25 Forgotten Wimpy Meals That Made a 1970s Shopping Trip Special

Picture it. Saturday afternoon, the shopping done, your feet aching, and your mum finally says yes. Through the glass door you go, past the red bench seats and the brown formica tables, into a warm fug of frying onions and frothy coffee. A proper waitress carries your burger to the table on a real plate, with a knife and fork laid beside it. This was Wimpy. The place that gave British children their first taste of America long before the Golden Arches arrived. Here are 25 forgotten wimpy meals that every kid begged for. Let's begin with number 25. Number 25. Egg and chips was the safest order on the whole menu, the one a nervous child could point to without a second thought. A fried egg with its yolk trembling and bright. A mound of chips salted and vinegared. And nothing on that plate to frighten anyone. In a wimpy of the early 1970s, it cost only a handful of pence, cheap enough that a mother could bring three children in from the cold and still walk out with change from a pound note. The waitress would set it down with a clatter, and the child would burst the yolk at once, dragging each chip through the golden pool. It was not glamorous and it was not American, but it was the gentle beginning of the whole ritual. For thousands of British children, egg and chips at a corner table was the very first meal they ever ate in a restaurant. And the memory of that small independence, ordering for yourself, sitting up straight like a grown-up, lingered long after the plate was cleared. Number 24. The Wimpy Cheeseburger was the natural next step. The order you graduated to once egg and chips felt like a child's game. A beef patty, grilled rather than fried, with a slice of cheese melting into a soft glaze. All pressed inside a round bun that steamed faintly when you opened it. At around sixteen pence, it sat within reach of pocket money saved across a fortnight, and half the pleasure was in the arithmetic, counting the coins in your palm before you dared to ask. The Wimpy way was to eat it with cutlery, and a certain kind of child took enormous pride in that, sawing at a burger with a knife and fork as though it were a sundae joint. The cheese, the grill lines, the little sachet of mustard. It felt impossibly sophisticated. Today, the cheeseburger survives everywhere and means almost nothing, but in a 1970s Wimpy, it was a small event. Number 23. The egg burger married two of a child's favorite things and in doing so felt almost decadent. A grilled beef patty crowned with a fried egg, the yolk breaking the moment your fork went in and running down into the bun until the whole thing turned rich and messy and marvelous. Mothers watched with a mixture of pride and despair as napkins were demanded and shirt fronts were ruined. It cost a little more than the plain cheeseburger, which made it a thing to be earned, granted only when school reports were good or a birthday loomed. The genius of it was pure wimpy, taking the ordinary British comfort of egg and pairing it with the exotic American burger, so that neither parent nor child had to choose. That soft yolk soaking into grilled beef was a flavour a whole generation would spend the rest of their lives trying to find again. Number 22. The Wimpy Salad was the entrée nobody expected to remember, and yet it hides a small scandal. Priced almost double the cheeseburger, a plate of limp lettuce, a wedge of tomato, a curl of cucumber, and a scoop of salad cream cost a small fortune by the standards of the day. Fathers watching the pennies would raise an eyebrow at the very idea. Why pay twice as much for leaves when the same money bought hot grilled beef? For most children, the salad was a mystery ordered only by an aunt on a diet or a grandmother watching her figure, and it arrived looking faintly apologetic beside everyone else's steaming plates. But it tells you something about the era, that fresh salad in winter was still a genuine luxury, trucked and stored at real expense. The humble bowl of leaves was, in its quiet way, the most extravagant thing on the whole menu. Number 21. The toasted tea cake belonged to the grandmothers, and to the quieter corner of every wimpy afternoon. Split, toasted until the edges caught, and served with a foil-wrapped pat of butter melting into every crevice, it was the order that turned a burger bar into a proper tea room for half an hour. While the children demolished chips, the older generation would sit with a tea cake and a pot of tea, dabbing at the corners of their mouths and surveying the room. It cost only pennies and asked nothing of anyone, yet children remember it well, because a good grandmother always tore off a buttery corner and passed it across the table, and that small shared bite tasted better than anything ordered outright. The tea cake was proof that Wimpy, for all its American swagger, understood the British need for tea and toast at four in the afternoon. Frothy coffee was strictly a grown-up drink, which is precisely why every child in the place wanted it. Made on a hissing machine that filled the air with steam, it arrived in a glass cup with a thick collar of foam that a spoon could stand up in, dusted sometimes with a shake of chocolate. This was years before anyone in Britain said the word cappuccino, and the frothy coffee felt like the height of continental glamour. Children begged for sips, and a soft-hearted mother would tilt the cup so you could take the foam from the top, warm and faintly bitter and utterly grown-up. It cost more than a fizzy pop, and was worth every penny for the sophistication alone. In an age before coffee shops stood