If I'm going to eat a burger, I almost always top it with cheese, chili and -- if I'm feeling especially ravenous -- bacon.

But that's never my order at Char-Grill, the Raleigh institution that makes burgers so delicious it would be a shame to mar them with so much as a condiment.

Char Grill got its start back in 1959, when Bruce Garner set a charcoal grill in a walk-up cinderblock building on the corner of Hillsborough Street. The eatery's changed so little since its early days that the addition of a four-ounce steak sandwich to the menu in 1978 merits an entry on the company's official timeline, posted on its website.

The website -- and four new locations -- are concessions to modernity. But the sandwich itself, which has won scads of awards from local publications and national burger hounds, is as good as it's ever been.