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I think the whole idea of tipping is ridiculous: do you tip the toll collector for taking your money? Do you tip the gas man for reading your meter? Do you tip your IT guy for fixing your computer? Of course not. Now, obviously, they don't live on tips. GUESS WHAT: NEITHER SHOULD WAITERS! How insane is it that a customer has to pay basically twice: for the food and for the service? Can you imagine if we had to tip UPS person for delivering the package to your house? Here's another tidbit: are the dishes heavier at T.G.I. Fridays than they are in a fancy steakhouse with $100+ dishes? Where do you come off with a sense of entitlement to a $20 tip just because the food was $100, whereas at Fridays a $20 plate would only get a $4 tip? If restaurant you work at charges that much for food, let them pay you! Enough is enough!

I first wrote about Cassell's in the L.A. Times Sunday Magazine, West, callling it "best in city." I wrote two more pieces, one in Oui, still posted on the wall, and in Rolling Stone (of all places). I spent a lot of time with Al Cassell, and know a thing or two about the history of the place. He started it after WW2 on Wilshire, across from the wonderful building then known as Bullock's Wilshire (now home to Southwestern Law School). When the landlord made it impossible for him to stay, he moved to the SE corner of 6th and Berendo. It was as bare-bones an operation as it is today in terms of decor: Al said that after his experience with that landlord, he would never invest in furnishings: all he prized was his double broiler (and his food). It was then known as Cassell's Patio, because Al made a deal with the apartment building next door to set up tables on a little patio on the apartment building's south side.

About 20 years ago, a family of butchers made Al (who was pretty tired of arriving at 5:30 to trim and grind the meat, make the mayo, etc.) what sounded like a great offer: they'd maintain standards, and expand, and he would share in profits from the new locations. Well, they started serving fries. (When I asked Al why he didn't, he said, "It isn't my picture." He saw himself as a painter.) Worse, they didn't cut him in on any revenue from the other locations (I remember one on Wilshire, in the mini-mall at Crescent Heights). Al got the place back...and sold to Koreans. They kept the standards pretty well at first...but expanded the menu to turkey burgers and veggie burgers.

There was a slide, I think, but at my most recent (albeit infrequent) visit, younger Koreans were at the register, and the quality was clearly back.

About what Al did and didn't make. Yes, mayo (!), yes lemonade (from Grade A lemons, he pointed out), yes potato salad (putting in a liberal dose of Colman's English mustard powder), yes a ketchup relish (but not ketchup itself -- that was Heinz), and yes, Roquefort salad dressing (using real Roquefort cheese).

If the "best days" seem behind Cassell's, in part that's a demographic issue: way back when, the mid-Wilshire area was filled at lunchtime with middle-class shoppers and office workers.

Is Cassell's burger the "best in the world"? Now that upscale luxe restaurants are serving up Kobe beef burgers, I guess not, although I believe that for a "commercial" burger, Cassell's is still in the money in any best burger race.

This is also good for diet, as its relatively lo-cal.

1/4lb chop meat, drained of fat
1 tbsp lite bbq sauce
sauteed onion
fat free american cheese
corn tortilla

Preferred in this order...from bottom to top:

Bottom of bun - toasted
French's mustard
Burger patty
American Cheese
Onion slice - no more than 1/4" thick - raw, full slice
Pickles - sufficient to cover the onion
Tomato - 1/4 thick sufficient to cover the almost all of the patty. If 2 slices needed, thinner slice
Iceburg lettuce
Mayo
Top of bun - toasted

NEVER ketchup. That's for fries.

Adam this is an awesome topic because until I really got involved in 'food blog' stuff I never knew people ate mayo on burgers. Even amongst my friends during the bad 'McD' years, Quarter Pounders were the rule, no mayo-laden Big Macs. I always had hamburgers as a meat eater with ketchup and perhaps a little bit of mustard. I thought there was ketchup and a bit of mustard and nakedness, nothing else.

With veggie burgers, which I eat now, the topping depends on the taste of the patty. I know now that a fondness for various toppings may be very regional and local--I guess in the NJ area where I live, ketchup is the rule.

A1. mayo and hot sauce. What a great sauce!

Both, but just a smidge of mustard and alot of ketchup and mayo.

If there is lettuce and a good tomato - then it is mayo and mustard. If not, then it's mustard and pickle only.

both!

No ketchup or mustard - mayo, tomatoes, lettuce, Frank's sauce, S & P -

guacamole! or russian.

Mustard on one bun, miso mayo on the other! Lettuce, cheese, pickles, and pickled jalapenos. YUM!