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Freshly fried throughout the day and never, ever frozen – that’s the Cheeburger motto for our hand-cut French fries and onion rings. And while they’re definitely delicious enough all on their own, we invite you to let your taste buds run wild with some chili-cheese extras or an inventive dipping sauce. Like it or not, smashburgers have Los Angeles in a full-on chokehold. So in the interest of public service—and to settle the debate once and for all—here's our guide to the city's best-known smashburger spots, in order.
Hamburger Habit
Smoke House Barbeque dunks on Brook's $78 hamburger claim: "Looks like someone was knocking back some serious drinks" - Boing Boing
Smoke House Barbeque dunks on Brook's $78 hamburger claim: "Looks like someone was knocking back some serious drinks".
Posted: Thu, 21 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The restaurant specializes in chili using the original Coney Island restaurant recipe, as well as breaded pork tenderloins. Onion rings and a cheeseburger topped with chili are some of the other popular dishes. Six restaurants and two food trucks will compete this year. The complete menu for the 2024 competition has not yet been revealed, but one dish will be a Luscious Jamaican Apple Pone Cake with Sweet Caramel Drizzle submitted by Executive Chef Brian Taborski of Saz’s Hospitality Group.
serves 100% grass-fed Wagyu beef.
Patty and can get loaded up with a thick, savory chili. Probably the only real contender to In-N-Out's dominance in L.A., Tommy's still does a good chili-burger that boasts an incredibly thick chili and well-constructed burgers loaded with chopped onions, tomatoes, and mustard. Watts’s most beloved meal is at Hawkins, where the loosely-formed beef patties arrive thick and impressive from time well spent on the griddle. This restaurant has stood the test of time and can trace its roots back to 1939. Yet here is the Father’s Office burger, a no-ketchup-allowed option served on a split roll and topped with caramelized onions and lots of arugula. This massive sandwich uses dry-aged beef and Maytag blue cheese for a remarkably different kind of burger.
Original Tommy’s World-Famous Menu
The counter-top dining experience is a must for any burger lover. Not enough can be said about a burger that is always good. On any given day, at either of its locations, the burger at Goldburger is the same great smash burger. It is consistently served hot and fresh off the grill, and will always satisfy a craving.
Local Minority-Owned Businesses
We've added to the original hamburger stand with classic milkshakes and malts, a classic 50s breakfast menu, a coffee bar, house made pies, and a fully stocked bar. Perhaps the original heart-attack burger joint, these burgers get piled high with a myriad of toppings, like sausages, chili, pastrami, eggs, bacon and more. A true hole-in-the-wall burger place, this classic West Hollywood dive does cheap, delicious burgers with fresh, hot fries.
The soul of the restaurant stays true to founder Al Cassell's original principles of being a hamburger shop with a focus on premium beef, ground daily in house. All of our burgers are still cooked on Al Cassell's famous original crossfire broiler, ground with the original grinder, and pattied with the original press. In the heart of Watts California, Hawkins House of Burgers offers only fresh-never-frozen high quality Angus beef, fresh-never-frozen Jennie O Turkey, and fresh-never-frozen Foster Farms chicken. All of our vegetables are purchased and prepared daily to ensure freshness!
Marty's Hamburger Stand
We get it… after all this talk about delicious fresh-made food, you’re hungry for something NOW. Here’s a few of the appetizers and quick bites you can get on the fly whenever you visit your closest local Cheeburger restaurant. Our story began in 1948, when Al Cassell opened Cassell's Hamburgers, which became an iconic lunch counter in Los Angeles. Famously known for grinding fresh beef everyday, and making his own mayonaisse, his passion for the hamburger lives on. This Westside establishment specializes in pastrami, but still does great burgers.
At the time, there was a Coney Island restaurant in downtown Des Moines that wanted to expand, so Jim Frangos came on board and opened a location at Southridge Mall. They’ve never left at Cheeburger, from ice-cream floats to the perfect artistry of a banana split, we’ve kept favorite dessert traditions right here, ready to provide the sweetest finish to a meal like no other. Pub burgers, smashburgers, and anything else between two buns—we’re here to make sense of it all. But we feel the American cheeseburger deserves better beef.
