Photo: SwensonsGalley Boy
The burger Akron grows up on. A double cheeseburger dressed with two house sauces, Swen Red and Swen White. The two sauces together are what make it taste unlike any other double cheeseburger. Pair it with one of the eighteen milkshakes.
The story
Wesley Swenson started selling burgers out of a station wagon parked at an Akron high school in 1933 and opened a proper drive-in on South Hawkins Avenue a year later. Almost a century on it is still a drive-in, still calls its burgers burgs, and still sends carhops out to the car. The Galley Boy is the reason people outside Ohio have heard of it at all: Forbes named it the best burger in America in 1999, which is not a sentence anyone expected to read about a double cheeseburger with two sauces in Akron.
What’s inside
- 2 beef patties
- cheese
- Swen Red sauce
- Swen White sauce
- bun
Make it at home
There is no copycat of the Galley Boy yet. Until there is, these recipes on the site come closest to it, judged by what goes into the bun.
- Shares beef, cheese and a double stack
The Mr. Smiley Burger - Shares beef, cheese and a double stack
McDonald's Daily Double (Copycat) - Shares beef, cheese and a double stack
Peter’s Triple Bacon Burger - Shares beef, cheese and a double stack
Whopper (Copycat)
The Galley Boy on YouTube
Everyone who has cooked, copied or taste-tested it on camera.
Similar burgers at other chains
Built around the same things as the Galley Boy.- Five Guys · beef, cheese and a double stack
SignatureCheeseburger - Steak 'n Shake · beef, cheese and a double stack
SignatureOriginal Double ’n Cheese Steakburger - Wayback Burgers · beef, cheese and a double stack
SignatureCheeeesy - Blake's Lotaburger · beef, cheese and a double stack
SignatureLota Burger New Mexico Style
More from Swensons
About Swensons
Wesley “Pop” Swenson started selling hamburgers out of a station wagon at Akron’s Buchtel High School in 1933, and opened a proper drive-in on South Hawkins Avenue the following year. He sold it in 1949 to Robert Phillips, who began a slow expansion that has only recently reached Columbus, Cincinnati and Indiana.
Drive-ins across northeast and central Ohio, from Akron and Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati, plus the Indianapolis area.
Not affiliated with Swensons. Trademarks belong to their owners. The photo is credited under it and is used to illustrate this menu item; it comes down on request.