Cheeseburgers in Paradise

On the other side of town in what I'd politely call a sketchy neighborhood is another sort of burger joint, one that comes with no history lesson, no Texas millionaires, no mascot. Hell, this one doesn't even come with a sign -- just its name, Caro's Corner, hand-painted in yellow right on the side of the hundred-year-old building on the corner of East 35th Avenue and Gilpin Street. Here, in a spartan, oddly shaped space squeezed in next to a bodega and a private garage, Jeffrey Patterson practices the burgerman's trade without a net.

Or chairs, for that matter. Decor consists of one bench (a church pew, if I'm not mistaken); a couple of unused counters; three or four Bibles; a whole lot of Polaroids of family, friends and football players; a rough clay crucifix hung above the pass window between the floor and the kitchen; a glass case -- empty but for Caro's license from the city and a poorly photocopied picture of the place back at the turn of the last century -- and a large dry-erase board listing the extent of Caro's offerings. There's the Caro's burger, with or without cheese. There's the double Caro's burger, with or without cheese. There's a regular hamburger, a regular cheeseburger, one size of fries and, on Fridays, catfish nuggets: nine for four bucks, a dozen for five.

Stepping through the iron-mesh door, I like this spot immediately for its purity: Patterson and his wife, Linda, cook burgers for the neighborhood -- and that's it. I like this spot because it's a truly independent enterprise, the absolute antithesis of the theme restaurants I loathe. After the original owners sold their place to Patterson's grandfather in the '60s, he kept the name Caro's Corner and kept right on cooking into the '80s. Then the place went dark and passed into the safekeeping of the Pattersons, who reopened it as Caro's Corner in the '90s, closed it again when they couldn't afford to have the roof fixed, put together a few dollars (okay, a lot of dollars) and fixed the roof, and finally re-reopened this past June.

I like Caro's Corner because it does not serve fast food. Patterson spends nearly twenty minutes assembling two Caro's burgers and an order of fries for me, and while I wait, I lean against the counter talking football (specifically, CU's trouncing of CSU in the season opener) and boxing with the only other customer in the joint. And he is waiting even longer for his food, because his only other plan for the day is watching the Broncos-Raiders game that night, so he has nowhere to be for the next, oh, five hours or so.

Above all, I like Caro's because its burgers are good. They're huge, big as pancakes. I watch Patterson form each patty by hand before slapping it on what must be the world's oldest flat-top grill. I watch him heating the cooking oil in a stock pot on an ancient, black, grease-caked four-top stove and then dunking the steak-cut fries in the basket of an old pasta strainer (too soon, it turns out, since my fries are pasty), while steam curls over the lip of the ventilation hood and straight up through a hole hacked rudely in the ceiling.

I eat two of these monster burgers -- the meat packed loose, and spicy with black pepper, onion salt and maybe a few secret ingredients I didn't ask about; mounded up with mayo, mustard, pickles, onion, lettuce and tomato that I know is fresh because I see Patterson mangle every veggie to order; and topped with melted slices of individually wrapped cheese product. Each burger arrives hot off the flat-top in greasy wax paper, and if the service doesn't exactly come with a smile (more of a scowl, really), the slow transaction of order to delivery ends with a solid "Thanks for coming," and that's enough for me.

Patterson makes one fine burger, the sort of burger you take one bite of while driving and set aside, only to start hoping for red lights so that you can go back for another bite. And another.

And that's what we're fighting for, after all. For Mom and Pop, apple pie and cheeseburgers. Good, old-fashioned cheeseburgers.