Jane Week #13 - Burgerville
A Burgerville restaurant (Cassidy).
California has In ‘n’ Out, but Oregon has Burgerville. After watching Moana 2 in a crowded old-timey movie theater that had rows of seats spanning further back than I had ever seen, Andy, Jenny Unnie, the boys, and I stopped by the nearest Burgerville for we had all been craving a bite (we had been left popcorn-less both because of our [un]timely arrival at the theaters as well as the sheer popularity of the concession stand—who knew the movie’s opening night would be so popular!). As we walked in, the retro-ness of it all blasted my face, with the cold air lingering above us all despite us being indoors now. The fog clung to the windows in the form of condensation, so much so that we could probably write through it both inside and out.
The scene felt straight out of a film: it made me nostalgic over Stranger Things which I had never even watched before. An inherent American-ness to the restaurant was evident: the fluorescent lights reflecting on the clouded windows, with islands of tables as well as booths circling the place. All the chairs were red. We sat around a checkered table on said chairs, with neon lights continuing to reflect both in and out of the building as the cold harshness of the seats penetrated pants we thought should have protected us from the frigid. The sudden embarrassment that washes over when seeing a group of kids your age will never truly disappear, and the assurance that I would not see anyone I actually knew from California did not matter. A group of teenagers walked in.
Unlike what would have been in my hometown of Fremont, California, no one in the cluster was Asian. They were standing and sitting around a booth, talking in accents that missed that breath that comes with Californian dialect, and the crackle of an Asian-American one. There were kids really wearing beanies and baggy jeans, long sleeve shirts under equally baggy or baggier t-shirts. In California, kids only wished to dress like this, but there was a certain unnaturalness to it. Playing Spin the Bottle with God knows what for God knows why, a few of them left the scene to go take their orders.
Walking around like they owned the place—which they probably did the way Fremont kids ruled the local boba stores back south—they glided back and forth, taking each others’ orders. It wasn’t difficult to imagine this being a normal day for them, but I was still curious: how did they get here? Can they drive? Are they local?
Drinking my milkshake, fortifying the coldness not escaping my tongue, I reassessed the scene before me as I turned back around. I wonder what they were thinking about.
Works Cited
Cassidy, Kaelyn. “Burgerville Is Coming to Wilsonville.” Wilsonville Spokesman, 23 January 2024, www.wilsonvillespokesman.com/business/burgerville-is-coming-to-wilsonville/article_5994ff02-ba38-11ee-a1a7-733ad8ffc95f.html. Accessed 19 March 2025.
Hi Jane, your phrases describing the way people talk—"the breath that comes with the Californian dialect," and "the crackle of an Asian-American one"—really caught my attention with how evocative they are. Sight is already difficult to convey fully in writing, sound even more so, and I appreciate how you utilize various senses to make this memory fully come to life, from describing the cold air, milkshakes and seats, to the sensation of foggy windows. You do a fantastic job making a mundane fast-food chain restaurant come to life as a strange place you don't feel as if you fit into, and I couldn't help feeling uneasy as I read your blog. It's so strange to consider other teenagers living utterly different lives even just in a different state, though I love how you clarified that the feeling of embarrassment around other groups of teenagers is always a constant—unfortunately that's so true.
ReplyDeleteHey Jane! I genuinely enjoyed reading your blog, it had this sense of a new vibe we don't see in typical California style; it mirrors the juxtaposition you explained between the style in Oregon compared to that of Fremont, California. The descriptive tone you used truly paints a magnificent picture that sets a vivid image in your head while reading, I felt as if I was truly there. I relate to the questions you were asking yourself in the sense that I've asked myself those exact questions almost everywhere I travel. Specifically, the Bay Area is so incredibly different from everywhere else in America. Even Northern California I feel has more of that typical American "aesthetic" than the Bay Area, a region that I'd at least consider a cornerstone of American culture. It's definitely interesting to see how different people style themselves in other areas of the country when you're so used to a specific style back home.
ReplyDeleteHey Jane, when I saw your blog in the list of blogs to read, I was intrigued by the old-fashioned American-style burger restaurant on the cover alongside the title “Burgerville,” so I was curious to find out what the post was about. Upon reading your blog, I felt like I was being taken into an unnatural and different world, one that had almost nothing familiar or known to me. It most definitely serves as an example of how these types of strange parallels exist between the little community we love and other places in the country. I loved your blog for its emphasis on this parallel, and it was very enjoyable to read.
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