Sedalia hamburger wins national attention — again

Sedalia has made its way into national food culture again with its best-known entree: the guberburger.

Sure, there’s mouth-watering Mexican food and barbecue to die for all over Sedalia, but the guberburger is the one dish out-of-towners know best, served at the Wheel Inn drive-in.

The latest burger’s dance in the national spotlight is in the July-August issue of Food Network Magazine.

“We didn’t know about it until they (a magazine writer) called during the winter,” said Wheel Inn owner Judy Clark. “I forgot about it, and this lady came up with this book this month and said, “You’re famous.’ Then she showed me the article.”

The burger features peanut butter as a condiment. Because of that, you’d think it would be spelled goober, from goober, which is slang for peanut, but it’s spelled guberburger instead.

The guberburger got lots of national attention in 2007 when the Wheel Inn closed that September. The restaurant was a classic from the 1950s, with a horseshoe-shaped counter and lots of chrome and neon. It was on the northwest corner of West Broadway Boulevard and South Limit Avenue.

The Wheel Inn closed to make room for highway improvements at the intersection. Fans mourned the loss. Everyone who remembered the restaurant recalled its famous sandwich, even if they didn’t like it or hadn’t even tried it.

Clark acquired the rights to reopen the restaurant in a new location, at 2103 S. Limit, in an existing building. She had worked off and on at the Wheel Inn for 47 years, so she had probably made or served a guberburger or two in her time.

“It made me too sad to see it close, so I had to open it,” Clark said of the restaurant at the time.
She reopened the business in November of 2007.

“We also made ‘Hamburger America,’ ” Clark said in a telephone interview, citing the 2011 edition of a book that is “a state by state guide to 150 great burger joints” by George Motz. She said the Wheel Inn also was in the 2008 edition.

Clark said the restaurant has been featured on the Food Network cable TV channel as well.
There’s a recipe for the guberburger in the magazine, and Clark says she uses Skippy-brand peanut butter as the condiment, but she does add a “secret ingredient.”

She said the guberburger was created by Lyman Keuper, the Wheel Inn’s founder, in 1947, when the restaurant opened.

Keuper had heard about the burger from another restaurateur at the Lake of the Ozarks.
Keuper traded the recipe for his Suzy-Q maker, which made curly french fries popular at the time.

Lyman and his wife, Ruth, passed the diner onto their daughter and her husband, Ruth Ann and Jack Hawkins, in 1953. John and Pat Brandkamp owned it from 1987 to 2007.

Clark said about half of her business is from people who don’t live in Sedalia. The guberburger continues to be a draw.

And how’s business?

 “It’s good," she said. “Everybody could be doing better, but I don’t have any complaints.”