Information
Order the Smiley Beef Burger
Kastle
Legacy Name: Kastle
The Common Anyu
Owner: Pureflower
Age: 9 years, 5 months, 3 weeks
Born: November 24th, 2014
Adopted: 9 years, 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Adopted: November 24th, 2014
Statistics
- Level: 47
- Strength: 72
- Defense: 10
- Speed: 10
- Health: 10
- HP: 10/10
- Intelligence: 90
- Books Read: 73
- Food Eaten: 0
- Job: Mr. Manager
intro
You ask how I became the Burger Emperor with my name on a thousand restaurants. Let me tell you, it was no easy journey. I certainly wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. With eleven siblings, I was lucky to get a taste from the spoon before it was licked clean. Did I let my limitations define me? He points to a sign on the street corner. Neon lights portray orange buns sandwiching a purple patty, its edges formed into the shape of a medieval castle. The face of the restaurant it stands before is labelled “Kastle Burgers” in bold red letters. What do you think?Floor Sweeper
My first job wasn’t glamorous, but it was money in the jar. A canning jar, to be precise. Mother always had a few sitting around the house, the kind with metal lids that would cut your fingers if you tried to steal a taste of freshly preserved peaches. Pop knew the man who owned Burger House from their time in the army. Big Joe had a fondness for the products he sold and he made it a point to greet every customer that came in. He gave me the title of Custodial Assistant. The teens behind the corner referred to me as Broom Boy.
I was three days away from my thirteenth birthday when I picked up a mop and started scrubbing gold and red tiles. I couldn’t tell you how many bags of spilled fries and crumpled wrappers I wrestled into the trash cans out back. The girl who made the milkshakes would sometimes toss me a napkin or a drink lid on a slow day. I’m still not sure whether it was for mockery or pity.
After three years I received a sort of promotion that came with an extra quarter an hour. I still swept the trash and mopped up after sick kids but on sunny days I had the privilege as dressing up as Bearger, the burger-loving bear.
I hated that mascot suit. It was heavy, it stank, and it made every movement of your arms as difficult as swimming through motor oil. Kids would kick your knees and older boys would push you to the ground, laughing as you wind milled your arms and waited for somebody else’s girlfriend to take pity and help you up.
You’ve got to understand that at this time, twenty-five cents was nothing to laugh at. You could get a fresh loaf of bread or a dozen eggs. Between my meager wages and babysitting money from my three older sisters, we saw to it Pop could keep the lights on through the winter, no matter what the crops did.
What little money I managed to set aside went straight into the tin that had once housed plastic army men. I knew it would take me years to save five hundred dollars, but just one year away from earning my license, all I could think about was owning a car. A car was freedom to see the latest action flick or take a girl down to the sand strip we called a beach off Highway 10. He laughs and shakes his head I didn’t get to see a lot of TV as a kid but any advice shelled out by teens on the screen was gospel. I was so convinced that every town had a lover’s lookout where magic took place, and once I had a car I’d be able to find it.
When Stan the cook eloped with his pregnant girlfriend the whole town was in shock. I was much more concerned with who would take his place than with the rumor that the pair was hiding out in California. I was at Joe’s office door before he’d had a chance to unlock it. I was sixteen and more than capable of working a spatula.
My brother Terry took over the bear suit. I can’t really blame him for not speaking to me too often.
Burger Flipper
Most people will tell you any fool can flip a hamburger. Laugh if you like, but I tell you there is an art to cooking burgers. You must not allow your grill to get too hot and the right proportion of ingredients will make your customers smile without breaking the bank. Too much of a condiment can leave you with a floor burger. Veggies cut too thick take away from that beefy flavor that draws people to choose your place over the Chicken Chompers across the street.
Every Cook has their preferred layering order. For me, it was always burger, cheese, lettuce, pickle, tomato, and onion. All condiments should go on top, beneath a golden bun toasted just right.
