Big Chief Drive-In

Glencoe, Calhoun County

This joint is on the AL.com list of 22 Greasy Spoon Burger Joints in Alabama you have to visit before you die. 

Petty coats and root beer floats. Grease in the hair, Rock’n’Roll in the air. Little green men from Mars and pink shark-finned cars. Grape milk-shakes and slush puppy lakes. Life was glee and gasoline was free. The air was fresh and everybody paid cash. Oh, the old times were so much better than it is now. Good thing that there are still places where the clocks seemingly have not advanced past 1955, preserving a glimpse into a peculiar life style, and not succumbing to the mainstreaming of the modern corporate world.

The Big Chief Drive-in in Glencoe is such a place. The architecture alone is very, well, special – the building is of triangular shape, and it is adorned with plates in different colors on a light turquoise background, and a big Pepsi sign on the roof. And then there are those two the huge metal arrows in the parking lot, one pointing its tip skywards, the other one pointing to the ground, with the former having a round shield at the top that has an Indian chief’s head painted on it. It doesn’t get more gaudy than this.

The inside looks and feels like a classical 1950s diner – a small one, to be sure. A counter with half a dozen bar stools, facing the kitchen, and another counter on the window side, facing the parking lot. In the summer, some additional wooden benches and tables are put in the parking lot.

The menu has everything on it, plus the kitchen sink. A large variety of burgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches, and a huge assortment of ice cream, shakes, flurries, and sundaes - the menu board stretches across the whole width of the joint, and the specials are written on small boards that are suspended from the ceiling. From this dizzying array of choices, I picked the meanest sounding for lunch – the double Belly Buster.

That is a cheeseburger with two huge beef patties, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, BBQ sauce, and a fried onion ring in a standard burger bun. Short and simple, that was one of the best burgers I ever had. The beef was flavorful and juicy, the fried onion ring provided some crunch, and the BBQ sauce was just delicious. And while I was munching away on it, making a mess out of the spot I sat and also the burger itself, the owner came by a few times and gave me some freebees – a cup of grape ice cream, a just freshly baked donut (from scratch), and a slush puppy. Dutifully, I devoured all this, because all this was very, very good. Unfortunately, after stuffing myself with all those goodies on top of the burger, there was no more space in my belly for the fries that came with it, so they went into the trash can virtually untouched. This was not only one of the best burger meals ever, but for just eight bucks also a total steal. Needless to say that the staff was exceptionally nice, and not only because they gave me all those extra things for free. I was treated like family and felt very much at home there. The only bad thing is that this joint is about a two hour drive from where I live. If it was any closer, I would probably hang out there so much, that I would be considered family eventually. Worse things could happen.