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Little Tavern, Legendary Slider Chain Reopen in 2008 Under New Ownership - Expanding in The Baltimore and Washington Area


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But little tavern and tastee diner are still there. Little tavern has the best blueberry cake donut I ever had. And the tastee diner makes a mean late night drunk gravy fries. Also a new place called olive on main opened up a few weeks ago on Main Street replacing salute. I haven't been in to eat yet but will check it out soon.

Little Tavern looked like the Little Tavern that I grew up with but I believe the "buy them by the bag" hamburgers are nevermore?

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There is a newspaper article hanging on the wall in little tavern about how the new owners contacted old owners for the burger recipe because the demand was becoming overwhelming, yes they serve little burgers but they're obviously a little more money, they have the onions and all. They've expanded into breakfast sandwiches as well.

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There is a newspaper article hanging on the wall in little tavern about how the new owners contacted old owners for the burger recipe because the demand was becoming overwhelming, yes they serve little burgers but they're obviously a little more money, they have the onions and all. They've expanded into breakfast sandwiches as well.

Little Tavern, to me, is what White Castle is to a Midwesterner.

Deathburgers! Never to be eaten before 2 AM, but you know what? They were *good*. My dad would absolutely "buy 'em by the bag," and they were about $1.80 for a dozen, too. The buns had a "steamed-like" quality to them so they were ultra-soft. Always with mustard, extra grilled onions, and a pickle chip.

Boy, I sure hope the new ones are like the old ones. It's hard not to smile when you come across a "repurposed" Little Tavern.

Does anyone know:

1) How many locations there currently are, and where they are?

2) If they have a Twitter account?

Their website is very coy about whether it's a franchise, a chain, or a hybrid, and what their plans are for the future.

Please, God, don't make this a Gifford's or Tippy's Taco House - make it the real deal.

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I grew up in Northern NJ in a suburb of NYC.  We had a White Castle in our town.  I don't recall many others.  Maybe it was an outlier from the midwest.  I have cousins native to this area.  Their stories about Little Tavern are similar to my recollections about White Castle.  The recipes and tastes seem similar

Forget parents buying them.  My most vivid memories are that WC burgers were the best things in the world late at night to try and avoid hangovers.   I do recall in real estate in the '80's, some business guy buying either all or most of the local remaining LT's and also his goal to make them "healthier".    However they are operating these days I'm sure its a dramatically different group than when they were locally flourishing, pre 1980's.

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I am in Columbus, home of White Castle, and I live just a few blocks from a Castle. I don't indulge often, because when I do I hate myself the next day and those around me hate me too (ahem). Every so often, though, I drive by, smell the unique grease/onion aroma and I am in the drive-thru before I can stop myself. Jalapeno sliders, with fries. So wrong and yet so right...And the car reeks for days...

As a child in New Orleans, we had a knock-off or sincerely flattering imitator called Royal Castle (buy 'em by the sack!), which I thought was the coolest experience ever. I think the burgers then were a dime. I believe that was part of a local donut chain, as I remember getting donuts and burgers. I think for 25 cents you could get a little burger, a donut and a coffee. OMG, I feel so old now...

When I lived in Knoxville I ate occasionally at Krystal. Back then (late 80's) the Krystal burger was quite good.

It's embarrasing that I have embraced the slider concept so consistently throughout my life, and even worse that I feel the need to report it here.

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Respectfully, but I don't think Little Tavern and White Castle taste anything at all alike.  For a starter LT uses fresh hamburger that has the golf ball size beef smashed into the grill.  WC uses a thin disc with holes in it that is frozen.  Krystal, for me, is remarkably similar to WC.  White Tower had a good hamburger, too, but LT-at Georgia and Ripley and Wisconsin and Cordell-were hamburgers that I grew up with.

