen fast food for sale.
All of which, of course, makes us your number one. Hold your applause for your next burgers.
The company was founded by Walter Anderson in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. Later, entrepreneur Billy Ingram partnered with cook Walter Anderson to make White Castle into a chain of restaurants and market White Castle. At the time, Americans were hesitant to eat ground beef after Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle had publicized the poor sanitation practices of the meat packing industry. Founders Edgar Waldo "Billy" Ingram and Walter Anderson set out to change the public's perception of the cleanliness of the industry. They constructed small buildings with hygenically white exteriors and stainless steel interiors, and outfitted their employees with spotless uniforms. Their first restaurants in Wichita, Kansas, were a success, and the company branched out into other midwestern markets, starting in 1923 with Omaha, Nebraska. White Castle Building No. 8, built in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1936, was an example of the chain's prefabricated porcelain buildings. The building measured 28 feet by 28 feet and was modeled after the Chicago Water Tower, with octagonal buttresses, crenellated towers, and a parapet wall.
Anderson had developed an efficient method for cooking hamburgers, using freshly ground beef and fresh onions. The ground beef was formed into balls by machine, eighteen to a pound, or forty per kilogram. The balls were placed upon a hot grill and topped with a handful of fresh thinly shredded onion. Then they were flipped so that the onion was under the ball. The ball was then squashed down, turning the ball into a very thin patty. The bottom of the bun was then placed atop the cooking patty with the other half of the bun on top of that so that the juices and steam from the beef and the onion would permeate the bun. After grilling, a slice of dill pickle was inserted before serving. Management decreed that any additives, such as ketchup or mustard, were to be added by the customer. Anderson's method is not in use by the chain today, having changed when the company switched from using fresh beef and fresh onion to small, frozen square patties (originally supplied by Swift & Co.) which are cooked atop a bed of dehydrated onions laid out on a grill. The heat and steam rises up from the grill, through the onions. In 1949, five holes in the patty were added to facilitate quick and thorough cooking. The very thin patties are not flipped throughout this process. This "steam grilled" method is unique among major fast food restaurants.
Since fast food was unknown in the United States in that era, there was no infrastructure to support the business, as is common with today's fast food restaurants. The company established centralized bakeries and warehouses to supply itself. It created a subsidiary, Paperlynen, to make paper products used in the restaurants. They also created a subsidiary named Porcelain Steel Buildings that manufactured movable, prefabricated structures that could be assembled at any White Castle restaurant site.
The company also began publishing its own internal employee magazine, the "White Castle Official House Organ," on November 1, 1925. The bulk of the material was contributed by Castle personnel, mostly letters and photographs of workers, promotion announcements, 25-year milestones and retirements, etc., arranged by geographic area. "Employees could...read about the progress and innovations made by those in other Areas which made everyone aware of the entire System's direction and condition.". The House Organ was published quarterly at least through the early 1980's and at some point was renamed "The Slyder Times." The Ohio Historical Society houses an extensive archive of White Castle System, Inc. records from 1921-1991, including issues dating from 1927 to 1970 of the White Castle House Organ.
Ingram's business savvy, argues David Gerard Hogan in Selling 'Em By the Sack: White Castle and the Creation of American Food, not only was responsible for White Castle's success, but for the popularization of the hamburger. For example, to counter charges that burgers were not healthy, Ingram paid several young men to dress as doctors and eat White Castle hamburgers, the idea being that if doctors ate it, it had to be healthy. This same logic led Ingram to fund a study in which a University of Minnesota medical student went on a ten-week diet of nothing but White Castles and water. The experiment, though dubious, yielded results and increased legitimacy for the hamburger in general and White Castle in particular.
In 1933, Ingram bought out Anderson, and the following year the company moved corporate headquarters to Columbus, Ohio. The company remains privately held and its restaurants are company-owned; they are not franchised in the United States (international White Castle outlets are a different matter). Co-founder Billy Ingram was followed as head of the firm by his son E. W. Ingram, Jr. and grandson E. W. Ingram, III.
In concurrence with its 80th anniversary in 2001, White Castle started its Cravers' Hall of Fame. "Cravers" are inducted annually based on stories that are submitted about them, either for them by another person or by that particular Craver. Between five and ten stories have been chosen each year with a grand total of 56 stories being selected through the 2006 induction class. That is less than 1% of the total stories submitted since the inception of the Cravers' Hall of Fame.
White Castle is most well known for its hamburgers, but it also has a variety of other items. The menu varies depending on the region.
