Photo: Dick's Drive-InHamburger
The simplest burger on the smallest menu: a patty with ketchup, mustard and onions. It costs very little and tastes like a burger from 1954, which is exactly the point. Recently Dick’s has started allowing plain versions, a rare concession to change.
The story
Dick Spady and his partners opened in Wallingford in January 1954 selling nineteen-cent hamburgers, and the discipline that made that price possible is still the business. There are no substitutions, nothing is cooked to order differently, and the menu has barely changed in seventy years. What Dick’s spends money on instead is staff: employer-paid health insurance, a matched retirement plan and college scholarships, from a burger stand that still charges less than almost anywhere in Seattle.
What’s inside
Make it at home
There is no copycat of the Hamburger yet. Until there is, these recipes on the site come closest to it, judged by what goes into the bun.
- Shares beef
McDonald's Hamburger (Copycat) - Shares beef
TOP 2McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese (Copycat) - Shares beef
McLewis Burger - Shares beef
McDonald's Cheeseburger (Copycat)
Similar burgers at other chains
Built around the same things as the Hamburger.- Culver's · beef
SignatureButterBurger “The Original” - Kewpee Hamburgers · beef
SignatureHamburger - McDonald's · beef
Hamburger - Dom Dom Hamburger · beef
Hamburger
More from Dick's Drive-In
About Dick's Drive-In
Dick Spady and two partners opened Dick’s Drive-In in Seattle’s Wallingford neighbourhood in January 1954, and the menu has barely changed since: hamburgers, hand-cut fries and milkshakes. There are no substitutions, burgers are cooked well done, and the line moves fast because nobody is customising anything.
A dozen or so drive-ins, all around the Seattle area.
Not affiliated with Dick's Drive-In. Trademarks belong to their owners. The photo is credited under it and is used to illustrate this menu item; it comes down on request.