The Grim burger is made with mac and cheese, jalapeños, bacon, cheddar cheese, and a sunny-side up fried egg.
The Classics is an occasional sequence that spotlights and celebrates Houston’s oldest bars and eating places.
From the second Lankford’s Grocery & Market opened its doorways virtually 90 years in the past, it’s been a fan favourite. And now? The love us Houstonians have for it simply retains on rising.
Aubrey and Nona Lankford first opened the enterprise in 1937 as a fruit stand. Two years later, the couple moved to Lankford’s present location and expanded it right into a mom-and-pop grocery retailer till the late Nineteen Seventies and early ’80s, when their daughter Eydie Lankford Prior took over.
Lankford Prior realized it was time to give up to greater grocery shops like Kroger, H-E-B, and Randalls and department out to open a full-service restaurant. Her son, Paul Prior, who took over the enterprise in 2021 alongside his spouse, Jessica, says the evolution got here naturally.
“It was sort of buyer demand, plus simply the altering of occasions,” he says. “We needed to make some modifications to outlive, and that’s why it turned a restaurant.”
Increasingly clients began to return to Lankford’s for comfortable hour; they’d sit round, chat, drink beer, and chow down on a number of the burgers. Paul says his mother was the mastermind behind the unique menu. She all the time joked that “nothing was quick and nothing was wholesome.” As an alternative, the mission was to have her clients benefit from the expertise.
The menu began off fairly primary, simply common burgers, cheeseburgers, and bacon cheeseburgers. However ultimately, Eydie, who beloved cooking, determined to experiment with completely different spices. Paul says that’s really how the Firehouse Burger got here to be—his mother wished so as to add some kick to the menu. It boasts a half-pound patty and comes topped with habanero mustard, cayenne butter, jalapeños, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onion.
One other fan favourite is the Grim burger, which was created by one among Lankford’s clients over 20 years in the past. It’s made with mac and cheese, jalapeños, bacon, cheddar cheese, and a sunny-side up fried egg.
Through the years, Eydie continued to nurture the restaurant, and as Lankford’s grew, so did the Prior household and the generational involvement. When Paul married Jessica in 1991, she joined in on the household enterprise and labored there on and off till they formally took possession. And when you walked in on any given day that Jessica was round, you have been in all probability met with children of their jumpers or sitting round on the counter. However the actual enjoyable for Lankford’s got here in 2009, when the restaurant was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. The present sampled its Firehouse burger and Paul says that is what actually put them on the map.
“We had a line out the door the day after. [It was] all the best way down the road,” Paul says. “It in all probability received the phrase out throughout town of Houston. Now we have now individuals coming from Katy, the Woodlands, you already know, [people] from throughout come right here.”
Lankford’s is a fan favourite throughout the Houston space.
Simply over a decade after the restaurant’s TV present debut, Eydie determined it was time for her to hold up her apron and hand over the enterprise. Though Paul and Jessica each deal with Lankford’s, Paul has been fairly busy with the company life because the starting of their marriage. So when the chance got here for the couple to take over the enterprise, Jessica turned the precise proprietor. Given her fixed involvement through the years, the choice wasn’t stunning.
Over the past 4 years, the couple has tried to remain true to the mission of the restaurant, particularly relating to sure cooking methods. Funnily sufficient, simply this final month, the kitchen supervisor determined to purchase completely different potatoes for the restaurant’s hand-cut french fries, but it surely didn’t bode nicely with their clients.
“We have been like, Yeah, don’t ever try this once more,” Paul says. “We maintain true to what we’ve carried out prior to now.”
Paul is aware of that what units them aside from different Houston eating places—and what’s helped them stay in enterprise—is the standard of their meals and Lankford’s inviting ambiance, so he doesn’t ever need to veer from that. Although he notes that some change is inevitable, particularly relating to maintaining with the occasions. The enterprise was as soon as cash-only, however when Jessica and Paul took over, they began accepting playing cards. And like his mother, Paul has additionally gotten the itch to create new menu objects. Since taking on, he’s added about 5 burgers, bringing the restaurant’s complete choices to 17.
Paul jokes that on the time he was on a little bit of a barbecue kick, so most of his burgers mirror that. A few of his additions embody the Texan, made with a half-pound patty, mustard, smoked sausage, an onion ring, pickles, and cheddar cheese, in addition to the Houston burger, which actually packs on the meat: It boasts a half-pound patty, slow-smoked brisket, pickles, onions, cheddar cheese, and barbecue sauce.
However the largest change since taking possession is the addition of the Bellaire location that opened in 2023. Paul says growth had all the time been on his thoughts. When he was on the restaurant on weekends, he’d consistently ask clients the place they got here in from, and a relentless reply, apart from Katy and The Woodlands, was Bellaire. He settled on an area off Bissonnet Avenue.
In contrast to the OG location, Bellaire operates with a counter service, and it gives an expanded menu with cocktail choices and a self-pour beer wall with 20 Texas craft beers priced by the ounce. The second location additionally has a number of TVs and a gated space for teenagers to play. Paul says this was carried out to encourage a family-friendly setting.
You may’t go improper with a basic burger from Lankford’s.
The meals provided additionally varies from the unique location. The Bellaire menu options a number of entrées like grilled rooster, chopped steak, rooster fried steak, and Tex-Mex quesadillas, in addition to an extra burger dubbed the 3B, or the Bellaire bacon burger. Its angus beef patty is topped with bacon jam, grilled recent jalapeños, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and pepper jack cheese.
Proper now, Paul and Jessica are having fun with the truth that they’re getting the chance to construct on Lankford’s historical past and are even eyeing additional growth. Though he isn’t positive the place precisely, he hints that one among Houston’s suburbs might quickly be residence to a 3rd spot.
“We’re feeling extra constructive about future places, so we’ll see what occurs,” he says.
And given it’s all the time been a full household affair, they’ve excessive hopes that one among their kids will assist proceed the legacy sooner or later.
“We undoubtedly need to hold it within the household,” he says. “We might love for it to hold on [for] many, many generations.”