on every corner, that hissing machine and its tower of froth was pure theatre, and a child who was allowed a taste felt they had crossed some invisible line into adulthood. Number 19. The shanty was Wimpy's answer to the fish supper. A battered or breaded fish portion tucked into a bun with a slick of tartar sauce, and it drew a devoted following. For families who wanted something other than beef, or for a Friday when meat was set aside, the shanty offered the taste of the seaside without the walk to the chippy. The fish was hot and flaking, the sauce sharp and creamy, and the whole thing sat proudly on its plate with a knife and fork beside it. Children who turned their noses up at proper fish would happily devour a shanty, seduced by the familiar shape of the bun. It never quite reached the fame of the burger, and it slipped away quietly as the decades turned. But for a certain kind of wimpy regular, the shanty was the order that made them feel they had chosen wisely while everyone else played it safe. Number 18. Fish and chips on a wimpy plate carried a peculiar novelty because eating them indoors at a table with cutlery felt entirely wrong and entirely wonderful. Everyone in Britain knew fish and chips as something something eaten from newspaper on a seawall or a cold walk home. To have them served hot on crockery, under strip lighting, with a squeezy tomato of ketchup within reach, turned the ordinary into an occasion. The batter crackled, the chips steamed, and the whole plate felt like a small act of rebellion against the way things were normally done. It cost a shilling or two more than the paper-wrapped version down the road, and that was the point. You were paying for the table, the warmth, the waitress. For a child, sitting down to fish and chips indoors was a taste of a smarter, softer world. The kind of world the adverts kept promising was just around the corner. Number 17. Chicken in a basket was the height of the 1970s, and Wimpy delivered it with a straight face. Pieces of fried chicken and a pile of chips served in a little wicker basket lined with paper. It borrowed the swagger of the pubs and clubs, where the same dish was served to grown-ups with a pint. To a child, the basket itself was half the thrill. Food that came in a basket felt like a party, a celebration, something you would tell your friends about at school on Monday. The chicken was hot and crisp, the chips tumbled among it, and there was a faint absurdity to the whole thing that everyone secretly loved. It cost more than a burger, and so it was reserved for the good days. Chicken in a basket has all but vanished now, remembered mostly as a punchline about the decade of flares and Formica, but at a wimpy table, it was pure glamour. Number 16. The Gammon Grill with Pineapple was the order that made a child feel they had chosen something serious. A thick gammon steak, seared and salty, with a golden ring of tinned pineapple perched on top and a scattering of chips alongside, it was the meal that turned lunch into a proper sit-down affair. That combination of salty meat and sweet fruit was the height of fashion, appearing on every grill menu in the land, and Wimpy served it with the same ceremony as everything else, on a plate, with cutlery delivered by a waitress. Children who ordered it felt enormously mature, sawing at gammon while their younger siblings made do with a bun. The pineapple ring was the reward, saved for last, sweet and warm and faintly caramelized at the edges. Sweet and salty on one plate seemed daring then, now the gammon grill has slipped from menus almost entirely, a casualty of changing tastes. Number 15. The International Grill was Wimpy's grand statement. A loaded plate designed to feed a hungry teenager or a working man on his lunch. A beef grill, a bender, an egg, baked beans, chips and a slice of fried bread, all crowded onto one plate until there was scarcely room for the fork. It was enormous. It was cheap for what it was, and it carried an air of ambition that suited the age. This was Britain reaching for something bigger and brighter. And the International Grill delivered it in a single glorious heap. Children rarely finished one, but they loved to try, and a father might quietly help clear the last of the beans. The plate arrived steaming, the smell of it drifting across the room, and everyone at the table felt they had ordered something substantial. In a decade learning to dream a little larger, the International Grill was a feast that fit on a single plate. Number 14. The king-size burger, the half-pounder, the big one, whatever a branch chose to call it, was the order that separated the brave from the timid. A double stack of grilled beef, more than any sensible child could manage. It was the burger you pointed to when you wanted to prove something. Older brothers ordered it to show off. Fathers ordered it after a long day. And every so often a small child, eyes bigger than their stomach, begged for one, and got perhaps halfway through before the reality set in. It cost noticeably more, which only added to its status, and it came with the same knife and fork as everything else, though nobody ever managed to keep it tidy. The king size was wimpy at its most American, unashamed and generous, promising more meat than you could reasonably eat. To finish one was a playground boast that lasted a fortnight. Number 13. The spicy bean burger arrived ahead of its time. A spiced patty of beans and vegetables in a bun, offered decades before anyone spoke of going meat-free. For the vegetarian aunt, the child who could not stomach mince, or simply the curious, it was a genuine alternative when almost