The fry baskets were to my left. After a few weeks I was a patty flipping master and no fry escaped my attention to end up a greasy black stain at the bottom of a basket. The place pretty much only served burgers, fries, and soda, along with the traditional trio of milkshakes. Adding bacon onion rings was my suggestion. Onions were cheap and we could make the breading out of stale buns with a bit of crumbled bacon thrown in.
I couldn’t believe how well they sold. I certainly had Joe’s attention. When he was trying to figure out new menu options, he came to me. I figured chicken and fish are fine, but we’re a burger place. Why not give our customers burgers that you can’t get anywhere else?
I was full of ideas but Joe only went with three. The BBQ Bacon Burger was a huge success and the Ranch Burger held its own but it was the Burger Wraps that earned Joe a billboard at the side of the highway. A meal you could grab and eat on the go was innovative back then.
I wanted to take my ideas further but all my money was going into my car fund. I made a promise to myself that someday my dream of fifty different burgers on the menu would become real and I would have a machine that provided at least thirty flavors of milkshakes.
Joe thought my head was in the clouds but he loved it when I began to take an interest in management. There was only one problem. Company policy required all managers to have experience working the front counter as a cashier.
Cashier
This was not in the computer era. There were no color-coded buttons that did the math for you on a screen. Each purchase had to be rung up correctly and quickly on a monster of a machine. Hungry customers had no patience for clumsy fingers.
Joe allowed me to practice on an old machine with a broken drawer that could no longer be trusted to guard the precious crumpled bills of profit. I began to have nightmares about missing number keys and angry mobs swarming the service counter to put me on the grill.
High school came to an end, allowing me additional time to practice ringing up orders until I found a second job salvaging parts from a scrapyard. The owner was mean-tempered and often found excuses to pay half my earnings. The day I put my five hundredth dollar in the jar was the day I quit that hell job.
My beauty was a light blue sedan with bald tires and a wheezing engine but at least the radio worked. It would be deemed unfit to drive today. On the day I drove it off the lot I was quite convinced I had never seen anything more beautiful.
A new skating rink opened a few miles down the road that summer. Those teens that were once glad for summer work at Burger House were trading in hair nets for checkered vests and bubble gum pink skirts. I stuck it out with Joe, as much to please my father as from a sense of loyalty. It was one of the best choices I’ve ever made. My chance to work the counter came at last when Linda resigned. She was going to make an additional dollar per day managing the rink so she didn’t resent training me in. I wish I could say Frank the new cook had such an upbeat attitude. He was surly, but he sure knew his way around a grill.
I came to enjoy interacting with customers I had once cooked for. There were those locals that knew my family who would leave a decent tip and plenty of tourist families on their way to water parks and campground sites. You got the occasional stinker who left a complaint but I learned not to take their comments personally. I’ve known plenty of promising kids who gave up careers in this business because they couldn’t do the same. It took me only six months to satisfy Joe. I was the youngest manager in the history of Burger House.
Manager
I moved away from home, settling in nicely to a little white house with red shutters. It had all the modern conveniences, though before I met my wife the only one that saw steady use was the fridge.” He laughs and slaps a hand on the desk. Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I don’t know how I would’ve managed without my lady. I’m sorry to say I let my sisters handle household matters growing up. I clung to the foolish belief that such skills would be instinctual once I got out on my own. It was quite embarrassing, driving home to ask Mother how to run my own washing machine.
Eddie came from a tiny town out east, one where everyone knew everyone else and there were literally pies left to cool in windows. Her full name was Edwina after her maternal grandmother. She couldn’t stand her full name, and she hated how her family assumed her waitressing was just a way to pass the time until she found a guy worthy of asking for her hand. The day she finished high school, she hopped on a bus going west, not even bothering to leave a note.
Joe didn’t care about where she’d come from. She was a waitress with experience and the sweetest personality. She treated everyone equal, even the new Burger Bear.
Joe trusted me more all the time with new management duties. He was well into his sixties and he couldn’t be on his feet all day, running from one end of the restaurant to another. I didn’t think much of it at first when he started leaving at three, trusting me to lock up at night.