You will never find antibiotics or steroids in our meat, and our burger is quite frankly unlike any burger you have ever tasted before... It's just that simple when you care about your customers and the quality of food sold. This West LA standard does all the classic diner options, only from a hamburger point of view.
Goldburger, which has locations in Los Feliz and Highland Park, was founded by a guy who used to rigorously document LA burgers on Instagram, which should tell you the level of obsession happening here. Well-seasoned patties and shaved onions are smashed in a way that creates thicker middle and crispy tapered edges, like a flying saucer or those high-end frisbees professional frolfers use. What keeps Goldburger from the top spot is their controversial use of an “award-winning” garlic-mustard aioli on the house burger, which doesn’t lend enough sweet tang to balance the savory, rich burger.
If you want the best burger, you need the best beef. To us, that means clean-tasting beef, with enough marbling to achieve a great sear. The one beef that fits that bill is 100% grass-fed Wagyu.
This is it – the legend that started it all… and now it’s your story to continue. We recommend choosing your size, then letting your creative culinary genius go from there. Not sure you’re in the mood for a burger this time around, take a look at our other sandwich, chicken, and hot dog offerings.
A former pop-up gone permanent, Proudly Serving bounced around the South Bay and Long Beach before landing in a breezy space a block from the ocean in Hermosa Beach. Burgers here are double-stacked by default, though they’ll probably let you do a single if you ask nicely. The not-too-thin patties have a nice seasoned crust that droops over the edge of the toasted potato bun, while the mayo-heavy special sauce and pickles add some tang. The best part, though, is the bird’s nest of griddled, crispy, almost-charred onions they smoosh (Oklahoma-style) into the patty. We also appreciate that their burgers are neatly wrapped in paper and arrive looking composed enough to meet your parents.
“53 yrs is quite an accomplishment in this industry, we are very proud to have served you all and made friends , and even family. We will never forget the memories, but we are ready to make new ones away from the restaurant world,” Eric and Tonya Frangos wrote on Facebook. “Well, the time has come to announce we have sold the restaurant,” the couple wrote on the Jim’s Coney Island Facebook page. But aside from sporting the Coney Island name, the restaurant serves chili from the Coney Island restaurant recipe that dates back to 1919.
Lowboy may be known first and foremost as a bar, but it's the burger at this Echo Park neighborhood hang that makes it such a standout. The legendary Route 66 stand has been reborn (and reconstructed almost identically) by longtime chef-owner Sonia Hong and new partner Lawrence Longo. Expect weekend lines for these classic LA burgers, served with a sear but not too thin. The Big Irv comes with pastrami, a hot dog, and more on top. The festival atmosphere is further enriched by the involvement of guest chefs who will bring their unique culinary styles to the forefront. Esteemed chefs including Jose Mendin of Casa Isola, Cesar Zapata of Phuc Yeah, and Michael Schwartz of Amara at Paraiso are set to showcase their specialties, elevating the food experience to match the excitement of the races.
The interior of this spot on Sunset in East Hollywood looks inspired by a '90s Nerf commercial, but we appreciate that they’re open until midnight daily and offer excellent value. The menu calls their burgers “sliders” but they’re at least 75% as big as a typical smashburger, and two juicy doubles will fill you up unless you’re a professional bodybuilder. Just avoid the single, which given the thin patties might as well be a grilled cheese. Also, we prefer ordering them Chris’ Way (raw onions and pickles) over Eddy’s Way (grilled onions). Although we prefer the medium-thick burgers on the menu at Amboy overall, their “classic” thinly smashed patties hold their own in terms of juiciness and flavor. The most memorable part of any burger at this casual spot inside Chinatown’s Far East Plaza, however, is the classy bun, a toasted sesame-speckled beauty made by local bakery Breadbar.
