There are times in life – at the end of a long bar crawl, for example – when you need a big, greasy meal in the middle of the night.

That’s what places like Elmer’s Hamburgers are for.

Elmer’s is off the city’s beaten paths, located deep within the west side on Chicago at Oakman, down the street from a nightclub called Club Temptation on one side and the now-closed McKenzie High School on the other. It’s been open 24 hours a day, pretty much every day, for 50 years.

It’s a family business, run by Leonard Wallace and his wife Karen, both 58, with help from their grown kids and a couple employees. Karen’s father founded the place. Originally there were two Elmer’s restaurants; now there’s just one.

They make old-style hamburgers, topped with pickles and grilled onions, and soaked with flavor. The beef here isn’t lean, there’s not a green vegetable in sight, and grease is the ingredient common to everything, staining the brown paper take-out bag if burgers are left in there awhile. They serve breakfast here too, or a fish or chicken sandwich, with onion rings or fries.

The old-time food fits its old-time decor, as Elmers’ is like a diner museum. It’s got no tables, only counter service with full view of the grill. The only thing that’s changed since it opened was the installation of bulletproof glass in the 1970s. “We got robbed constantly,” Leonard says. It’s a classic diner – metal stools, black and white checkered floor tiles, black and white exterior, and a simple menu of grill food.

A front pane window was cracked for awhile, the work of a rock-throwing neighborhood kid who usually misses but recently scored a direct hit. “He’s just a little kid, his parents don’t take care of him,” Leonard said. “There’s three or four of them, they sell drugs down there. About 14 years old. They get over there and throw them from over there to here.” He wasn’t too worked up about it.

“But the older they get the stronger their arms are gonna get,” he noted.

The neighborhood surrounding Elmer’s went from crowded to crumbling years ago. “Since the riots, probably I’ve lost maybe – you go around here in a square mile – probably 10,000 houses, maybe 500, 600 large businesses,” he said. “There used to be seven steel plants around here within a couple miles.” Nevertheless, he’s stayed.

Early one morning, cars filled the parking lot, and customers lined up at the take-out window. “Give me two small burgers with everything please,” hollered 65-year-old James Franklin with a slightly southern accent. “This used to be a truck stop back in the day,” he said. “Truckers used to come here, yes sir, long time ago, baby. It’s old time, old school.”

Elmer’s Hamburgers is located at 8515 West Chicago. For more information, call 313-933-7766.