Buttery Jack
A burger with a pat of garlic herb butter melting over the patty, which sounds like a small detail and changes everything. The butter soaks into the beef and bun and makes the whole thing taste rich and savoury, like a steakhouse burger reduced to drive-thru form. The bacon and Swiss version is the one to get.
The story
A pat of flavoured butter melting over hot meat is a steakhouse technique that predates the steakhouse. French kitchens have finished grilled meat with beurre maître d’hôtel — butter worked with parsley and lemon — since the nineteenth century, because butter carries flavour into the meat as it melts in a way a sauce poured on top does not. Jack in the Box moving that onto a drive-thru burger is the same instinct that got it selling tacos and egg rolls: take whatever works and put it on the menu.
What’s inside
Make it at home
There is no copycat of the Buttery Jack yet. Until there is, these recipes on the site come closest to it, judged by what goes into the bun.
- Shares beef, garlic and cheese
Bet It All On Black Garlic - Shares beef and cheese
Smash Burgers - Shares beef and cheese
Baby You Can Chive My Car - Shares beef and cheese
Juicy Lucy from Supernatural
Similar burgers at other chains
Built around the same things as the Buttery Jack.- Steak 'n Shake · beef, garlic and cheese
Garlic Double Steakburger - Wahlburgers · beef, garlic and cheese
Pepperoni Smash - Jackson Hole Burgers · beef, garlic and cheese
Greek Burger - Red Robin · beef, garlic and cheese
Sautéed ’Shroom
More from Jack in the Box
About Jack in the Box
Robert Peterson opened the first Jack in the Box in San Diego in 1951, one of the earliest restaurants built entirely around the drive-thru, with a giant clown on the roof and a speaker to order through. In 1980 the company literally blew up the clown in a TV ad to announce it was growing up, and the ping-pong-ball-headed Jack who replaced him has been the face of the chain since 1994.
Around 2,200 restaurants, mostly in the western and southern US.
Not affiliated with Jack in the Box. Trademarks belong to their owners.