Sunshine General Store

There is nothing on the outside of this general store and service station to indicate the glories within. But past the refrigerator with plastic containers of night crawlers, the old-time cooler packed with glass bottles of Coke and the shelves of crackers and candy bars is the real glory of the place: the Sunshine burger. The tiny lunch counter has five aging chrome and vinyl stools, and a half-dozen chairs are pulled up to a linoleum-topped kitchen table. On the other side of the counter, two women work the grill, turning out perhaps the best hamburgers in the county.

These are giant half-pound beauties, patted out by hand and cooked to order, topped with your choice of embellishments -- raw or cooked onions, Swiss, provolone or American cheese, tomato and lettuce, mustard, ketchup or mayonnaise -- and then placed on a good-tasting kaiser roll. Be sure to get it cut in half, or it will be too much to handle.

The kitchen also turns out breakfast, starting at 5 a.m. on weekdays. The place shuts down by 6 p.m. on weekdays and 5 p.m. on weekends. But it's the burgers that construction crews and men in expensive suits line up for, and wait their turn with the locals.

-- Nancy Lewis (April 26, 2007)