This new Fresno burger restaurant has something rare — a locally owned drive-thru

A burger and milkshake restaurant with a 1950s vibe has opened west of Highway 99 in Fresno.

Hall of Flame is at the northeast corner of Clinton and Brawley avenues and opened about two weeks ago. It’s got all kinds of burgers and sandwiches on the menu. It also has an extensive ice cream menu, with 14 flavors of milkshakes, sundaes and more.

Owner Saleh Obeid also owns the Burger Shack in Lemoore. His dad owns Elmer’s Drive-In in Delano.

Obeid chose Hall of Flame’s location west of the highway because the area needed something, he said.

“I saw it was underserved compared to the rest of Fresno,” he said. “This area is really underserved as a community.”

Drive-thru

Hall of Flame has something you don’t often see at locally owned restaurants: a drive-thru.

Chains and franchises such as McDonald’s tend to dominate drive-thrus in Fresno. Though local drive-thrus aren’t unheard of, at Triangle Drive-In and Robertito’s Taco Shop, for example.

Hall of Flame’s building was built with a drive-thru in mind — possibly for a Starbucks, Obeid said. But it became a Papa Murphy’s instead and was never fully built out.

Obeid made the drive-thru functional, with lights, the menu board and more.

“Lucky for us, we’re here now,” he said.

The drive-thru is a little hard to find, as customers have to drive behind several businesses to get to it, but Obeid plans to add more signage soon. The restaurant sits behind the Walgreens on the northern most end of the center.

The food

So what can you get at that drive-thru? Or in the dining room, with its red and white checkered theme?

Lots of burgers. The original burger cooked over a flame, burgers with bacon or pastrami. There is a spicy chicken sandwich, a Philly cheese steak and a veggie burger, along with curly fries and other fried goodies.

As for ice cream, there are cones, banana splits, sundaes and milkshakes that range from vanilla to mocha.

There are 20 flavors of twisters, which are “a milkshake without the milk, almost all pure ice cream with the flavoring mix ins,” Obeid said.

You can get M&Ms, Butterfinger and cookie dough bits blended in, and much more. There’s a banana cream pie twister, and a mocha mud pie twister.

The owner’s favorite?

“I’m a simple guy. An Oreo twister and an Oreo milkshake,” he said. “A cheesecake twister is really good, too.”

Details: Hall of Flame is at 2450 N. Brawley Ave., unit 109. Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. 559-977-0457.