Rosco's Burger Inn, open since 1955, is temporarily closed due to fire: Trish Long

Consolation might be on the menu for El Paso burger lovers.

Longtime El Paso eatery, Rosco’s Burger Inn, suffered from a kitchen fire Tuesday morning, causing a temporary closure. No one was injured in the blaze.

I spoke with Jacob Carrasco, third generation owner of Rosco’s, and he had no estimate of how long the popular burger place would remain closed. He took over the restaurant from his father in 2006.

Roger Carrasco captures the flavor of a neighborhood

A July 22, 1981, article about Roger Carrasco gives background on him and his burger joint:

It’s the noon hour.

Soldiers enthusiastically pile around one of three large kitchen tables in Burger Inn at 3829 Tompkins, a restaurant that looks like what it is – a house converted into a home hamburger haven.

Corporals and colonels sit in the assorted, unmatched chairs.

Kids in the corner play pinball.

Two women, one middle-aged, one elderly, sniff as they come in the door.

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Smell of burgers cooking is free

“Come in. Sit down. Relax,” a voice booms cheerily from the back of the kitchen. ”Smell the hamburgers cooking – that’s free.”

The voice belongs to Roger Carrasco, owner of Burger Inn. He’s been in the small restaurant business more than 40 years, 28 of them at this neighborhood favorite.

Hungry people from Austin High School, Fort Bliss and Beaumont Army Medical Center are drawn to Carrasco’s home-style cooking – meat ground fresh every day, fresh fried potatoes, homemade chili sauce and produce “equal to what you get at the Hilton hotel.”

And Carrasco says, once a customer, always a customer.

Example: Betty Bowen ate Carrasco’s burgers as an Austin High School student. Friday she and her own teen-age children were back, munching Carrasco’s green chili burgers.

Carrasco left his hometown at 14

Carrasco says, many folks couldn’t pronounce his last name, so he was nicknamed “Roscoe” and his chili burgers dubbed “Roscoe Burgers.” A sign in his restaurant claims, “Seven days without a Roscoe Burger makes one weak.”

Other folks sometimes call him “Marfa” for his hometown. But the 62-year-old Carrasco left his hometown at 14 in 1935 and came to El Paso to find work he couldn’t find in Marfa.

He quit school after the fifth grade to help his family out during the Depression. He delivered The El Paso Times and did other odd jobs. He regrets leaving school, he says, but he trained himself in necessities – like keeping his business’s books.

He went to work cooking burgers at one of El Paso’s Hamburger Inns in 1937, and soon was promoted to manager. His salary, he remembers, was a huge $65 a month. But then folks could come in and buy a bag of a dozen burgers for 55 cents. A full T-bone steak meal, including dessert, was 35 cents, he adds.

Later, he worked at Peyton Packing Co. and Swanky Franky, nurturing his dream to own a restaurant.

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Burger Inn opens in 1955

July 15, 1955, he opened Burger Inn and took in a big $19 the first day.

At first, he says, parents weren’t sure they wanted his “joint” in the neighborhood. They were afraid his juke box (still in the restaurant) would be loud and keep them up all hours. But they soon changed their mind – for the same reason parents like Burger Inn today, Carrasco adds.

He allows “no drinking or no drugs.” He won’t sell beer because he knows he often has a young crowd.

Now, Carrasco says, if teens from the area want to go out, parents say, “Go down to Burger Inn and get a hamburger.”

Roscoe Burger: Onions, price add spice

A July 7, 1983, article interviews Carrasco’s son, also Roger Carrasco, after he took over the restaurant in 1981:

“I would come in here as a little boy and work with my dad, watching him, and then I would go out and play. I was maybe 8 or 9 years. Then I also went to work for Lucky Boy and learned a lot before taking over here.”

Carrasco’s method for making a better burger consisted of using only good products, which included an 80/20 combination of ground beef (80 percent meat to 20 percent fat) and mixing chopped onion into the meat. The formula has not changed since the beginning. …

The limited seating never stops the predominantly military crowd from stopping by, because, as Roger puts it, “If we are out of seats, people will take a chair from the stack over there (piled high in the corner), or they will sit on a stack of soda bottles, or simply go outside and return the bottles and basket when they are through. ...”

An important aspect, besides the low prices, of dining at the Burger Inn is, as Roger puts it, “We are a friendly place. This one big, happy family. You sit down with others and eat, and everyone enjoys himself.”

 Trish Long may be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Fire temporarily closes Rosco's Burger Inn in Central El Paso