C.F. Penn Hamburgers

Decatur, Morgan County

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

When you step into C.F. Penn Hamburgers in Decatur, it is like walking through a time portal back into the 1950s. The red checkered linoleum floor, the sparsely decorated red and white striped walls with their old fashioned yellowed menu boards, the corny Pepsi clock in one corner, and last, but not least, the prices for the food instantly make you feel like Peggy Sue or Johnny B. Goode. There is a long counter with eleven chrome-clad bar stools, and some of those four-person booths and some of the two-person variety on the opposite wall and the window side of the restaurant. They accept cash only, which should not be a problem, because, as said before, the prices are very reasonable. I paid not even seven bucks for two double cheeseburgers all the way and a large soda.

The hamburgers there are a unique local specialty – the so called “slug burger”. Originally, during World War II when meat was rationed, the patties for the "slug burgers" consisted mostly of fried lard with blood and bits of trimmed meat. Nowadays, it is meat and about one third of filler/extender material, like bread crumbs. This specialty only exists from North Central Alabama to Corinth, Mississippi, where they use potato or soy flour as the extender. The extender stretches the portions and also contributes to the low price.

The patties are dumped into a large rectangular frying pan with boiling oil, and pulled out of there when the outside is golden-brown and crispy. Since most of the flavor of any food comes either through various spices, or through fat, oil and grease by way of the cooking process, you get a very flavorful patty here – and in the South, we know anyway that everything is better when it is deep fried. Outsiders may be dismayed by this, especially since after you crush through the crisp outside, your teeth will sink into the somewhat soggy and mushy inside of the hamburger patty – remember the bread crumbs ... Well, I personally like the two very distinctive textures of the patty, but it is certainly not the uniform and standardized stuff you get at those national franchise places.

The staff there will “pre-cook” the patties, and there is always a stack of them waiting to be used in a new burger. Since they will take the upper most patties from the stack for each new burger, the patties on the bottom are fairly dated when they eventually get to them. And, of course, you better not try imagining what all that glorious grease and oil will do to your coronary system or your waist line – it is soul food, not health food, dummy!

The really huge double cheeseburger all the way comes with two of those fried patties, some American cheese, chopped onions, and mustard between a standard burger bun. There are shakers with red pepper spice on the tables, which gives the burger a very nice kick in the pants, and adds an additional layer of flavor, if you need that. You can have French fries as a side, which are also top notch, especially with some of the red pepper spice sprinkled on them.

The staff at C.F. Penn Hamburgers is very nice, and the restaurant is kept spotless clean. This is definitely a place where the locals eat, and at any given day there is a mixture of teenagers, workers, house wives, business people, and retirees to find there. The building is situated in the revitalized downtown Arts and Entertainment district of Decatur, just a block away from the fabulous Princess Theatre, which is a 1950s gems that has been restored to its former glory. I do not know whether C.F. Penn Hamburgers has ever received a renovation – it probably exists in a time bubble that defied all outside pressure for modernization since they opened in 1927. I hope it will stay that way for at least another 87 years, keeping a very southern tradition alive.