&
White Castle Building No. 8, originally built in 1936 in
Minneapolis, Minnesota and later remodeled. The castle-like
features mimic Chicago's Water Tower Pumping Station. This
building no longer houses a restaurant.
Founded
Wichita, Kansas, United States (September 13,
1921; 93 years ago)


Founder
Billy Ingram
Walter Anderson
[1]
Headquarters Columbus, Ohio, United States

Areas served
Website

Midwestern United States
Mid-Atlantic United States
www.whitecastle.com
White Castle is an American regional fast food hamburger restaurant chain located in the
Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic United States, generally credited as the first fast food chain in the
US. It is known for its small, square hamburgers. Sometimes referred to as "sliders", the burgers
were priced at five cents until the 1940s, and remained at ten cents for years thereafter. For
several years, when the original burgers sold for five cents, White Castle periodically ran
promotional ads in local newspapers which contained coupons offering five burgers for ten cents,
takeout only.
On January 14, 2014, Time labelled the White Castle slider to be the most influential burger of
all time.[2]
History
White Castle was founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas.[3] The original location was the NW
corner of First and Main.[3] Cook Walt A. Anderson partnered with insurance man Edgar Waldo
"Billy" A. Ingram 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. The founders
set out to change the public's perception of the cleanliness of the industry. To invoke a feeling of
cleanliness, their restaurants were small buildings with white porcelain enamel on steel exteriors,
stainless steel interiors, and employees outfitted with spotless uniforms. Their first restaurants in
Wichita, Kansas, were a success, and the company branched out into other Midwestern markets,
starting in 1922 with El Dorado, Kansas. White Castle Building No. 8, in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, originally built in 1936 and remodeled (photo, right), was an example of the chain's
prefabricated porcelain buildings. The building measured 28 feet (8.5 m) by 28 feet (8.5 m) and
was made to resemble the Chicago Water Tower, with octagonal buttresses, crenelated towers,
and a parapet wall.[4][5]
The success of White Castle led to numerous imitators. Restaurants copied the distinctive
architecture of White Castle buildings, as well as created confusion for consumers by using a
similar name. The first of these imitators in Wichita was Little Kastle. Many competitors created
their names with a play on the White Castle name. Some restaurant chains just replaced the word
"Castle" with their own word (Cabin, Cap, Clock, Crescent, Diamond, Dome, Fortress, Grille,
House, Hut, Kitchen, Knight, Log, Manna, Mill, Palace, Plaza, Shop, Spot, Tavern, Tower,
Turret, Wonder), while others chose to replace "White" with another (Blue, King's, Little, Magic,
Modern, Prince's, Red, Royal, Silver). Some of the other imitators included Castle Blanca, Blue
Beacon, Blue Bell, Blue Tower, Red Barn, Red Lantern and Klover Kastle. Despite all the
competition, none of the competitors were able to match the success of White Castle.[6]
Anderson is credited with invention of the hamburger bun[7] as well as "the kitchen as assembly
line, and the cook as infinitely replaceable technician,"[8] hence giving rise to the modern fast
food phenomenon. Due to White Castle's innovation of having chain-wide standardized methods,
customers could be sure that they would receive the same product and service in every White
Castle restaurant. As Henry Ford did for car manufacturing, Anderson and Ingram did for the
making of burgers.[9]
Anderson developed an efficient method for cooking hamburgers, using freshly ground beef and
fresh onions. The ground beef was formed into balls by machine, 18 to a pound, or 40 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 condiments, 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 & Company) which are cooked atop a bed of
rehydrated onions laid out on a grill. The heat and steam rise up from the grill, through the
onions. In 1951, five holes in the patty were added to facilitate quick and thorough cooking. The
very thin patties are not flipped throughout this process.
The signature hamburger
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, meat supply plants, and warehouses to supply itself. It was said that the
only thing they did not do themselves was raise the cows and grow their own wheat. Ingram
developed a machine to create previously unheard of paper hats. In 1932, Ingram set up a
subsidiary, Paperlynen, to make these hats and other paper products used in their own restaurants
as well as for many other purposes. At the time, White Castle's distribution stretched from
Wichita to New York. Ingram decided the central office should be in the center of the
distribution area. To accommodate this, in 1936 the central office was moved to Columbus,
Ohio. In the same year, Ingram decided to close all of the restaurants in the two smallest profit
markets (Wichita and Omaha). In 1955, Paperlynen produced over 42 million paper hats
worldwide with more than 25,000 different inscriptions.[10] They also created a subsidiary in
1934 named Porcelain Steel Buildings that manufactured movable, prefabricated, steel frame
structures with porcelain enamel interior and exterior panels that could be assembled at any
White Castle restaurant site.[4] This is the first known use of this material in a building design.
The company also began publishing its own internal employee magazine, the White Castle
Official House Organ, circa November 1925 (originally named The Hot Hamburger). The bulk
of the material was contributed by Castle personnel, mostly letters and photographs of workers,
promotional 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."[11] The House Organ
was published quarterly at least through the early 1980s, and at some point was renamed The
Slider 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.[12]
Ingram's business savvy not only was responsible for White Castle's success, but for the
popularization of the hamburger.[13]
In 1933, Ingram bought out Anderson, and the following year the company moved its corporate
headquarters to Columbus, Ohio. The company remains privately held and its restaurants are
company-owned; they are not franchised in the United States. 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 1959, White Castle expanded into new markets for the first time since the 1920s.[14] Billy
Ingram retired to Miami in 1958 and built three Castles there. The company closed the Florida
operations in 1967 due to inefficient supply distribution.[15]
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 64 stories being selected through the 2007 induction class, less
than 1% of the total stories submitted since the inception of the Cravers' Hall of Fame.
Starting in 2011, the Long Island White Castle has become a frequent setting for challenges on
the show Impractical Jokers, during which the contestants will pose as cashiers, drive thru
workers, and janitors.
Ingram's steadfast refusal to franchise or take on debt resulted in the chain remaining relatively
small, with a very discontinuous geography compared to most chains. There are over 420 White
Castle outlets, all in the United States and specifically in Midwestern states, Kentucky, and
Tennessee except for a significant discontinuous smattering of outlets in the New York
metropolitan region and one location in Nevada. By comparison, there are over 36,000
McDonald's locations globally, with approximately 14,000 of those in the United States.[16] The
chain does, however, sell frozen sliders at supermarkets nationwide, with availability varying by
chain. Some locations are also cobranded with Church's Chicken.[17]
Current White Castle markets include Chicago; Cincinnati; Columbus, Ohio; Dayton; Detroit;
Indianapolis; Las Vegas; Louisville; Minneapolis-St.Paul; Nashville; New York City/New
Jersey; and St.Louis. Louisville and Columbus also house bulk manufacturing (grocery store
sales, meat and bun production) divisions. Company HQ and the Porcelain Steel Buildings (PSB)
division are in central Columbus, Ohio. [18] White Castle exited the Cleveland and Akron markets
in Ohio effective December 25, 2014.
The first White Castle in the far western United States opened at the Casino Royale Hotel &
Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 27, 2015.[19] This was the first expansion for White
Castle into a different state in 56 years. On the first day of business, demand for food was so
great that the restaurant had to temporary close for two hours to restock.[20] White Castle Vice
President Jamie Richardson said that the store sold 4,000 sliders per hour in its first 12 hours. He
wasn't aware of any similar closing because of demand in White Castle's 94-year history.