It’s been a little over five years since Big Ed Thomas, the impresario behind Big Ed’s Hamburgers, shed this mortal coil and there’s not a conversation about burgers—and I have a lot of them—that goes by wherein someone says to me “Man, I sure do miss Big Ed’s!” as they woefully bite into a $25 artisan-crafted boutique-burger sided with a dollop of rosemary-tainted truffle-fries, swigging a piss-warm craft beer to wash/choke it down with.
There was a time in this great state when Big Ed’s burger joints were littered all across the land, a state-wide success story that included over 50 stores and statewide acclaim. Since his death, however, that number has dwindled down to one measly location at NW 122 and N. Penn in an obscure little shopping center that is as non-descript as it is empty. It’s the culinary equivalent of your once strong and virile abuelito reduced to dementia-infused tears as he wets himself in the game-room of a crooked old folks’ home.