"Watch those fries," came a voice from behind me. "They're relentless."
I turned around to see a man watching me with a smile as I unpacked my burger and handled the fries like nuclear materials. They're always scorching hot, burning your fingers if you attempt to eat them in the first five minutes.
Troy Fields
The Kims turn out 400 to 500 burgers a day.
Groovehouse
Burger Park offers a $4.32 cheeseburger combo with fries and a slush.
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We laughed together, then proceeded to complain about the humid weather for nearly the length of my meal.
As I began packing up my trash to go, the security guard wandered over to me. He's stationed at Burger Park every evening starting at 3:45 p.m. until the stand closes at 7:30 p.m.
"Good evening," he said casually as he ambled over. "Hot enough for ya?"
As we chatted amiably over the remnants of my lime slush, the sweet syrup slowly staining my tongue green, he segued out of nowhere, "You know, I ain't ever seen no trouble out here."
"It was sure bad in the '80s and '90s, but that was a long time ago," he said softly as he looked into the distance.
It seems like a long time ago as you sit at one of the tables, gazing at the blown-out, nearly postapocalyptic scene around you. It's quiet even in the evenings, with only a trickle of traffic cruising by on MLK. All around, abandoned businesses, junked-out cars and empty houses crest the landscape.
South Park is an overgrown garden these days, its soil only able to be tilled by the most determined or the most desperate. It shows no sign that it will grow again any time in the near future.
Burger Park glows like a beacon amidst the clutter and distress, offering a warm meal at a good price and a sense of belonging that can't be purchased at any cost. Will it still be here in another 42 years? Who knows? Oak Kim hopes so. "Five more years, maybe my son will take it over," she says. He's expressed interest, and she's excited at the idea of a family-run business spanning the generations.
Inside the warm burger joint, men are working the screaming hot, 450-degree grill like a set of pistons. The woman at the register always has a smile for the customers, despite how quickly she works. There never seem to be any parts of the well-oiled machine that fail.
Oak attributes that to the workers themselves: "Most of the workers here are all cousins and sisters. They work here for nine or ten years." She calls them her family. She calls her customers an extended family, and it's clear she values them every bit as much as they do her and her burgers.
"They push me to do better and keep going," Oak smiles.
For now, the little white burger joint stands as a testament to witnessing and weathering transition. Even if everything around it has changed — and even if successive generations of residents or ineffective policies or waves of crime may have failed this neighborhood — Burger Park never has.
katharine.shilcutt@houstonpress.com
