There are few foods as undeniably American and beloved as the cheeseburger. Take, for instance, Shake Shack’s iconic smash burger recipe. But who, exactly, first topped a burger patty with cheese is not so clear. Some say that the fast food and fast-casual phenomenon was created in Denver, Colorado, in the 1930s by Louis Ballast, owner of the Humpty Dumpty Barrel Inn. The drive-in introduced cheeseburgers to the Mile High City, where you could drive up to the window, order a cheeseburger, and have it brought right to your car (American convenience at its finest). But did the Denver drive-in really invent the meaty, cheesy treat? The short answer is probably not, but it may come down to semantics.
It’s not uncommon to see claims like “world’s best” or “first-ever” on menus, but back in the 1920s and 1930s, when fast food American staples were first coming onto the scene, there were several restaurateurs who claimed to coin the now-ubiquitous cheeseburger. While Louis Ballast was the first to obtain a trademark for the term “cheeseburger” in March 1935, there’s ample evidence that other food joints — especially select spots in California and Kentucky — were slinging out cheeseburgers prior. Denver may be home to the Denver omelet, but the cheeseburger’s roots are a bit more complex.
Denver probably didn’t make the first cheeseburger, but a city can still dream
It’s most likely that the cheeseburger was first introduced on a menu in Pasadena, California, at a joint called The Rite Spot. It’s said that Lionel Clark Sternberger, whose father, H.S. Sternberger, owned the restaurant, added cheese to a burger as an experiment in 1924 and named it the “Aristocrat Burger” or “The Original Hamburger with Cheese.” Years later, in 1934, Kaelin’s in Louisville, Kentucky, also claimed to have created the meat-and-cheese hit.
Although other restaurants were cooking up cheeseburgers before 1935, many still consider Denver the birthplace based solely on Ballast’s initial trademark. However, according to the Denver Gazette, Ballast apparently “never finished the process.” Overall, we say to each their own. Since the first modern hamburgers surfaced in the late 1880s, who’s to say someone didn’t layer and melt cheese on top of a patty before 1924?
Though the Humpty Dumpty Barrel Inn no longer graces Denver with its burgers (it was replaced with a bank decades ago), a dairy association preserved the memory of Denver’s first cheeseburger in 1987 by placing a commemorative plaque on the corner of Speer Boulevard and Alcott Street. The monument contains a picture of a barrel (as was featured at the old restaurant) and states that Ballast created the cheeseburger, sealing the deal with his trademark. But whoever really invented it, we’re thankful for the array of drool-worthy cheeseburgers to come.
