JG’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers

It’s all about the ranch (an exaggeration, but only slightly)

ASK RENE BENITEZ — chef of 23 years at JG’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers — what is the secret to longevity, and he will throw a knowing glance at the restaurant’s owner, Susanne Bagheri, and say, “A good boss.”

They laugh. They pay homage to great customer service, loyal clientele and good Angus beef. But what Benitez really believes in — you can tell from the passion with which he speaks of it — is the ranch dressing.

“We make it from scratch,” he says.

“Secret recipe,” says Bagheri, “You won’t find it anywhere else.”

“Once we ran out and had to serve another ranch, from a bottle, and our customers refused to eat it,” Benitez adds.

If you think they are overenthusiastic, you haven’t tried JG’s ranch — it’s the sort of condiment you want to drink and then lick the ramekin clean. Same with the honey mustard. In fact, the crew makes all of the sauces, dressings, marinades and spices in-house.

Susanne and husband Morris Bagheri bought JG’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers — located in an otherwise unremarkable shopping strip on Upper Greenville near I-635 — in the 1980s from a young guy named John Green. Green, a college kid, had wanted a restaurant, Susanne explains, but probably did not know what he was getting into.

“When we came around, he was burned out — just wanting to get out,” Susanne says. “For someone with so little experience, he really did a good job setting the place up, though. A lot of what is here now was here then.”

The Bagheris have made subtle alterations over the years. JG’s namesake, John Green, is long gone, but they kept the name. “Now we say it stands for ‘Just Good’ or ‘Just Great.’ ”

They expanded, absorbing the suite next door and doubling the diner’s size, and bought a few items to add to the shabbily captivating décor, which includes, to name a few: a retro gas pump, old-timey scales, a barber’s pole and baker’s spade and weathered- looking farm implements, vintage signage, rusty instruments and a diorama featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales. “Some people say it should be called a hamburger museum,” Susanne quips. Rows of fresh pickles, onions, tomatoes and other accoutrements line a bar underneath a chalkboard showcasing the menu, which, over the decades, has changed but marginally, according to Chef Benitez.

“We were the first to serve the mushroom cheeseburger, back when no one thought of putting that on a burger, and we made the original bleu cheese burger, too,” he says.

Some customers swear by the marinated chicken breast sandwich, Susanne says, adding that the marinade is another of those topsecret recipes.

Owner Morris Bagheri moved to the United States from Iran in the ’60s. He went to school in Commerce, Texas, while working in kitchens. He earned a master’s degree in geology but found the call of the restaurant industry irresistible. Morris was a partner in and managed various French-Continental restaurants including Le Louvre.

“He’s a food man,” says his wife. “He knows his stuff.”

That’s where they met; they married 30 years ago and bought a house just north of

Lake Highlands, all about a year before buying their restaurant.

“When we first started [JG’s], we ran our butts off. I could handle any position on the line,” recalls Susanne, a petite dynamo with a stylish shock of white hair, crimson-stained lips and deep, bright eyes.

“If someone wasn’t doing their job, I would move in, take over,” she says. “We went through a few line cooks in the beginning.”

Today, they have a staff of 11; all but a couple have worked there more than 20 years.

The Bagheris work most shifts — Morris up front and Susanne in the office, for the most part — but they both interact frequently with customers. Their daughter, Shahrzad, works the counter at lunchtime.

Lake Highlands High School and Richland College students and staff, Texas Instruments employees and members of the churches along Greenville make up a large part of JG’s customer base. Websites such as Trip Advisor, where travelers rate restaurants and hotels, have boosted JG’s reputation around the world.

“We have had people come from overseas and thousands of miles away. Some don’t speak English, and they just point at what they want. This actually is a destination restaurant,” Susanne says, hinting that the lackluster retail environment surrounding JG’s certainly isn’t bringing in any new customers.

Both Morris and Susanne say that while a love of food and its industry drives them, it is the people, their patrons, who have kept them happily pursuing their passion all these years.

“I cannot express enough how very grateful I am for every person who walks in that door,” Susanne says.

Even the ones who are grumpy — and there are some. “I tell the staff, ‘You do not know what is going on in their life. They walked in here, they are going to spend their money here. They might be having a bad day, but they are not going to be having a bad day because of us,’ ” she says.

“But my very favorite thing, what I love the most, is seeing people walk away happy.”