America’s favorite sandwich is honored on September 18th with a slice of cheese. It’s National Cheeseburger day!
There are many theories to the beginning of the cheeseburger dating back to the 1920s:
- A cheeseburger appeared on a 1928 menu at O’Dell’s, a Los Angeles restaurant, which listed a cheeseburger, smothered with chili, for 25 cents.
- One story suggests that Lionel Sternberger is reputed to have 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.
- Kaelin’s Restaurant – Louisville, Kentucky says it invented the cheeseburger in 1934.
- Denver, Colorado – 1935 – A trademark for the name “cheeseburger” was awarded to Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In.
- According to its archives, Gus Belt, founder of Steak n’ Shake, applied for a trademark on the word “cheeseburger” in the 1930s.
- The largest cheeseburger ever made in the world weighed in at a whopping 777 pounds. Created June 2, 2011 at the Alameda County Fair in California by Juicy’s, the giant burger also featured 50 pounds of cheese. The bun alone weighed in at 272 pounds and contained an estimated 1.375 million calories.
- 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.
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