It doesn’t happen as often as it used to. But every so often a customer walks into Griff’s Hamburgers on Pleasanton Road and recalls visiting in the 1960s.
Recollections shared with general manager Marcelino Leon vary a bit from person to person but the core details remain the same.
“They’d come here and get burgers for 15 cents,” Leon said. “Two bags of them.”
The old customers, now grandparents, took the food to go, piled into a station wagon with friends and hauled off to a drive-in theater.
That’s the Griff’s of American Graffiti: Classic cars, loud kids, entertainment on the cheap. The Griff’s of 2026 skews middle age, pulses with business and, believe it or not, echoes with memories for Generation Z. A junior hamburger today costs $2.49, one of the least expensive in town. A “giant” burger without cheese costs $4.99.
“Nobody beats Griff’s,” said Kaylee Morelos, 26, a regular for 15 years who recently visited with her grandmother. “Everything is amazing. It’s nostalgic. All the taste is there. It feels like home.”
Griff’s Hamburgers is a home of sorts to generations of South Side residents. It’s been around longer than Leon, 50, the general manager since 2003. Longer than the breakfast taco craze, which dates to the 1970s. Griff’s has been around almost as long as the setting of the fictional film American Graffiti, 1962.
Griff’s Burger Bar, as it was originally known, opened March 1, 1963, more than a year after the first — and since-closed — San Antonio location on Fredericksburg Road. In the July 11, 1963 edition of the San Antonio Express, Griff’s advertised “Nickel Shake Day,” a one-day special on chocolate, vanilla and strawberry milkshakes that regularly sold for 20 cents. The ad touted “tangy cheeseburgers” for 19 cents, “crispy french fries” for 11 cents, “cold drinks” for 10 to 15 cents.
Susan Crim, 68, remembers climbing into her parent’s car with her brother and driving to Griff’s for the Tuesday special in the early 1960s.
“You could get 10 hamburgers for a dollar,” she said. “They had minced onion, pickles, bread and meat. They’d put the burgers in a paper bag and we’d put them in the car and the car smelled like the restaurant. We couldn’t wait to get home and eat them. We didn’t get anything but the burgers. My dad was not going to spend more than a dollar.”
Griff’s began as a bargain burger spot in Wichita, Kansas in March 1960. Known for its A-frame design and drive-thru, Griff’s expanded to San Antonio on Nov. 1, 1961 at 3819 Fredericksburg Road.
The original store manager, William Griffith Chapman, told the San Antonio Light, “Griff’s will not tolerate a ‘soupy, thinned down shake’; they must be rich in butter fat, triple-thick and mellow to the taste.”
He also said, “Griff’s french fries, uniform in size, from high quality potatoes, blanched and quick frozen until the instant they are immersed in the deep fryers, are golden brown * * * not a limp slice in the order.”
Months after Griff’s opened on Pleasanton Road, the San Antonio News reported that “the two burger bars have sold more than a million burgers. Not to mention the fries.”
Booming sales prompted a rapid expansion. Dozens of Griff’s opened across the U.S. before the chain began closing restaurants in the 1970s. The Fredericksburg Road spot shuttered in 1972. Eleven locations remain today in Texas and Louisiana.
Griff’s anchors a once prominent swath of commercial business on Pleasanton Road. Firestone opened across the street in 1967. Rocky’s Taco House followed in 1982. Rolando’s Super Tacos launched in 1990, right behind Griff’s, but closed last year.
When Leon arrived as general manager in 2003, the menu still carried items for less than a dollar. “When I first started,” he said, “the hamburgers were 79 cents.”
Ten years in at Griff’s, Leon met a customer he’ll never forget, an elderly, cowboy hat-wearing gentleman who drove in three times a week.
“I asked him, ‘Sir, how old are you,’” Leon recalled. “And he said, “I’ll be 101 in July.’ And he was still driving. He would get three cheeseburgers. He’d say, “Two are for my workers and one is for me.’ And I said, ‘You’re still working?’ He goes, ‘Yes, I work every day.’ So I asked him, ‘What’s the trick to looking like you and surviving like you?’ He’s like, ‘Son, hard work and a good shot of Brandy.’”
Under Leon, Griff’s has undergone multiple renovations, the most recent in the fall of 2025. Modernizing the kitchen cost more than $1 million and shut down the restaurant for six weeks.
“When we reopened, we did two times more business than before we closed,” Leon said. “People will come in and can’t see the (new) kitchen. But they taste the difference. Since we renovated the kitchen, our business has almost tripled.”
Griff’s best-seller is the No. 1 combo, a double giant cheeseburger with fries and a drink for $10.69. The menu has expanded since 2003 to include a steak finger basket ($8.99), a BBQ bacon cheeseburger combo ($7.19) and a hot link combo ($7.99).
Griff’s sustained popularity, Leon says, is largely due to flavor, pricing and cleanliness. On an outdoor patio table, he proudly shows off three Blue Plate Awards from News 4 San Antonio, recognition for perfect or near-perfect health inspection scores.
“I challenge you to go anywhere on the South Side and see if anybody is cleaner than we are,” he said.
Griff’s opened on Pleasanton Road 13 years before Leon was born. The restaurant of that era faced no competition from the plethora of taquerias now operating in the neighborhood. Leon feels no pressure to join the crowd and sell breakfast tacos. Why should he?
“We have cars lined up in the drive-thru before we open at 9:30 in the morning,” he said. “They’re here at 9:20, wanting triple meat and triple cheese.”
Breakfast at Griff’s is a lot like lunch and dinner. Served fresh and hot.
With a side of nostalgia.
