If you’ve driven down the strip in North Sioux City lately, you might have noticed more activity in the old Sugar Daddy’s restaurant at 100 Military Road. At the beginning of November, George Hendrickson moved his food truck business, Geo’s Hamburger Shopp, into the building, allowing the casino to offer food again to its customers; however, this menu is far from ordinary.
“I’ve always loved the history of food. There are lots of different historical aspects. One is the origins of cheeseburgers in America, how they changed, and whatnot. In 1912, they started frying hamburgers in beef tallow in big cast iron pans. You’d drop three of four patties into the cast iron pans, and that’s how they made burgers. Fast forward to 1929, a family in Spencer, Iowa, the Sweezy’s, developed a different method: tank frying. They had built a tank a couple of inches deep, similar to our deep-fat fryers today. They would drop these beef balls into them, punch them down under two inches of beef tallow, and then deep fry them. They were about three ounces, not any bigger because you’re deep frying them. That’s the model we made the shopp after,” said George.
George learned that he loved to cook in his teens, a talent his mother noted and helped foster. She stopped cooking at home and allowed George to take the reins. Armed with her checkbook and a set budget every week, he would go to the grocery store and get the week’s dinner provisions.
“Sometimes I got a little ridiculous with it. We’d have beef tenderloin and grilled swordfish if we wanted surf and turf. I had a little bit of license to run with that as long as I didn’t go over budget. It became a passion, a love of food. For every family event, I’m the guy who has to cook. Church events way back when meant smoking meat for hundreds of families that went to the church I belonged to in Sioux Falls. It was always so much fun to do that. People kept saying you should open your own restaurant, George. My response was always, hey, fine, write me a check. I’ve always wanted to do it, but they are really expensive to start,” explained George.
Although the restaurant idea had always been on his to-do list, he started his family first.
“When I had children, my two daughters came along first; they were my ride or die. I’ve got pictures of my oldest daughter, who was six years old, standing on a cooler making stocks and sauces. She is a beautiful young lady, and the luckiest guy in the world is dating her because she makes everything from scratch. You won’t find a jar of anything anywhere. She’s just like her dad. The whole restaurant idea was formulated with my daughters. Then, life took on its events, and some of that changed when it came time for me to have the opportunity to do this. They were adults, busy, and their passions had focused elsewhere. So, my son and I launched this. We came up with a plan of what we wanted to do. I’m a cheeseburger fanatic. I love cheeseburgers! So, if I venture out into something and want to be the best at it, what do I know sells? It’s cheeseburgers! We run on these things; it’s like diesel fuel!” exclaimed George.
George’s son has a seizure disorder. One of the techniques they’ve used to help cope with the disorder was a Keto diet.
“When we were doing the Keto diet, my son’s dietician made a very profound point that whenever you cut out processed foods, you are implementing a healthier aspect into your life. We eat highly processed foods in America. We are always on the go. People are working three jobs, trying to do their own thing; the kids have soccer. Nobody has time to sit down and eat unprocessed food,” commented George.
That is until now. Geo’s Hamburger Shopp follows the cooking routines from 1929, which does not include any cooking with hydrogenated oils, instead using grass-fed, organic beef tallow. All of the ingredients for his food must be carefully and locally sourced, meeting stringent requirements. The beef for the burgers is choice grade, certified Black Angus, 100 percent chuck that’s finely ground, never frozen, and pressed into 3 to 3.3-ounce patties.
“When we opened our business in Okoboji (they run the food truck at the Lakes during the summer months), it was a big deal for me to source freshly made buns. They needed to have that certain flavor. I wanted something that tasted like it was made in Grama Helen’s kitchen. It needed that flavor to go along with that burger,” explained George. Fortunately, they found Sunkist bakery in Sioux City to handle their bun and pizza crust needs. George also has an authentic, Connecticut-style lobster roll on the menu, and the Sunkist bakery went above and beyond in helping him develop the proper style bun for it.
“The lobster rolls are interesting, especially how we came to add them to the menu. A dear friend of mine, Marianne Miller, I owe her all the credit for that. She’s a wonderful Four Star-Michelin Chef from Minneapolis. She came down to help me in the beginning stages of setting up our business plan and the restaurant. We did a lot of cooking while she was here. She was testing the waters to see whether or not I was worth my salt and putting her time into assisting us. When she was done reviewing everything, she said everything looked great, George. This is going to be amazing for you. There’s just one thing you need. I’m like, ok, what’s that? She said you need a lobster roll. You need an authentic Connecticut-style lobster roll,” recalled George.
The twosome started to outline what went into creating such a lobster roll. First, it needed a New England-style bun that would be grilled on both sides.
“Sunkist Bakery went out and got specific models for us just to produce these New England-style Frankfurter buns to our needed specs. They needed to be 7 inches long, 3 inches tall, and 1.5 to 2 inches wide so that we could literally stuff it with lobster. It tastes so good. We roll the buns in ghee, which is clarified butter that’s made by heating butter to remove milk solids and water, place them on the griddle, get a nice golden grille on both sides of them, and split it right down the middle like any classic New England-style bun. The steamed lobster is loaded through the middle. Then, according to Marianne Miller, you must not pour clarified butter over the top of it, which is what you see now in many places. No, she stated specifically that you have to make a golden homemade Beurre Monte for a Connecticut-style lobster roll. That’s the secret weapon. It balances the Ph between the butter and the succulence of the lobster. Then you finish it with a Maldon Sea Salt; they bring it all together,” explained George.
Please visit their Facebook page for more information about Geo’s Hamburger Shopp or to see each week’s specials. They also serve pizza, wings, walking tacos, beef kosher hot dogs, tavern dogs, and Philly Cheese Steaks.
By Amy Buster – based on the video interview by Stacie Anderson
