TulaneLSU's Top 10 items at Ben's Burgers

Dear Friends,

It is important that we practice love in a time of corona. Society is a fragile thing. We keep it glued together with government, money, insurance, work, and routines. All of these are being disrupted. In the coming weeks, our social bonds will be tested.

The great societies of the world rise up through religious inspiration and they flourish so long as the religious impulse courses through the nation’s corpus. Once that inspiration and spirit are lost, the nation becomes a pulseless corpse. My dear brothers and sisters, my dear friends, we need to recapture the religious inspiration for our nation, and that is Christianity. And what is Christianity but the religion of love? And what is love but sacrificing for the other? And how do we sacrifice for the other right now?

One way I propose is by giving a business like Ben’s Burgers some business. Like all restaurants, it is struggling and there is not a lot of hope on the horizon. Those of you who read the Food Board may know the owner of Ben’s, a poster named cyborgsaint. He is arguably the greatest New Orleans rapper alive today. I can make this authoritative claim, as I grew up in the prime of New Orleans rap and was quite a consumer and promoter of it. Some of the best known of the rappers might even claim me as one of their friends today. But I grew up and put behind me childish things. I realized how harmful to the mind of the youth most of the popular rap is.



Cyborgsaint is also one of the celebrity chefs of Metairie. There’s Chef Andrea, Joe Impastato, Chef Duke, and cyborgsaint. He’s the only celebrity fast food chef in New Orleans, and is far cooler than Yankee incomers like the guy who runs Stein’s Deli and those other fancy sandwich places nearby. He grew up here and is more authentically New Orleans than all those nitty Uptown chefs and sandwich artists put together.

Cyborgsaint is a man of the people. He did not get the silver spoon in his mouth like other burger chefs in town who went to Newman. No, he’s a BM grad who has been slapping burgers on that same charcoal grill on Clearview Parkway since he was a teen. He may be bald, but unlike that depilated dunce Dilfer, he wears it well, especially with ketchup. If you ask him he may allow you to dump a load on his head like they did with slime on Double Dare.



Mr. Collier bought the Bud’s on Clearview in 2012. He seceded in 2016 and formed Ben’s Burgers. Ben’s is a new and independent company, gritty as ever, but we cannot really talk about Ben’s Burgers without talking about its predecessor, Bud’s Broiler.

The first Bud’s Broiler opened in 1952. An Alfred Saunders, nicknamed “Bud” started it all. Its home was 3826 Airline in Metairie, smack between F&M Auto Repair and Jefferson Trophies and Awards, which is my favorite metro trophy store. Uncle commissioned a custom “MVP of New Orleans Volleyball” trophy there, which he gave me on my tenth birthday. I still proudly display it at Mother’s.

Four years later, the most famous of all Bud’s, the 500 City Park Avenue location, affectionately known as Bud’s Broiler #2, opened. I have christened this area “The Waist of Canal.” My argument is that the Riverfront is the Foot of Canal. The Head of Canal is Canal Blvd.’s communication with Lake Pontchartrain. The cemeteries and Delgado area is the street’s waist, from which we get the bend and endless traffic jams due to the poorly timed lights, made even worse by the traffic cameras. This location has been the site of numerous armed robberies, the first of which was September 1957, which netted the thief $143.13. The holdups continued in 1959 and 1962. Although I went to this location numerous times as a Delgado student, I gratefully never witnessed or was a victim of armed robbery.

The 1960s was a time of great expansion for Bud’s. In 1963, the third location opened at 2338 Banks St, across the street from the new LSU hospital. Bud’s continued to expand in 1966, opening Bud’s #4 at 2073 Pelopidas St. near Brother Martin. Two year later, in 1968, America’s City, Kenner, got its first Bud’s on Veterans near Tennessee Ave. This Kenner location with its unique triangular architecture, one of the greatest works of restaurant architecture in the New Orleans area, is the franchise’s longest running location, celebrating 52 years this year. The last time I ate at Waffle House I overhead an old man talking to his waitress about going on dates to Kenner Bowl followed by burgers at this Bud’s.

Bud’s opened its first West Bank location #6 at 2511 Whitney in Gretna in 1973. This location burned down in 1976, but in good Bud’s Broiler tradition, it quickly reopened. The 70s were a relatively quiet time for Bud’s.

When Bud Saunders retired in 1980, his wife took over and the franchise boomed. Bud’s first and only uptown location across from Tulane University, at 3151 Calhoun, opened in 1981. This was known as Bud’s #9 -- I don’t know where Bud’s 7 and 8 were, but I think one of them was in Chalmette. I believe it only recently closed to become a new cook-everything type restaurant. I ate at this location a few times during my time at Tulane.

In 1983, Harahan/River Ridge got a taste of the paper wrapped burgers in those brown stamped bags. The location was next to Winn Dixie, which is Langestein’s now, at 122 Sauve Road in that strip mall. Gretna got its second location in 1985, opening at 605 LaPalco. This location hosted lots of 50’s car themed parties and festivals for car enthusiasts. That same year, Mandeville got a branch located at 3845 LA-22, which I am told is now a Domino’s. Metairie’s first location opened in 1985 at 3521 18th Street across from Drago’s.

Gentilly got a second Bud’s location, this time to service the growing UNO student body. It opened in in 1986 at 6325 Elysian Fields. This was the location I most frequented. It’s now Homegrown Pizza. The students of Riverdale also got to taste in Bud’s glory starting in ‘86 when the location at 4101 Jefferson Highway, across the street from Haydel’s, opened. This was the 13th Bud’s on my count, and it’s one of the six that remains open today.

Where did Bud’s go wrong? I do not know. The history gets quite murky in the late 90s. Katrina certainly harmed the franchise temporarily, but the civic pride the panic and diaspora created actually helped to bring back Bud’s. Locals felt a nostalgic attachment to Bud’s, and like Hubig’s, became somewhat trendy. Eating at Bud’s was a way post-Katrina residents could prove their New Orleansness.

Today’s Bud’s locations are found on Causeway by Andrea’s, on Highway 190 in Covington, in Harvey, and on Jefferson Highway in River Ridge. I’ve already mentioned the Kenner and Old Jefferson locations. Of the ones remaining opened, the Kenner one is my favorite, only due to its beautiful architecture and history.

As this chapter has been rushed by necessity, I have not been as detailed in my narrative as I would like. I had hoped to write on my memories of Bud’s, and it would have been at least double the amount you have read. Instead, I will post this now, hoping that it might help Ben’s Burgers. Without further ado, I present TulaneLSU’s Top 10 foods at Ben’s Burgers: