National Cheeseburger Day on September 18th honors America’s favorite sandwich with a slice of cheese.
- The hamburger gained national recognition at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair when the New York Tribune referred to the hamburger as “the innovation of a food vendor on the pike”.
- There are many theories to the beginning of the cheeseburger dating back to the 1920s.
- One story suggests that Lionel Sternberger invented the cheeseburger in 1926 while working at his father’s Pasadena, California sandwich shop, The Rite Spot. As the story goes, a homeless man dining at Sternberger’s restaurant in Pasadena, California, suggested the addition of a slice of cheese to his hamburger order. Sternberger complied, eventually added it to his menu, and the rest is history.
- However, like numerous iconic foods, many people and restaurants claim the origin story. For example, a restaurant in Los Angeles called O’Dell’s placed the cheeseburger on their menu in 1928. It came smothered with chili – all for the price of a quarter.
- Kaelin’s Restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky claims they invented the cheeseburger in 1934.
- One record that gives the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In in Denver, CO bragging rights is the trademark they received in 1935 for the name “cheeseburger.”
- Another who applied for a trademark of that word was Gus Belt, the founder of Steak n’ Shake. Sometime in the 1930s he also applied for the trademark.
- In 2012, Black Bear Casino Resort in Minnesota, U.S., set the world record for the biggest burger. The hamburger weighed 2,014 pounds (913 kgs) and was 10 feet (3.04 meters) in diameter.
- The popular Jimmy Buffett song “Cheeseburger in Paradise” was inspired by a boat trip Buffett took. Hampered by bad weather and tired of the canned food and peanut butter stocked aboard, Buffett found himself continually craving a cheeseburger. When the boat finally docked on the island of Tortola, Buffett was able to order the cheeseburger he had been fantasizing about.
- Mayor McCheese, the giant cartoon cheeseburger who served as the mayor of McDonaldland from 1971-1985, was at the center of a lawsuit filed against McDonalds over the character’s resemblance to H.R. Pufnstuf. It was settled in 1977.
- In 2017, Mallie’s Sports Grill & Bar cooked a behemoth burger that weighed nearly 1,800 pounds (816 kilograms), giving it the title of the world’s biggest commercial cheeseburger.
- On average, Americans eat three hamburgers a week
- If we arrange all the hamburgers eaten by Americans in a year in a straight line, it would circle our planet 32 times or more!
- The U.S. is a burger-loving nation with people consuming 50 billion burgers a year.
- Hamburgers, along with cheeseburgers, account for 71 percent of beef served in American eateries.
- The 2013 Burger Survey revealed that 63 percent of people like to have golden-brown potatoes in any form as their side dish. Onion rings are the next favorite, with 16 percent opting for it.
- According to the same survey, cheddar cheese is the clear winner when it comes to the choice of cheese in burgers, followed by American, blue cheese and Swiss.
- Fast food giant McDonald’s sells 75 or more burgers every second.
- Veggie burgers are globally available in fast-food joints, particularly in India where the majority of the Hindu population does not eat beef and Muslims don’t eat pork.
- Bacon, jalapenos, cheese, lettuce and onions are some of the most common toppings for burgers worldwide.
- Do you know that 60 percent of the sandwiches sold globally are actually burgers?
- There is a Hamburger Hall of Fame in Seymour, Wisconsin, U.S. — celebrating hamburger history.
- White Castle is the oldest burger chain in America. It was started in 1921 by Walter A. Anderson and E.W. Ingram who sold their burgers for 5 cents apiece.
- On August 5, 2013, the first hamburger made from meat lab grown from cow stem cells was served. The hamburger was the result of research in the Netherlands led by Mark Post at Maastricht University and sponsored by Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin.
- According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hamburger was first abbreviated to burger in 1939.
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