Ellen Fountain remembers going to the Windy City Grill with her husband when they were freshmen at Lenoir-Rhyne College 20 years ago. “And 10 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were the times to go,” she says. Never mind that Lenoir-Rhyne’s convocations just happened to take place at 10 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Fountain insists she visited the grill then for the very same reason she goes now: “They have the best sausage-egg-and-double-cheese-on-a-bun sandwich.” There’s also a custom: “At homecoming in the fall, the place is packed due to the tradition and delicious food.”
Students still frequent the grill, which has an atmosphere Fountain describes as cozy. “It’s not a place you have to get fixed up to go to,” she says. “It caters to the blue-collar population, and most guys show up in their coveralls for breakfast.” Now a seventh-grade teacher in Newton, which is only 10 minutes from Hickory, Fountain and her family still find their way to the Windy City Grill once a week. “We are raising our children on sausage-egg-and-double-cheese-on-a-bun breakfast sandwiches,” she says. “And they’re thriving.”
Windy City Grill
2514 North Center Street, Hickory
(828) 322-1131
Don’t miss:
The sausage-egg-and-double-cheese-on-a-bun sandwich.
In North Carolina, spring brings the scent of fresh-cut grass and memories of helping Dad mow the lawn.
Nostalgic burger joints are like time machines, delivering something extra special that keeps us coming back.
This tiny city block in downtown Greensboro once had a gigantic reputation. Not so much for its charbroiled beef patties — though they, too, were plentiful — but for its colorful characters and their wild shenanigans.
In the 1950s, as Americans hit freshly paved roads in shiny new cars during the postwar boom, a new kind of restaurant took shape: the drive-in. From those first thin patties to the elaborate gourmet hamburgers of today, North Carolina has spent the past 80 years making burger history.
