By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
In the 1930s, a federal court ruled that Milwaukee’s White Tower Hamburgers was a direct rip off of Wichita’s White Castle Hamburgers. For the next 40 years or so, White Tower and White Castle served up cheap fast burgers all around the country — but generally they steered clear of each other’s territory.
Buffalo News archives
Buffalo was White Tower territory. In the 1940s, there were White Tower restaurants on Broadway, Chippewa, Fillmore and on the 200 and 1000 blocks of Main.
While White Castle still thrives in 2015, White Tower didn’t fare as well. By the late ’70s only a handful of restaurants were left nationwide, including two in Buffalo — one at Broadway and Sycamore, and one at Kenmore and Tremaine in Kenmore. Both buildings remain, but they are drastically changed, to the point where it’s difficult to say for certain which location — complete with Courier-Express paper box — is in the photo above.
Update: Readers point out the broadcast tower in the background, which cements the location as in Kenmore. The tower is on Channel 4’s property on Elmwood Avenue.