Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

68	Kaelin's 1801 Newburg Road (502) 451-1801

As far back as I can remember, we've happily responded to Kaelin's trademark request, "If you can't stop, please wave." And sometimes we even stop.

This Highlands tradition has been around for almost 70 years, and their cheeky claim to have invented the cheeseburger actually seems to have some basis in fact.

Charles Kaelin and his wife opened the restaurant in 1934, the menu claims, dubbing the old brick building at the corner of Newburg and Speed "The birthplace of the cheeseburger." The standard hamburger had already become "an established staple of the diet" by then. But Kaelin was an inveterate experimenter, always looking for new food ideas. "One day in the kitchen ... it occurred to him that if he put a slice of cheese on top of the hamburger patty just before it was done, the cheese would melt down into the patty and add a new tang to the hamburger. It was an instant success - its popularity spread nationwide until just about everyone the world over enjoys the cheeseburger."

It sounds almost too good to be true. Ground beef goes back to prehistory, and food historians generally agree that the modern hamburger sandwich turned up in a lot of places around the U.S. in the 1880s. Could it really have taken another 50 years for someone to get the idea of draping a slice of cheese on top?

An extensive Web search suggests that Kaelin's version might just be true. Just three contenders offer competing claims: The now-defunct Rite Spot restaurant in Pasadena, Calif., near Los Angeles, used to boast its primacy, tracing its "hamburger with cheese sandwich" back to 1937. The Humpty Dumpty Barrel Drive-In in Denver, also gone from the scene, trumps that with evidence that it sought to trademark the name "cheeseburger" in Colorado in March 1935. But Kaelin's claim beats Humpty Dumpty by a year, substantiated by a 1934 menu that reads, "Try Kaelin's Cheese, burgers ... 15 cents ... You'll like 'em."

All this food memorabilia adds a warming, nostalgic glow to Kaelin's, and so does its pleasant, homey atmosphere, friendly service and down-home prices.

But here's the bad news. Listen closely, I don't want to say this too loud: Kaelin's cheeseburger isn't really very good. And wherever Charles Kaelin is these days, I expect he's not all that happy about it.

We stopped by the other day for a nostalgia "hit," and left feeling as if we had been lightly sucker-punched by a mugger so gentle that he almost made us like it.

As noted, it's a homey place, with the ambience of a slightly upscale diner. The main floor of the big old house has been divided into several dining rooms, and the overall theme is brown, as brown as a well-done burger. Large wall mirrors add light to brown-stained wood walls. The floors are brown, the polyurethane-glazed wood tables are brown. So are the chairs, the booths, the carpeting; even the ceilings are brown, and so are the large, framed Julius Friedman posters that add an arty tone to the decor.

The menu is extensive, pretty much running the gamut of down-home diner fare, including a selection of soups, salads, starters and appetizer munchies (a half-dozen mini-cheeseburgers are $5.50 for six, $9.50 for a full dozen) and combinations. Sandwiches range from $3.40 (for the "original cheeseburger") to $6.95 for a club sandwich. A BLT is $5.85, and a grilled reuben is $6.35.

About 15 entrees range from $7.60 (for country fried steak or a breaded veal patty) to $17.95 (for an 8-ounce filet mignon); an order of barbecued baby back ribs is $11.25. Entrees are available in smaller portions "for seniors and others with a smaller appetite," and a selection of lighter dishes, billed as "Classic features," are $6.95 (for a croissant sandwich with tuna salad or chicken salad) to $9.75 (for a three-piece fried chicken basket). Pasta primavera is $8.25, and a Swiss Hot Brown is $9.50.

But I came to try Charles Kaelin's original cheeseburger, and nothing else would do. The menu made it sound tempting: "The original cheeseburger platter, $7.15 - all-beef patty covered with a slice of rich American cheese served on a toasted buttered bun. Specialty of the house since 1934, all burger platters are served with Kaelin's golden French fries and creamy slaw. Lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo, no extra charge." (You can even supersize it as a double for $9.25, with two patties and two slices of cheese, no substitutions.)

Having little interest in fries or slaw ("we came for the meat"), I went with the original cheeseburger a la carte ($3.40), dressed with all the options, adding on a side of onion rings for $3.95.

The rings were good. Thick slices of fresh, sweet white onion were rather thickly breaded but fried crisp golden brown and grease-free. Two thumbs up. But the burger flipped both thumbs firmly into the down position.

A puny ground-beef patty was less than 1/4-inch thick and barely large enough to cover a small white grocery-store bun. It was cooked well-done - there's no alternative when you're dealing with a patty this thin - and had cooled to lukewarm by the time it reached the table. A single slice of American cheese had melted into the meat, just as Charles Kaelin said it would, then congealed as the confection cooled in the kitchen. Dressed with with a slice of raw onion, a creditably ripe tomato slice, a single leaf of lettuce and a light schmear of mayo, it was a standard-issue diner burger at best, nothing to make Mr. Kaelin proud.

My wife chose fish and chips ($7.95) and fared little better. Rather than fillets, it consisted of eight smallish, bite-size breaded-and-fried nuggets, sizzling hot but rather short on flavor, served in a wax-paper-lined plastic basket atop a mound of pale, rather limp fries. A small tub of finely chopped slaw boasted a sweet, creamy dressing but lost points for a funky old-cabbage smell. It also came with a biscuit that proved to be one of the better items on the table. Tall, light and fluffy, it was a fine example of the biscuit-maker's art.

The biscuit was good enough to prompt me to try Kaelin's biscuit pudding ($3.95) for dessert. Dense and rich with a pleasant sweet sauce laced with a homeopathic dose of Bourbon, there was nothing really wrong with it, but it was short on excitement - I might have liked it better if I hadn't enjoyed a much better Bourbon-laced bread pudding recently at Joe's OK Bayou.

Kentucky Silk Pie ($3.95) was also OK but short of awe-inspiring. Chocolate and cream were blended into a light, creamy pie filling, more sweet than chocolatey, mounded in a forgettable crust and topped with canned whipped cream.

Service was pleasant enough but a bit absent-minded, neglecting to refill drinks or replace missing utensils. With iced tea and a soft drink ($1.50 each) a filling but forgettable lunch came to a rather spendy $27.77, plus a $5.23 tip. $$

(March 2003)