This Old-School North Carolina Drive-In Has Been Making Beloved Shrimp Burgers For Decades

Locally owned drive-in restaurants started making a reappearance during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and though it was a mostly practical move, it also gave hungry customers a taste of what dining out was like in the 1950s. But while some restaurants went back to their original drive-in roots and others added it as a new feature, a handful of these carhop joints simply stayed the course they have been treading for decades. One in particular, El's Drive-In in Morehead City, North Carolina, has been serving customers this old-fashioned way since 1959, and seafood lovers flock to the little spot for, in particular, its beloved shrimp burger.

The dish is a Carolina delicacy, and while each restaurant that serves it puts its own spin on it, El's keeps it simple, bare-bones, really: a pillowy-soft bun that sandwiches house-made slaw, a smear of ketchup, and the stars of the show, freshly fried shrimp coated in a breading of saltine-style crackers. Expecting a patty made of macerated raw shrimp, cooked up on a flat-top? That's just not the Carolina shrimp burger way.

Other notable menu items at El's include the oyster burgers, crispy onion rings, and hush puppies. The golden-fried, cornmeal-based nuggets strike the perfect balance between savory and sweet.

In an age when some of the oldest restaurants in the U.S. have changed locations numerous times, El's Drive-In is notable for its geographical longevity; it has occupied the same spot since the day it opened in the late 1950s. Named after its original owner, Elvin Franks, the restaurant has been passed down through the family, to his son, Mark, and then, someday in the future, to his own son, Shelton. Subsequent generations haven't added any indoor or outdoor seating to the original building; guests simply pull up, and a carhop comes to take their order, just like always.

This isn't to suggest that the Franks family hasn't made the necessary renovations to the restaurant. In fact, in 2024, the family made the tough decision to close for nine months so the building could be worked on. El's remained out of commission during what is normally its most hectic season, but when it reopened in January 2025, it did so with an enlarged kitchen. Significantly, the new digs included a fryer upgrade, going from a mere two to a positively lavish five, all the better for churning out even more of its iconic shrimp burgers.