It’s listed on the menu as the “$30 hamburger” - but it sells for $6.50, which includes a side order of fries. And, like all good signature dishes, this one has a story.

Carmella Hurston grew up eating the “$30 hamburgers” at home - on special occasions. Of course, then it was called something different.

“We called it the Old Landmark Hamburger,” Hurston recalled. “We’d get up on a Saturday morning and find out we were having those hamburgers, and we’d work twice as hard getting our chores done so we could get to those hamburgers at lunch.”

The hamburgers were an all-day affair. The ground chuck is mixed with sausage, a special Mennonite seasoning mix that Hurston buys in south Georgia and steak sauce. The secret is letting the flavors mingle before you cook, Hurston said.

“You’ve got to mix it up early in the morning and let it sit for several hours. That’s what makes it so good,” she said.

Then there’s the size. She’s not sure how much meat is in it - she’s just memorized a softball size from years of cooking. It’s more than a two-fisted burger. When the inch-thick giant burger is ready to eat, most customers at Hurston’s restaurant, Taste of Heaven, split the burger. It’s plenty big for two - or even three - people.

Hurston carried on the family burger tradition with her own four children. It was her youngest son, Antion, who renamed the burgers.

When he was about 10 years old, he said “Mama, these are $30 hamburgers.”

The name stuck.

“For their birthdays, my kids never wanted a birthday party - they just wanted a $30 hamburger,” Hurston said.

It was also Antion who encouraged his mother to open a restaurant.

Her youngest was a LaGrange High School student, dreaming of being a football player, when he was diagnosed with cancer. The treatments for the cancer damaged his heart, and Antion died in 2006.

During his last weeks, Carmella Hurston sat beside him at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and, when he had the strength, they talked.

“One day Mama, you’ll own a restaurant,” he told her. “And when you do, you love on the people like you do at home.”

After working 24 years for Duracell, Hurston decided to do just that. About a year ago she found a tiny store front on East Depot Street, in the same brown brick building as Leonard Wood’s market. She spent weeks getting the kitchen just the way she wanted before opening the breakfast and lunch diner.

She makes all the family favorites and she remembers her son’s admonition to “love on the people.”

“I do that. I love on my customers, I encourage them, I try to minister to them,” she said. “Everyone’s going through something right now. It’s a blessing to help them out.”

She takes that spirit outside her restaurant as well. Every Friday morning she opens the business section of the phone book and randomly chooses a business. She piles up hot biscuits and delivers them to the employees with a wave and a “You’ve been blessed!”

She enjoys her work and loves her customers, but it’s been a hard road during a tough economy.

“I’m not making an income from this. Business is slow. I pick up catering jobs here and there, and that pays the bills,” Hurston admitted. “But I see the potential. I understand before you’re rich, you’re going to be poor. I’m sticking with it as long as I can. My heart is here.”

So every day - Tuesday through Sunday - it’s homemade biscuits for breakfast; meat and three for lunch. Then there’s the $30 hamburger.

While customers wait in the yellow-tiled dining area, even when they’ve ordered oxtails, lemon pepper chicken, banana pudding (from scratch) or a baseball-sized hush puppy, they still talk about the $30 hamburger.

“I bet there’s a pound and a half of meat in that burger.”

“I usually split it, but I think I could eat the whole thing.”

“It’s the best hamburger I’ve ever eaten.”

Sherri Brown can be reached at sbrown@ lagrangenews.com or at (706) 884-7311, Ext. 240.

— “Neighbors” is a feature of LaGrange Daily News which spotlights people who are in the news, have unusual hobbies or are otherwise interesting. To suggest a person who could be profiled, contact Becky Holland at bholland@ lagrangenews or (706) 884-7311, Ext. 229.