This guy definitely earns flight wings for belly bomber runs.
Victor Gradowski has downed White Castle “sliders” for a proven 218 weeks – and claims to have eaten his favorite food for more than 300 weeks.
Gradowski, 29, of Morris Park, was honored last week with a plaque at his favorite White Castle restaurant at 2900 E. Tremont Ave., where he says he has eaten White Castle burgers every Friday for over 310 weeks, since 2006, and is still going.
The official White Castle record that brought Gradowski, an accountant, to the Cravers Hall of Fame induction for the Class of 2010 was for eating White Castle for 210 consecutive weeks from 2004 to 2009 — though Gradowski says that the streak is at 310 weeks and still going.
“The streak began when I came back from a trip to Acapulco, Mexico and had White Castle after arriving back home,” Gradowski said. “It evolved from there because I had a crave for White Castle and went the next week and the one following. Finally, I realized that I had the crave for five weeks and kept it going.”
Gradowski estimates that 98% of the time, he’s satisfied his craving at the Westchester Square White Castle – except when he visits his finance Jean on Long Island and orders his favorite meal – five cheeseburgers, and a double order of onion rings – at a castle there.
“I think I keep going because in all honesty, it is something I look forward to every week, because I have it every Friday at the end of the work week,” Gradowski said. “It is something that puts a smile on my face.”
In order to be inducted into the Cravers Hall of Fame, Gradowski said that he had to write an essay about a point in the middle of his streak where the craving kept him going amid adversity.
He wrote of being on a business trip in Norfolk, Virginia and then missing a plane due to a snowstorm.
He then spent a harrowing 24-hours attempting to reach an Amtrak terminal in Richmond, VA, to catch a train to New York.
As soon as he got back to the Bronx, he ate at White Castle, continuing the streak.
When he was inducted in November 2010, he visited White Castle headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, where he toured a factory that makes ovens and refrigerators for all of the retail locations, and attended an awards diner at a White Castle exhibit at a local museum.
Gradowski added that his burger splurge hasn’t meant putting on the poundage.
“When I tell people about all of this, they may think I am heavy and I’m not,” Gradowski said. “It just goes to show you that you can satisfy your craving once a week and be fine.”