nowhere else in Britain offered one. Warm, faintly spiced, and satisfying, it won a quiet loyalty among those who ordered it. Most children stuck stubbornly to beef, and regarded the bean burger with deep suspicion, poking at a sibling's plate to see what the fuss was about. But Wimpy, without any fanfare, had put a proper meat-free option on the high street long before it was fashionable, and those who loved it, loved it fiercely. It has never quite left the menu, and there is a certain justice in that. A small dish that was decades early finally living in an age that appreciates it. Number 12. A bottle of Coca-Cola felt like the crowning touch of any wimpy visit. And for eight pence, you could have one sweating with cold on the formica in front of you. Fizzy Pop at home was a treat rationed to Sundays and birthdays, so to have a full bottle to yourself, in a restaurant, with a straw, was a small luxury a child never forgot. The bubbles stung, the sweetness dazzled, and the bottle emptied far too quickly. Some branches served it in the bottle, some in a glass over ice, and either way it was the drink that made a burger feel like a proper meal out. Parents nursing a frothy coffee would watch their children guzzle the lot and remind them there would be no more. That single cold bottle of pop condensation running down the glass was the taste of being allowed something special just this once. Number 11. The Coca-Cola float turned a simple fizzy drink into pure spectacle and children lost their minds for it. A tall glass of cola with a scoop of vanilla ice cream dropped in, so that the whole thing hissed and foamed and threatened to overflow the rim. The trick was to wait, watching the ice cream soften into the cola until the surface turned to a brown-white froth you could spoon straight off the top. Half drink, half pudding. Entirely magic. It cost more than a plain pop, which made it a it a treat within a treat, and the sound of it fizzing was reason enough to order one. A long spoon and a straw came together, and there was a proper technique to getting the last of the melted ice cream from the bottom. In the age before every dessert was engineered for a photograph, the humble float was theatre in a glass, and every child at the table wanted their own. Number 10. The waffle with maple syrup brought a slice of America straight to the British high street, and it felt gloriously foreign. A crisp golden waffle, its little squares built to hold pools of syrup, sometimes with a scoop of ice cream slumped alongside. It was the pudding that seemed to belong in a film rather than a rainy town centre. Children who had only ever known jam roly-poly and custard stared at it in wonder. That grid of syrup-filled squares, the way the sweetness soaked into every hollow, was Was a novelty worth every penny of the extra it cost? Mothers ordered one to share, cut it into quarters, and doled out the pieces like treasure. The waffle never fully caught on the way the burgers did, and it drifted from the wimpy menu as tastes moved on. But for the children who tasted it, that syrup-drowned grid was the flavor of a wider world just beginning to open up. Number 9. Peach Melba was the pudding for the child who fancied themselves refined. A scoop of vanilla ice cream, a half of tinned peach, And a drizzle of raspberry sauce in a tall sundae glass. It sounded French, it looked elegant, and it made a small diner feel enormously grown up to order it. The tinned peach was sweet and slippery, the raspberry sauce sharp against the cold cream, and the whole thing came with a long spoon that could just reach the bottom of the glass. It cost a little more than a plain scoop, which put it firmly in the treat column, ordered on the days when the sun was out and spirits were high. Grandmothers approved of it, which only added to its air of sophistication. Peach Melba has faded from the everyday now, but in a 1970s Wimpy, it was the choice of the child who wanted to seem a cut above. Number 8. The Wimpy Apple Pie was a small handheld thing, a pastry parcel of hot spiced apple that came dangerously close to scalding the roof of your mouth, and children ordered it anyway. Straight from the fryer, its crust crisp and blistered. The filling inside molten and sweet, it demanded patience that no child possessed. The first eager bite always came too soon, and the lesson was learned the hard way. Served on its own or with a scoop of ice cream to cool it down, it cost only a little and offered enormous reward. There was something irresistible about a pudding you could hold in your hand. No bowl, no spoon. Just hot pastry and burning apple. It was the American way of doing something deeply familiar. The apple pie of every British childhood reimagined as fast food. Small, cheap, and lethally hot. It was the perfect end to a wimpy afternoon. Number seven. The wimpy brunch was breakfast served all day. And to a child, there was something wonderfully wrong about eating a fry-up at three in the afternoon. A plate loaded with bacon or a bender, a fried egg, baked beans, chips, and a slice of fried bread. It broke every rule about when breakfast was allowed. Families would slide into a booth after the shops shut and order brunch as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and for the price it was hard to beat. The egg ran into the beans, the fried bread soaked up the lot, and a hungry child could clear a plate that looked, on arrival, impossibly large. It carried the same easy generosity as everything Wimpy did well. Hot, filling and unfussy. In a country still ruled by strict meal times and Sunday roasts, being allowed a full breakfast in the middle