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Nation's Giant Hamburgers

Chili Hamburger

    An old-school diner plate rather than a handheld: a five-ounce patty on a toasted bun, served open-faced and smothered in chili con carne. You eat it with a knife and fork. Hearty and warming.

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    The story

    Serving a hamburger open-faced under a ladle of chili is a Los Angeles invention with a name: the chili size. It is usually credited to Thomas “Ptomaine Tommy” DeForest, who ran an all-night, sawdust-floored restaurant in Lincoln Heights from around 1919 and began smothering burgers in chili in the 1920s. He had two ladles, and customers ordered “size” or “oversize” depending on how much chili they wanted, which is where the odd name comes from. Nation’s open-faced chili hamburger is a direct descendant of that plate.

    What’s inside

    Make it at home

    There is no copycat of the Chili Hamburger yet. Until there is, these recipes on the site come closest to it, judged by what goes into the bun.

    Similar burgers at other chains

    Built around the same things as the Chili Hamburger.

    More from Nation's Giant Hamburgers

    About Nation's Giant Hamburgers

    • United States
    • Since 1952
    • $

    In 1952 Russ Harvey sold his 1948 Buick and used the money to buy a six-stool hot dog stand in San Pablo, California. He added big hamburgers and renamed it Harvey’s Giant Hamburgers. In 1960 he hired a local teenager, Dale Power, as a janitor; Power worked his way through high school and UC Berkeley and in 1970 opened his own restaurant in Oakland, calling it Nation’s because he believed it sold the best hamburgers in the nation.

    About 30 restaurants around the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento and Stockton, plus new branches near Dallas–Fort Worth.

    The full Nation's Giant Hamburgers burger menu and story →

    Not affiliated with Nation's Giant Hamburgers. Trademarks belong to their owners.