Just after noon on a recent Wednesday, light began peeking through a thin fog that hovered over Sunshine General Store in Brookeville.
Lee Haislip pulled into the parking lot of the weathered storefront/gas station. He headed straight toward the four-stool kitchen counter at the rear and gazed up at a letterboard menu — with an ad featuring decades-old Pepsi logos.
He didn’t expect to be here.
“I literally was driving by, and it smelled so good. I turned around and came back,” said Haislip, 57.
Haislip estimated it was the third time he had visited. He lives in Annapolis but is often around the nearby farmlands to sell landscaping supplies. Haislip weighed the menu options and landed on a chicken salad sandwich. But what he was smelling was the sizzle of meat. Specifically, bacon and hand-formed beef patties on the griddle.
Sunshine General Store has built a reputation for its burger. It used to be word of mouth — a local’s “if you know, you know” type of spot. But those same admirers have in recent years spread word to online accounts including The Frederick Fatty and Barstool Sports and news organizations such as Washingtonian and The Washington Post, which have all contributed to spikes in traffic.
Nearly everyone agrees that this humble store, with its wood-paneled walls and coolers upon coolers of drinks and night crawlers used for fishing, has one of the area’s best burgers.
Haislip admitted he’d never tried the burger. He surveyed his fellow customers: “Who got the burger?” Three hands shot up.
“Now, I’m gonna have to get the burger,” Haislip said. “I won’t be so healthy next time.”
Family business
Laura Pullen has co-owned the store since 2002 with her husband, Neil. She was working behind the register alongside her daughter, Christine Campbell, 40. Pullen, 61, and her family are here every day along with a rotating staff of about five other people.
She said the store has been open in that location since 1947 under about four different family owners. The Pullens haven’t changed much about the place including the decor, which is a funky throwback. Customers have given her some Formica tables that still function as the dining room.
If you ask Pullen or Campbell what makes people gush about their burger, they’ll both shrug.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Campbell said.
“People go crazy about it,” Pullen said.
The secret sauce
Sunshine’s burger is simple. Thick, roughly half-pound patties are laid atop buns adorned with a light sprinkle of sesame seeds. Toppings are up to you.
Lettuce, tomatoes and onions come standard. Patrons can ask for bacon, dill or bread-and-butter pickles and pickled jalapeños, among a couple other options. The delightful ooze of American cheese, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise binds things together.
Pullen suggested that maybe it’s something with the seasoning they use on the beef. Just don’t expect her to tell you what’s in it. She relented and dashed some grains in a cup for The Banner. It gave a nostalgic whiff of Montreal steak seasoning, which leans on garlic, paprika and coriander.
Campbell and Pullen pointed toward longtime customers who said it was something about the grill and the seasoning of time. Pullen said they got the grill that sits in the back of their store in 2006.
Lunch rush
Sonia Romero has been working that grill for the past three years. On a small notepad, she jotted down the stream of orders: burger, BLT and half-smoke orders — some phoned in, some given at the counter during this day’s lunch rush. It was her birthday and she was sharing that occasion with customer Victor Francis, who was turning 32.
Francis took the day off from his job as an assistant state’s attorney with Anne Arundel County to grab lunch with his friend Ryan Coulter, 31. They wanted to celebrate in an atmosphere that evoked their upbringing in Olney. The two sometimes found themselves at Sunshine to get a burger while in middle and high school together.
“It’s that small-town feel that you often don’t get anymore. They clearly focus on the food here, not so much the place,” Coulter said with a chuckle. “But there’s something nice about that where you feel like you’re stepping back in time a little bit.”
Coulter, Francis and other regular customers mentioned how warm the service is and how much they appreciate when their specific orders are remembered without being spoken.
“You think about how many restaurants you walk into and you just never talk to anybody except for the transaction,” Francis said. “You can not know somebody’s first name here and be able to interact with them like you’ve known each other for 15 years.”
Tom Twigg arrived shortly after Francis and Coulter finished their burgers. The 68-year-old said he had been coming for Sunshine’s food since 1977. He had worked a few jobs near the area, including as a firefighter in Laytonsville.
He lives in Thurmont in Frederick County and was waiting on two half-smokes when he ran into an old friend he hadn’t seen for years. They caught up for a minute and joked about a trophy fish nailed to a support beam in Sunshine that they remembered being there when they were kids.
“It’s been consistent. The burger is always the same. The bacon is always good,” Twigg said. “It hasn’t changed. That fish has still been there.”
Consistency
As the lunch rush wound down after 1:30 p.m., Campbell and Pullen were at the front gossiping about a recent regular customer.
He had been here once a week, mostly to ask about buying the store, they said. Mother and daughter couldn’t agree on whether he might be representing 7-Eleven or Royal Farms. But they said it wasn’t uncommon to see entrepreneurs who might be more interested in acquiring gas pumps than hamburger grills.
“Tell him some ridiculous offer so he’ll stop coming back,” Pullen said.
As far as they saw it, they’re happy to stay put and keep welcoming longtime and new customers. They appreciate the consistency just as much as everyone else.
Comments
Welcome to The Banner's subscriber-only commenting community. Please review our community guidelines.