The griddle cheeseburgers at Sear Shack — made from scratch and seductively good — are an American story of immigration, entrepreneurship, and a tolerant mother’s impromptu test kitchen. Owner Joseph Ang’s boyhood love for Burger King plays a part too, as does a fortuitous meet-up with a street vendor selling sandwiches from a cart in San Juan.
Let’s begin the story with Ang’s parents, Vy and Yao Ang, when they fled the Cambodian civil war in the early 1980s to resettle, start a family, and open a Chinese restaurant in Memphis. “My mom owns and operates Lucky China in Southaven. I follow in her footsteps,” says Ang, who bought a Steak Escape franchise at age 22 and sold it seven years later to start his first Sear Shack in Collierville. In early November, he opened a second restaurant in Sanderlin Centre not far from Muddy’s Bake Shop.
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Justin Fox Burks
Sear Shack keeps the menu simple: hand-spun milkshakes in four flavors (vanilla, chocolate, Nutella and salted caramel); cheeseburgers with a choice of seven toppings;and hand-cut fries. Owner Joseph Ang, pictured above, spent a year perfecting the restaurant’s artisanal buns, made fresh in-house every day.
2 of 3
Justin Fox Burks
Sear Shack keeps the menu simple: hand-spun milkshakes in four flavors (vanilla, chocolate, Nutella and salted caramel); cheeseburgers with a choice of seven toppings;and hand-cut fries. Owner Joseph Ang, pictured above, spent a year perfecting the restaurant’s artisanal buns, made fresh in-house every day.
3 of 3
Justin Fox Burks
Sear Shack keeps the menu simple: hand-spun milkshakes in four flavors (vanilla, chocolate, Nutella and salted caramel); cheeseburgers with a choice of seven toppings;and hand-cut fries. Owner Joseph Ang, pictured above, spent a year perfecting the restaurant’s artisanal buns, made fresh in-house every day.
Ang’s concept all along was to build a better burger, starting with the bun. He knew nothing about baking. “I went through about 500 pounds of flour, and my mother’s kitchen was covered in flour for a year straight,” Ang said. He tinkered with an online recipe and added some sugar, a nod to the fast-food burger buns he ate growing up. “I knew if I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and got the buns just a little sweet, the burgers were going to be great,” he says.
Indeed. These days, brother Michael Ang shoulders the baking, turning out about 600 buns a day for both restaurants. And the burgers made with Angus beef? They are seared on a griddle well done for an irresistible throwback taste, updated with trendy add-ons like dill pickles made in-house and a Puerto Rican-inspired secret sauce. Hand-cut fries and hand-spun milkshakes (salted caramel is my favorite) fill out the menu for a much-needed reminder that when cooking, simple is always best.
5101 Sanderlin Ave. (901-567-4909) and 875 W. Poplar, Collierville (901-861-4100) $
