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Look in most UK High Streets these days and chances are there will be a burger restaurant, but back in the Eighties the US burger chains had yet to make big inroads into the UK, and home grown places such as Wimpy had more of a chance to claim their part of the fast food market.
For this weeks survey I’d like you to cast your mind back to the Eighties and think about which was your favourite burger chain back then, rather than what it is now, as that’s a little unfair on Wimpy who are now for the most part holding out in motorway service stations.
Which was your favourite burger chain in the Eighties?
and various locations in SW London. I swear the next time we both end up in the smoke at the same time we’ll go to one !
This is difficult. Now I’d say BK (though the last BK I had was really ropey). But I didn’t taste BK till the early 90s. There was a Wimpy in my home town of Kingston but I didn’t think much of it. What I wanted was McDonalds which at the time Kingston council was too posh for – the nearest ones were Wimbledon and Twickenham some way away.
So reluctantly the golden arches gets my vote…..
Having said that there was a great independant burger place in Kingston opposite the station (next door to what was Mr Woo’s House of Onion) that did their burgers to orde on a hot plate.
And they were superb.
it was Wimpy, for sure, at the top of Clayton Street in Newcastle. Ketchup in tomato shaped bottles, knickerbocker glories, skinny chips with too much salt…aaaaaah!
I loved Wimpy in the 80s, and although I didn’t get to go very often when I did I would always order a bender (pork sausage partially sliced through in various places and curved so it fitted nicely into a bun, with tomato sauce and I think probably cheese.
There was something distinctively tasty and different about those sausages that I haven’t tasted anywhere else.
In recent years I have gone into Wimpy whenever I have found myself in Britain in the hope of having a Bender again. For some reason whilst it is usually on the menu, it never actually seems to be available and they always tell me they’ve temporarily run out of the sausages!
I’ve still not managed to actually have one since the 80s!
I used to love going to Wimpy on Northumberland Street in Newcastle. It was before Mac Burger Kings, (the building is now a burger king) and always wanted my birthday party there cos Mr Wimpy would show up. The burgers were better, the chips were better, and the brown derby’s were the coveted treat. Now the nearest is in a bowling alley, or down at durham services. Such a shame.