Milo’s Hamburgers

Gardendale, Jefferson County

This joint is not on the original AL.com list of 22 (plus 35 submitted by the readers) Greasy Spoon Burger Joints in Alabama you have to visit before you die. 

Milo’s sweet tea is a true southern institution since 1946. But Milo Carlton not only made beverages in Birmingham, he also opened his first Milo’s Hamburgers joint there that year. Over the years, this mom and pop operation grew into a small local restaurant franchise, with currently fifteen restaurants in the Birmingham area. Good old Milo concentrated his business idea on the sauce for his hamburgers, and according to legend, involved his customers heavily in the trial and error process to find the right recipe. Well, those folks back then evidently had a rather peculiar taste – the sauce has an odd flavor, at least to me. It tastes like a mixture of Worcestershire sauce, A1 sauce, and three weeks old salami pizza. It is neither sweet, nor sour, nor spicy, nor bitter, nor tart – or maybe all of the above. It is just, well, in-distinctively featureless. The double cheeseburger I had came on a flat bun that was toasted to a bone dry state, with two equally non-succulent thin beef patties, some American cheese, chopped white onions, a few tiny pickle slices, and – drum roll please, because this is touted as the latest and greatest invention by Milo’s – a couple of slices of thick non-crispy leathery bacon. And, of course, it was smothered in this dreadful sauce. Yikes. It gave me a bad case of the burbs, and also some mild heartburn. I had a sweet tea (what else?!) with it, and together that came to a quarter less than nine bucks.

The atmosphere in the restaurant was very sober – numerous tables, no booths, no decoration on the walls, other than a couple of posters with Milo’s advertising. It was more a feeding station than a restaurant. The only good experience there was the sweet tea – but since you get this in every supermarket nowadays, there is really no reason to go to one of the Milo’s burger joints to get your fix. The hamburgers sure ain’t worth going there.