Five Fun Facts About Cheeseburgers
September 18 is National Cheeseburger Day when all who love the delicious beef patty topped with cheese celebrate one of the world's greatest culinary inventions.
At Broadway at the Beach, many of our restaurants are known for serving delicious burgers with any number of wonderful accompaniments from cheeses like swiss, blue and American, to bacon, tomato, fried onions and more. Some, like Johnny Rockets, even serve burgers up with a song and a dance.
Today, as we celebrate, we hope these five fun facts about cheeseburgers will get your mouth watering for your next burger delight.
Three different states claim to be the birthplace of the cheeseburger. California says Lionel Sternberger was working in his father's Pasadena sandwich shop in 1928 when he experimented with dropping a slice of American cheese on a beef patty —and the cheeseburger was born. But Kentucky claims a Louisville restaurant called Kaelin's invented the cheeseburger in 1934. And Colorado says that the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In in Denver invented the cheeseburger in 1935, and has both a 1944 court order and a trademark to prove it.
A cheeseburger can be really, really big. Minnesota may not have been the state that launched the cheeseburger craze, but it holds the world's record for the BIGGEST cheeseburger. In 2012, a casino there served up a 2,014-pound bacon cheeseburger that was 10 feet in diameter.
Cheeseburgers can get pretty pricey. Some cheeseburgers cost way more than a great steak. In New York, $295 will get you a "Burger Extravagant" with black truffles, cheddar cheese, a fried quail egg, caviar and more served on a gold-dusted roll. For $666, a food truck serves up sarcasm with its pricey cheeseburger made of Kobe beef wrapped in gold leaf and topped with foie gras, lobster, truffles and gruyere cheese melted with champagne steam.
Cheeseheads celebrate the cheeseburger too. Wisconsin is a state where its citizens proudly call themselves "cheeseheads" and wear foam cheese wedges on their heads at football games. It's also home base for the Cheese & Burger Society which celebrates the burger and its topping, shares recipes, and provides facts about the cheeses we love to put on them.
The cheeseburger is so awesome that it has its own song. "Cheeseburger in Paradise" was written by Jimmy Buffett after a long time at sea on his first boat. Provisions were running low and night after night, Jimmy kept dreaming about a cheeseburger. He eventually came upon a marina on the island of Tortola that just happened to have a cheeseburger on its bar menu. Today, Jimmy continues to show his love for the food by serving up great burgers at his restaurant, Margaritaville, right in Broadway at the Beach.
Now that you have the facts, isn't it time you headed out to your favorite Broadway restaurant to celebrate National Cheeseburger Day?