The following is an overview of foods served by White Castle:
Hamburger
Cheeseburger
Double Cheeseburger
Jalapeņo Cheeseburger
Bacon Cheeseburger
Chicken Ring Sandwich
Chicken Breast Sandwich
Chicken Supreme
Fish Sandwich (with Cheese)
French Fries
Onion Chips (or Rings)
Chicken Rings
Tabasco Sauce Flavored Chicken Rings
Hidden Valley Ranch Flavored Chicken Rings
BBQ Flavored Chicken Rings
Buffalo Chicken Bites (New)
Spicy Cheese Dip
Clam Strips
Fish Nibblers
Mozzarella Cheese Sticks
Hash Browns (breakfast hours only)
Egg and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich
Bacon, Egg and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich
Sausage, Egg and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich
Bacon, Sausage, Egg and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich
Cinnamon, Cream Cheese, and Apple Danishes
Donuts
Coca-Cola soft drink products
Big Red (Only in Metro Louisville,KY, Nashville, TN and Columbus/Dayton/Cincinnati Metro)
Fresh Brewed Contea Iced Tea and Sweet Tea
Coffee and Hot Chocolate
Coca-Cola and Fanta Icees
Minute Maid Orange Juice and Raspberry Lemonade
Milkshakes (Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry) (in many areas, only chocolate is available)
Typically the breakfast menu is available from 5:00 AM until 10:00 AM, but some stores have attempted to boost overnight sales and start breakfast service as early as midnight. The regular menu is available 24 hours a day. (Some restaurants have started closing at 1 am on weeknights and only staying open all night on Friday and Saturday)
The Beastie Boys album Licensed to Ill includes multiple references to White Castle. For example, "I chill at White Castle, 'cause it's the best..." in "The New Style"; "White Castle fries only come in one size" in "Slow and Low"; "And I can always make them smile, from White Castle to the Nile" in "Girls"; "We went to White Castle and we got thrown out" in "Slow Ride"; and "I got the ladies of the Eighties from here to White Castle" in "Hold It Now, Hit It".
The Dictators pose in a White Castle in the inner sleeve of their debut album Go Girl Crazy.
LL Cool J's song "That's a Lie", on the album Radio, includes the line "You promised your girl filet mignon, took her to White Castle"
The Butthole Surfers song "Moving to Florida" contains the lyric "I'm gonna grind me up a White Castle slider out of a India sacred cow".
In Wesley Willis' song "I'm Sorry That I Got Fat", he claims that he will stop eating at White Castle in order to "slim down."
Redman's "Well, Well, Well Freestyle" contains the lyric, "Got White Castle burger, and chicken wings."
"In The Great Filling Station Holdup," by Jimmy Buffett, contains the lyrics: "We were sittin' in the Krystal 'bout as drunk as we can be..."; however, when the song is performed in concert, White Castle is substituted for Krystal."
In Eminem's song My Name Is, Eminem recounts 'This Guy At White Castle Asked For My Autograph (Dude, Can I Get Your Autograph?). So I Signed It: 'Dear Dave, Thanks For The Support asshole'.
The Smithereens wrote a song called "White Castle Blues"
Billy Joel mentions White Castle while singing "Shout" during his Yankee Stadium concert in 1990. "I can remember back 'round 1962, Me and my hoodlum friends use to come to the Bronx to get some of them White Castle Hamburger, yea I can..I can still taste them from back 1962"
For the release of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Time Warner set up a temporary White Castle on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood from July 22 - August 11, 2004. The site, a full-size replica of one of the original White Castle restaurant designs, was set up adjacent to the Standard hotel, thus making this restaurant the only White Castle outside of the company's normal area of sales.
White Castle is featured in the movie Saturday Night Fever when the characters Tony, Joey, Double-J, Bobby, and Stephanie eat there. It's mostly remembered for when Double-J shoves a hamburger into Joey's mouth, and Joey starts barking like a dog and stands on the table.
A White Castle is briefly seen in Wayne's World near the conclusion of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" singalong.
White Castle is featured in the movie American Splendor, where the character of Toby tells Harvey not to eat any of his White Castle hamburgers. Harvey asks for a fry and ends up stealing Toby's fries.
The film White Palace (based on the novel of the same title by the late Glen Savan) depicts an unlikely romance between a wealthy young Jewish man and an employee of a "White Palace" hamburger restaurant. White Castle refused to allow its name to be used.
A noodle bar called "White Dragon" appears in the film Blade Runner (1982). According to Paul M. Sammon's book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner (1996), the bar was "patterned by production design Lawrence G. Paull after the White Castle hamburger chain".
A very brief mention of a White Castle restaurant appears in the parody film Epic Movie when "The White Bitch" (a parody of Jadis, the White Witch from the Chronicles of Narnia) tells a character she lives in "The White Castle". Kal Penn, star of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle says "What Castle? I think I'd been there before."
In the 1989 film "True Love" starring Ron Eldard and Annabella Sciorra, Ron's character Michael and his friends stop at a White Castle, after a long night in Atlantic City for his bachelor party.
On television, it was parodied in the Ugly Betty episode "Swag" as "White Tassel" after Betty Suarez suggested to her boss that they take a Japanese designer and his entourage to a place in New Jersey after the designer mentioned that he liked things that are "Round, white, and minimal."