This Illinois Town With Zero Residents Is Home To An Iconic Burger Restaurant

In the middle of a wide expanse of Illinois farmland, three-and-a-half hours south of Chicago, you'll happen upon the town of Moonshine. For many years, Moonshine had a population of two: Helen and Roy Tuttle, who resided over their Moonshine Store, the sole building in town. Although you'll never find Moonshine on a map, thousands flock there annually to gobble down the store's famous Moonburgers. Roy passed in 2015. Helen retired two years later and no longer lives above the Moonshine Store, so the population of the town is now zero. Their daughters-in-law Jackie and Lisa Tuttle are the current owners, and on any given day, between 6 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. when they shut down the grills, they serve hundreds of Moonburgers, which is annually voted one of the top 25 burgers in Illinois.

The Moonshine Store is hardly your typical burger joint. Customers arrive and put in their order, and since there's always a line, even early in the morning, they wait patiently on folding chairs or old church pews, until their name is called. The Tuttles do burgers, plain and cheese, and that's it; no shoestring fries, no milkshakes, but you can purchase a bag of chips and a soda. There is no inside seating, and so everyone takes their meals to the picnic tables outside, whether it's freezing or sweltering. But what's this obsession with Moonburgers all about anyway?

It's actually not a secret what makes the Moonburger so good. Helen Tuttle published an unconventional recipe in Illinois Farmer Today in 2023 in the form of a poem. In short, the Moonburger is made just with ground beef and no seasonings. A half-pound portion is rolled into a ball and then flattened into patties. The Moonburger is basically a smash burger, plain or with cheese or bacon, and served on an ordinary burger bun. In the center of the store, a community condiment table is set up with the usual burger fixin's for everyone to help themselves. The Moonburger is nobody's definition of a fancy gourmet burger, but after the Moonshine Store was featured on "CBS Sunday Morning" in 2003, people came by the droves to try the simply prepared burger.

It wasn't only the news clip that brought the Moonburger such fame. In 2004, eighth-generation farmer Terry Hammond organized a group of avid motorcyclists to make the trek to Moonshine. The event, later dubbed the Moonshine Lunch Run, grew over the next 14 years to include hundreds of riders from all over the U.S. and Canada. The Moonshine Lunch Run was embraced by the Moonshine Store and the surrounding community and at the largest run, the Tuttles made 3,362 hamburgers in one day. The pandemic forced the Tuttles to change certain operations, but they recovered and bit by bit are reinstating the "old ways" set by their in-laws.