The White Lady Is Where Is Where Burger Heaven and History Collide
September 23, 2016 / 2:00 pm
By
Courteney Peters
All photos by Emily Raftery.
It seems like every Aucklander has a story about The White Lady, particularly to Max Washer, the third generation son of the family-owned, late-night street food icon. “I tune them out these days. I try not to listen because everyone has a story and I’ve heard them all,” he tells me. I nod, shutting my mouth on the criminally dull tale that was trying to escape.
So everyone has a story, but most of them are blurry and faded unless they’re yours. One friend told me her most memorable White Lady night ended on a stripper pole, and another simply said he had no good stories because he only visited when his memory was faded. That’s how I feel. My most significant recollection is of a very early morning cheese and egg toastie that turned out to be a bad call—not because it wasn’t good, but because a cheese and egg toastie after a night of drinking hand grenades is never going to be a good one.
“We get so many people who say things like, ‘Oh my goodness. I’ve only ever been here when I’m drunk and I thought the burgers were just good because I was drunk,’ but these are actually really good burgers,” says Max. “We get put in that category of drunk food, but everything we do is fresh. We make our own burger patties, nothing is frozen, and we work with all the raw ingredients.” The first time I had a sober White Lady burger was while researching for this piece, and it was genuinely delicious and nostalgic, reminiscent of childhood BBQs when nothing was fancy and everything was great, the glorious days before we had to Instagram our food before eating it.
The White Lady’s ‘drunken food’ association is not new. When Max’s grandfather, ‘Pop’ Washer opened the cart in 1948, he catered to the ‘six ‘o’ clock swill’ crowd, members of a legendary moment in New Zealand’s binge-drinking history when men clocking-off work at 5 PM spent the next hour in the nearest public bar drinking as much as they could before the mandatory closing time at 6 PM. The White Lady was there for them when they spilled onto the darkening streets, beer-addled and starving.
These days, it’s more of a 3 AM crowd, and stand is still there for New Zealanders in search of a greasy lining for their stomachs. When I turn up on a Wednesday evening, I’m surprised to see a line forming before the 12-meter cart’s windows have opened. “We generally get a dinner rush, too” says Max, “and in the last few years business has just been getting better and better for us.”
That probably has something to do with the sudden popularity and proliferation of food trucks in Auckland, with everything from fancy tacos to Korean-style burgers and Brazilian temaki rolls available on a street corner somewhere at any given time. The White Lady remains the original of these mobile restaurants, and although Max has capitalized on the interest by expanding the family empire to include two event carts and a day-time burger joint near the ferry building, he maintains that the style and intention of The White Lady has not changed. “We’re not cool and we don’t try to be cool. We just try to do a good job and keep it pumping.”
Wanna see more of The White Lady? Watch Action Bronson pay the truck a visit on the third episode from the second season of Fuck, That’s Delicious, only on VICELAND.
Topics: Action Bronson's favorite New Zealand food trucK, fuck that's delicious food, New Zealand, the best
September 23, 2016 / 2:00 pm
By
Courteney Peters
All photos by Emily Raftery.
It seems like every Aucklander has a story about The White Lady, particularly to Max Washer, the third generation son of the family-owned, late-night street food icon. “I tune them out these days. I try not to listen because everyone has a story and I’ve heard them all,” he tells me. I nod, shutting my mouth on the criminally dull tale that was trying to escape.
So everyone has a story, but most of them are blurry and faded unless they’re yours. One friend told me her most memorable White Lady night ended on a stripper pole, and another simply said he had no good stories because he only visited when his memory was faded. That’s how I feel. My most significant recollection is of a very early morning cheese and egg toastie that turned out to be a bad call—not because it wasn’t good, but because a cheese and egg toastie after a night of drinking hand grenades is never going to be a good one.
“We get so many people who say things like, ‘Oh my goodness. I’ve only ever been here when I’m drunk and I thought the burgers were just good because I was drunk,’ but these are actually really good burgers,” says Max. “We get put in that category of drunk food, but everything we do is fresh. We make our own burger patties, nothing is frozen, and we work with all the raw ingredients.” The first time I had a sober White Lady burger was while researching for this piece, and it was genuinely delicious and nostalgic, reminiscent of childhood BBQs when nothing was fancy and everything was great, the glorious days before we had to Instagram our food before eating it.
The White Lady’s ‘drunken food’ association is not new. When Max’s grandfather, ‘Pop’ Washer opened the cart in 1948, he catered to the ‘six ‘o’ clock swill’ crowd, members of a legendary moment in New Zealand’s binge-drinking history when men clocking-off work at 5 PM spent the next hour in the nearest public bar drinking as much as they could before the mandatory closing time at 6 PM. The White Lady was there for them when they spilled onto the darkening streets, beer-addled and starving.
These days, it’s more of a 3 AM crowd, and stand is still there for New Zealanders in search of a greasy lining for their stomachs. When I turn up on a Wednesday evening, I’m surprised to see a line forming before the 12-meter cart’s windows have opened. “We generally get a dinner rush, too” says Max, “and in the last few years business has just been getting better and better for us.”
That probably has something to do with the sudden popularity and proliferation of food trucks in Auckland, with everything from fancy tacos to Korean-style burgers and Brazilian temaki rolls available on a street corner somewhere at any given time. The White Lady remains the original of these mobile restaurants, and although Max has capitalized on the interest by expanding the family empire to include two event carts and a day-time burger joint near the ferry building, he maintains that the style and intention of The White Lady has not changed. “We’re not cool and we don’t try to be cool. We just try to do a good job and keep it pumping.”
Wanna see more of The White Lady? Watch Action Bronson pay the truck a visit on the third episode from the second season of Fuck, That’s Delicious, only on VICELAND.
Topics: Action Bronson's favorite New Zealand food trucK, fuck that's delicious food, New Zealand, the best
