The Old-School White Castle Knockoff That Lasted Until 2022

White Castle, which opened in 1921, may have been the first modern fast-food restaurant and is often considered the quintessential one, but over the years, it's spawned a slew of knockoffs. When I was growing up in the D.C. area, we had a very similar slider chain called Little Tavern, but the last one closed up shop in 2008. In the Midwest, the Milwaukee-based chain, White Tower, would have celebrated its centenary in 2026 if only it had survived.

Spoiler: It didn't. (Guess the title already gave that away.) White Tower really never made the leap to catering to car customers after World War II, and its failure to add drive-thrus meant that it lost out on business to other burger chains. The last Milwaukee location closed in 1976, soon after celebrating the company's 50th anniversary. 

However, a White Tower location in Toledo, Ohio, still soldiered on up through 2022, by which time White Castle had begun using a robot to fry its burgers. The last White Tower suffered a minor fire that year and never reopened for business afterward. A few years ago, Redditors in Toledo were excited by seeing signs of life in the building that once housed the defunct burger restaurant. Their hopes were dashed, however, when a taco joint moved in instead.

White Tower is five years younger than White Castle, and like any older sibling, the latter chain didn't appreciate having a bratty smaller sibling playing copycat. Not only was the design of White Tower's buildings oddly reminiscent of those of the already-established chain, but so was its slogan. White Tower went with "Take Home a Bagful," which conveys a similar sentiment to White Castle's "Buy 'Em By the Sack." In 1937, White Castle felt sufficiently threatened by this Midwestern upstart that it did the corporate version of snitching to Mom and Dad: It took its competitor to court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found in favor of White Castle, citing the obvious similarities, as well as the fact that White Castle was the first to stake out its territory. While White Tower wasn't compelled to change its name, it did have to redesign the restaurant exteriors, opting for a more modern look with orange and blue accents. It also paid White Castle a $100 royalty for each of its already-opened locations and had to agree not to open anywhere where there was an already existing White Castle. (The non-overlapping territory seems to have gone both ways, to the extent that even today, the closest White Castle to Milwaukee is over 30 miles away in Kenosha, Wisconsin.) Even after losing the lawsuit, though, White Tower continued to grow and prosper, eventually expanding to 230 locations throughout 10 states before being undone by post-war car culture.