Description: Mon-Fri 10:30am-7pm
Closed Saturday & Sunday :
If you didn’t know what you were looking for you could drive right by
Folger’s. The unassuming little 50’s prefab on the east end of
downtown Ada has only two neon signs in the window — one that reads
“Folger’s,” the other “open.” A short flight of red concrete steps
leads directly into hamburger heaven. Inside you’ll find a bright,
sunny, clean restaurant filled with the friendliest people. I’m not
kidding. Within 15 minutes of my visit to Folger’s I knew everyone in
the place.
“We have a few other things on the menu but hamburger baskets are 90%
of our business,” a very busy lunchtime Jim Folger told me. I stood
and watched him methodically flip and manage over twelve quarter-
pound burgers on the griddle at the same time. The Folger brothers
engage in a sort of silent culinary dance in their open, narrow
kitchen — Jim flips burgers, Jerry dresses them, and Wanda delivers.
The dance is repeated over and over again for hours at lunch until
hundreds of burgers have been dispensed to happy customers.
A regular customer named Mike told me, smiling and rubbing his belly,
“You can tell I’ve had a bunch of them.” The burger at Folger’s comes
with mustard, onion, lettuce, and tomato. Make it a ‘basket’ and
you’ll get to experience the other reason you came to Ada – for their
outstanding fries. Everyday, Folger’s manages to go thru over two
hundred pounds of potatoes for their fresh-cut fries. Ask for an
“Educated Burger” (not on the menu) and you’ll get a burger that
replaces the onion with mayo.
“The produce and meat are fresh, everyday,” Jim told me as he
flattened another hand-formed patty on the griddle with a long
spatula. Jim uses large Wonder buns that are perfectly toasted on the
griddle. The finished product is a wide, flat, burger that is
bursting with greasy goodness and flavor.
“The grill used to be right behind the counter, and was smaller,”
Bill Peterson, the District Attorney in Ada, told me. If it had not
been for Bill and mutual friend Tom Palmore I may never have found
Folger’s. Both Bill and Tom grew up in Ada and were classmates with
Jerry Folger. They agreed that Folger’s was not to be missed on the
hunt for great burgers in America — they were right. Source: www.hamburgeramerica.com