of the afternoon felt like a delicious kind of freedom. Number six. The banana longboat was the pudding you ordered when you wanted to impress the whole table. A split banana laid the length of a long dish, buried under scoops of ice cream, sauce, and a scattering of nuts or hundreds and thousands. It arrived like a ship in full sail, enormous and gaudy and entirely wonderful, and every head in the restaurant turned to look, too big for one child to finish, it was often Three spoons diving in from different ends, a squabble breaking out over who got the cherry on top. It cost more than most puddings, which made it the order for birthdays and celebrations, and the anticipation as the waitress carried it over was almost unbearable. This was Wimpy at its most joyful, a dessert built for spectacle rather than sense. The banana longboat was a party in a dish, and no child who has ever bought one has forgotten the sight of it sailing across the room. Number 5. The Whipsy was Wimpy's own milkshake, and its reputation rested entirely on its thickness. So dense that no ordinary straw could shift it, the Whipsy demanded real effort, cheeks hollowing, eyes watering, before the first cold mouthful finally gave way. Around 15 to 17 pence bought a beaker of it in strawberry, chocolate or banana, and children treated the struggle as a badge of honor, competing to see who could draw theirs up first. It was less a drink than a challenge, and half the joy was in the fight for it. That impossible thickness became the thing everyone remembered, the shake you had to work for, the shake that fought back. Long after the burgers blurred into one, the Whipsy stayed sharp in the memory precisely because of that ache in your cheeks. Modern milkshakes flow far too easily to compare. The Whipsy made you earn every sip, and somehow that made it taste all the sweeter. Number 4. The Knickerbocker Glory was the crown jewel of the pudding menu. Layered high in a tall fluted glass, ice cream and jelly and tinned fruit and sauce stacked one upon the other until the whole thing towered above the table. At around 25 pence it was one of the dearest things on the menu, and every child knew it, which is exactly why they begged for it. To be granted a Knickerbocker Glory was to know the day was truly special. The long spoon plunged down through the strata, dredging up a different combination with every mouthful, and the trick was to reach the very bottom without the glass tipping over. It looked like something from a picture book, ludicrous and beautiful, and its sheer height was the whole point. Puddings this theatrical rarely survive changing times, but the Knickerbocker glory endures in memory as the ultimate childhood indulgence, the treat you dreamed about on the bus home. Number three. The bender in a bun was Wimpy's most beloved oddity. A spicy frankfurter curled round on itself into a ring and tucked into a bun, sometimes with half a tomato nestled in the middle. At sixteen and a half pence in the early seventies, back in the days when the half penny still meant something, it was cheap enough to order on a whim and strange enough to become a legend. The name alone sent children into fits of giggles, and the taste, spiced and juicy, and unlike any sausage from home, sealed its place in the heart of every regular. Nothing else on the high street looked or tasted quite like it. Grown men who visited Wimpy as boys still speak of the bender with a reverence usually reserved for far grander things. It was silly, it was delicious, and it was pure Wimpy, and its slow disappearances mourned more than any burger ever was. Number 2. The Brown Derby was the dessert that defined a decade of wimpy visits. A warm ring doughnut topped with a scoop of ice cream and a scattering of fudge or chocolate flakes, all for around 17 pence. The magic was in the contrast, hot sugared doughnut against cold melting ice cream, the two meeting in a puddle of sweetness at the bottom of the dish. Children begged for it by name, and the name itself became shorthand for a proper treat, the thing you were promised if you behaved through the whole shopping trip. It arrived looking simple and tasted like heaven, and the last spoonful, doughnut soaked through with melted ice cream, was always the best. Of everything Wimpy ever served, the brown derby is the one that draws the deepest sighs of longing today. It has vanished almost entirely, and grown adults still search for something, anything, that tastes the way it did. Number one. And in first place, the classic Wimpy hamburger. The original. The reason the doors ever opened at all. A single grilled beef patty in a soft round bun, dressed with the famous wimpy sauce, and served, in the proper old style, on a real plate with a knife and fork. At around 16 pence, it was within reach of almost anyone, and for a whole generation of British children, it was the very first hamburger they ever tasted. The first bite of an America they had only ever seen on television. That grilled beef, that soft bun, that particular sauce became the flavour of Saturday afternoons, of treats promised and treats earned, of a warm booth on a cold day. Wimpy grew to some 1500 restaurants around the world by the end of the 70s, before the golden arches swept it aside. But it got there first. The classic Wimpy burger was where it all began, and no burger since has ever quite tasted the same. So there you have it. 25 wimpy meals that a whole generation of British kids once begged for. Which one would you order first if you could walk back through those glass doors tomorrow? Tell me in the comments and let me know if your local wimpy is still standing.