Mytiburger Is on the Way

Editor's clarification: Kathy Green says she was not forced to close Mytiburger, but chose to do so.

Troy Fields

Classic roadside-style cheeseburgers and chocolate malts are what Mytiburger does best.

Location Info

Map

Mytiburger

2211 W. 43rd St.
Houston, TX 77018

Category: Restaurant > Burgers

Region: Outer Loop - NE

Photos

0 user reviews	Write A Review
Save to foursquare

Details

Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Monday through Sunday.
Mytiburger combo with fries and a drink: $6.70
Mytiburger with cheese: $3.90
Baconburger with cheese: $4.60
Onion rings: $2.95
Fresh-cut french fries: $2.30
Shakes: $2.85
Malts: $3.05

---

READ MORE
SLIDESHOW: Mytiburger: Mighty Good Burgers in Garden Oaks
BLOG POST: Here He Comes to Save the Day: Garden Oaks Burger Stand Mytiburger Is Back and Better Than Ever

---

Related Content

• Here He Comes to Save the Day: Garden Oaks Burger Stand Mytiburger Is Back and Better Than Ever
  February 13, 2013
• Hell Freezes Over: The Ends of Five Great Musical Feuds
  April 3, 2013
• Top 10 Restaurants in Garden Oaks/Oak Forest
  January 29, 2013
• The History of The Beatles In Doctor Who
  April 22, 2013
• Molly Flogs Houston
  February 28, 2013

More About

• Shawn Salyers
• Kathy Green
• Garden Oaks
• Food and Cooking
• Eating Out

Take a trip behind the 46-year-old grills at Mytiburger in our slideshow.

The small dining room at Mytiburger is laid out in intricate fashion, maximizing every bit of black-and-white-checkered floor space to fit 20 diners into a handful of persimmon-colored booths and one old-fashioned soda fountain table near the register. On a Monday afternoon at lunchtime, every one of those booths is full.

A woman's voice crackles over the intercom that conveys orders from Mytiburger's drive-thru, but most people who dine at this 46-year-old burger joint in Garden Oaks prefer to come inside. That's because all of the ladies behind the counter — each of whom looks as if she sprouted organically from beneath Mytiburger's white Formica counters at various stages in the restaurant's history, springing forth fully-formed complete with red-and-blue caps and aprons — welcome you like family.

"See you tomorrow, Mr. Dale," cries out one of the ladies with a jolly laugh. "Same bat time, same bat channel!" A gentlemen who looks to be in his 80s has just finished slowly chewing his way through a classic double-meat Mytiburger, watching the slow stream of traffic on 43rd Street through the restaurant's plate-glass windows. He smiles and waves as he leaves, nodding in agreement: "See you tomorrow."

"I know Dale," says Shawn Salyers, the new owner of Mytiburger, when I ask him about the regular customers who pass through Mytiburger every day. "He's a friend of ours. Comes in nearly every day and always gets the same thing."

Salyers is just getting to know the regulars who have been coming to the burger joint since long before he bought it from former owner Kathy Green, who'd owned it since 1988. When she was forced to close Mytiburger last year, it was Salyers who saved the burger stand and who's now busy bringing the old joint back to life. Salyers, who owns a Baskin-Robbins franchise nine blocks away and was a Mytiburger regular himself, says he wasn't about to let the burger stand close.

"I always liked hole-in-the-wall places and older diners," Salyers says. "I started coming here when I opened the Baskin-Robbins and got hooked on it." Salyers, who's been in the restaurant business in one way or another most of his life, is now serving up the same classic Texas roadside-style burgers that Mytiburger has served since 1967 — the same kind of burgers he was flipping as a 16-year-old at his first job in a Whataburger.

Inside a standard Mytiburger, cold, crispy vegetables jostle against two thin patties and a slice of gooey American cheese (you have to request this last ingredient, but it's highly recommended that you do). It's all snapped into place with a vigorous spread of mustard, tucked into a square of white butcher paper and passed across the counter to you by the same person who likely took your order, cooked it and is now ringing you up.
_____________________

It's these classic Mytiburgers that I love best and the ones I'm happiest that Salyers has saved. Roadside Texas burgers are an increasingly rare species in the days of over-the-top, foie gras-slathered, fried-egg-­covered behemoths that require a knife and fork to eat. Comparatively petite, thin-pattied burgers like the ones served at Cream Burger on Elgin, Burger Park on Martin Luther King or Champ Burger on Samson are becoming relics.

Yet I still champion them, because they — to me — represent the ideal of a Texas burger, one that can be purchased inexpensively and consumed without self-conscious regard for how you'll fit it into your suddenly far-too-small mouth. These classic burgers are beefy enough to tide you over for an afternoon but won't weigh you down. Their allure lies in the textural pleasures of cool, crispy lettuce and salty pickles and raw white onions snapping against warm, tender meat and a blanket of gooey cheese. Their finery is limited to a fervent swipe of neon yellow mustard, and mayo if you must. Ketchup is reserved solely for french fries.

These are the burgers that Mytiburger specializes in, although Salyers has added a few concessions to time.

"We've added some ingredients to the burgers," he says. "Fried eggs, refried beans, mushrooms — some of the things you expect these days." They don't necessarily detract from the burgers, but they don't add to them, either.

The fried eggs I've tried have usually been fried all the way through and are missing that burst of yolk that new-school burger fans crave. I tried the refried beans on a Mexican burger that was recently added to the menu and found myself thinking the burger would be better without them. The cheese, pickled jalapeños and salsa on top were a nice touch, however, and they hewed closely — albeit in a totally different way — to that Texas arithmetic of snappy vegetables plus meat plus melting cheese equals good.

The one new ingredient I have found at Mytiburger that works perfectly are the plush, fat slices of avocado which give the burger an additional creamy dimension that a single slice of cheese cannot. I've ordered avocados twice now, and felt a little funny adding them to such an old-school burger — but it's paid off each time.
_____________________