Just to throw this into the mix:  McDonald's once used fresh beef (prior to '66 or so), as did Burger King, Burger Chef (Piney and Unversity with the most incredible neon sign), Merrill's (University and Carroll), Red Barn (Adelphi and Ballston), Golden Point and AutoBurger (Green Meadows).  All of these were ten to fifteen cents each.  McDonald's actually had a slogan "forty five cents for a three course meal."  Later, perhaps in the early '60's, Geno's, Amechi's (both from the Colts), Hot Shoppes JR and  Roy Rogers (competing primarily with Arby's) entered the picture.  All of these impacted Little Tavern which became less of a family destination (especially with their image of tatooed countermen) while the others embraced the family image.

When the first McDonald's opened in Hybla Valley in the late '50's my parents would drive there from Silver Spring on Saturday nights.  This was before the beltway-45 miles in each direction.  When we got there we stood in line which often wound its way out to the golden arches at the edge of the parking lot.  Maryland's first McD was on the Rockville Pike where the same lines occurred.  The longest lines were at the Adelphi McD which was heavily supported by MD students.

I note all of this because LT was thought of as a second level hamburger to all of these, "affectionately" known as the Ptomaine Palace.  I loved Little Tavern but it didn't compare to the original McDonald's and some of the competitors.  If I had grown up in California I would say that McDonald's didn't compare to In-n-Out Burger which, to be honest, is the same "taste"  today as fifty years ago while all of the survivors listed above have dramatically different hamburgers than they once did.  (I actually heard an In-n-Out Burger commercial today on KNX which proudly announced that they are the exact same hamburger today as they were in 1948 when the first one opened in Baldwin Park.)

My guess is that LT today would be thought of as a good hamburger-in part because so many fast food restaurants have become just that-fast food.  Perhaps curiously, in Wichita where WC started in 1921-there are no surviving White Castles.  I represented a Wichita company in the '80's and knew that city well.  While WC became a midwestern and NJ institution it did not survive in Wichita.  Today, with fast food hamburgers lacking flavor and juice, there is probably a market for LT.  I would "buy them by the bag."  Of course once upon a time in Wichita you could buy a WC "by the sack.'

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So is there a Little Tavern currently open and serving food? Some posters above imply that there is, but there seems to be no such information on the Little Tavern website. Where, if anywhere, are these Little Taverns open for business?

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So is there a Little Tavern currently open and serving food? Some posters above imply that there is, but there seems to be no such information on the Little Tavern website. Where, if anywhere, are these Little Taverns open for business?

I was reading the above and trying to figure this out also.  The little tavern website doesn't reference any specific locations.  I would guess that the folks in the Little Tavern in Laurel rent or own that building and have a donut, breakfast and burger place that is not connected to whomever owns the LT website for this prospective chain.  I think they are two different entities.

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http://www.food.com/recipe/little-tavern-shops-hamburgers-404918 is an interesting link which publishes what is claimed to be the "recipe" and also has a comment from the person who apparently wants to reopen them.  In September 2011 he said that the first one would be in Baltimore.  I am guessing that it never opened and the website is out of date.

Yelp has 25 or more reviews of the LT "Donut" shop in Laurel with only a couple of mentions of hamburgers.  One person from 2012 said that they are exactly like what they used to be, made by the same woman and with several photographs that looked authentic.  A second person said they tasted nothing like they used to.

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Mrs.29 is from the wilds of Central Florida. I get my soggy grey slider fix at:

20120403-199216-krystal-sleeves2.jpg

Heh.

Sittin' in a Krystal, just as drunk as we could be

When in walks the deputy sheriff and he's holding our TV...

-- Jimmy Buffet, "The Great Fillin' Station Holdup"

(When I was young and even dumber than I am now, I found myself shacked up with a young lady from Macon Georgia who was a great fan of Krystal and Jimmy Buffet, hence the link.) (PS she says anything after "Cheeseburger in Paradise" sucked and that true Buffet fans prefer A1A and A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean).

I was briefly a chief cook and bottle washer for a Little Tavern once upon a time (10PM-6Am shift in Georgetown. Good times.) I find the though upthread that the new owners checked the recipe with the old hands pretty funny, but not as funny as the idea that anyone really misses them. There is better bad food around.

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