It was after our last customer had gone that I found Eddie in the supply closet, crying softly. She worked so hard to convince the rest of us she was happy. She couldn’t admit to anyone how much she hated her job because she needed it too badly. She’d go home after her shift and stand in the shower until the water was icy just to get the stink of grease out of her hair.
I didn’t know what to say. I let her lean against me and cry for a while, and then I took her home. I was in love with her then, but my status frightened her and I knew marriage was the last thing she wanted to hear about. I just wanted her to be happy. I had to reassure her three times that I would tell no one her secret.
Joe’s death was unexpected. He hadn’t told any of us that he had cancer. He was fighting a battle he knew he couldn’t win but he was also so concerned with making others happy. He fumbles for a handkerchief, swiping the checkered cloth over his eyes. Excuse me. It’s always hard to talk about the loss of a great man like Joe.
Joe had no family left. His wife died young and there were no children. Eddie was sitting with me in my kitchen when Joe’s lawyer came. She had a pie baking and she’d spent the morning planting flowers in beds beneath the front window. I was orbiting the moon at that moment. Not five minutes before she had told me I was the man she wanted to marry. Imagine my surprise when I found out Joe had left his restaurant to me.
Burger Emperor
We married in summer at the side of a lake. Most of our guests were friends from the restaurant. It was quite funny to see my siblings all dressed in their best and Mom cried when Eddie and I kissed.
Eddie’s family was there as well. They had decided to forgive her past behavior due to my high standing. They never considered she might not be so forgiving. She only speaks to them now when there’s a birth or death in the family.
With the fulfillment of one dream, I was determined to pursue another. I didn’t want customers limited to twelve stale options on a board. The burger tower made its debut two days after the birth of my son.
It was Eddie’s idea to theme the tower medieval. What else can you do with a name like Kastle? He laughs and points to a framed picture on his office wall. This was the very first tower. You can see how the bricks are removed to show your ingredient options. We had eleven toppings, three kinds of meat, and four types of cheese. The first tower is obviously very primitive compared to the lit displays of today but it certainly drew customers back in the day.
It got chaotic at times with customers all shouting out their specific preferences, but they loved having the ability to build a burger specific to them. I can’t tell you how many headaches the computer revolution solved. Now you can touch a few buttons and your order is sent to the kitchen instantly.
I was able to hire a few new cooks within a month. I had a franchise offer by the time the twins were born and my little girls were just starting school when we served our one millionth customer.
I’m not going to lie to you and say we never had failures. Some items were total flops and had to be removed from the menu. We’ve found that regional tastes have much to do with the curiosity level of taste buds. I’ve also had more skeptics than fans plenty of times. There were many complaints when new bun flavors went up, especially from my investors. Who would want to try a bun that contained seaweed? He chuckles as he looks down on the city below. This was right before the seaweed as a health food craze, you understand.
I see we’re almost out of time. You asked me at the beginning of this interview what my best piece of advice would be for a young man or woman seeking success. I say you should not shy away from your failures. How we face defeat defines us much more than moments of triumph. He leans back in his brown leather chair, offering you a smile as you fumble to pack up your recording equipment. It is the lunch hour and the image in your brain is a thick, juicy Kastle Burger with Swiss cheese, bacon, and a hearty double serving of raspberry vinaigrette.
It’s always good to have options.
Credits: Profile by: Ringo Story byPureflower
Pet Treasure
Bag of Burgers
Burger
Big Sloppy Burger
Chai Burger
Pretzel Burger
Atebus Burger
Smiley Beef Burger
Egg Muffin Sandwich
Turkey Burger
Grilled Salmon Burger
Subeta Fries
Curly Fries
Chili Cheese Fries
Fried Cheese
Chicken Tenders
Hot Wings
Onion Rings
Apple Turnover
Cherry Turnover
Peach Turnover
Pear Turnover
Mini Pies
Mini Lemon Pies
Mini Blueberry Pies
Mini Chocolate Pies
Ketchup Packets
Mustard Packets
Mayonnaise Packets
Relish Packets
Vinegar Packets
Strawberry Milkshake
Vanilla Milkshake
Chocolate Milkshake
Soft Drink
Medium Soda
Small Soda