Retro: When the height of sophisticated dining was a 'bender in a bun'

Actually, you would be showing your age, as the first Wimpy Bar serving burgers opened in London in 1954 in Lyons Corner House, Coventry Street.

This was hailed as the ultimate influence of American culture on the British, the Wimpy Bar having first opened in America.

The term ‘hamburger’ was believed to have originated in Hamburg, Germany with Hamburg style ground beef served in bread, later to be buns, or bread cakes or whatever you call them depending what part of the UK you come from!

In 1937 Bob Wian in California invented the double deck hamburger, and the ‘Big Boy’ as it became known became synonymous with fast food restaurants.

Wimpy Bars were our first introduction in the UK to fast food.

There were no frills either, although there was waiter service and they liked you to use cutlery. Your food was served at the table within ten minutes of ordering it, drinks were in bottles and there were little packages of condiments.

At its peak, the Wimpy chain had over 500 branches in the UK with one on every high street, but now due to the influence of McDonald’s and Burger King, there are less than 90 with the Wimpy name.

Wimpy’s signature dish was the ‘Bender in a bun’ which provoked much childish amusement when you asked for a ‘bender’.

It was actually quite a traditional British dish being really just a sausage sandwich.

There were also fabulous Knickerbocker glories and a dessert called ‘Brown Derby’ which was made of doughnuts and ice cream.

The advertising for Wimpy Bars was fun. There was a cartoon character called Mr Wimpy who dressed up as a beefeater from the Tower of London.

Not everyone was a fan of Wimpy food. One person described the hamburger as ‘If you put your burger in a tramp’s underpants overnight, smear in floor cleaner and grill. You’ll have re-created a Wimpey hamburger’.

That may not be very kind to tramps!

During the 1970s Wimpy refused admission to women on their own after midnight. There was some suggestion that they could be prostitutes but it was certainly a contentious issue at the time.

The Wimpy Bar on Fargate in Sheffield was very popular, especially as it opened until the early hours of the morning and there was also one on Pinstone Street which had been Marsden’s Milk Bar.

Wimpy Bars were noted for their consistency if not their wonderful food. It was considered not great but not exactly awful, and was a good place for teenagers to meet.

The first McDonalds using the arch logo opened in Phoenix, America in 1953 with now over 36,899 worldwide.

They were long the bad boys of the fast-food industry, accused of everything from exploiting staff, chopping down rain forests and serving unhealthy meals.

Over the past few years, they have cleaned up their act, switched to 100% British beef and sell more produce from animals reared to RSPCA standards.

However, would you pay £1,785 for a burger? Recently there was the launch of the world’s most expensive burger, created by Dutch chef Diego Buik, the decadent burger features wagyu steak topped with gin infused lobster, truffles, caviar, foie gras and 24k gold leaf.

What a waste of gin I say!