National Hamburger Day

To commemorate National Hamburger Day last year, I wrote this tribute that I am pretty happy with. In fact, I don’t think there is anything else I could pen that would surpass it. So I am not going to try.

I am a big burger fan! After last year’s ode, however, I am not going to try and top it.

What I am going to do, however, is take a few short paragraphs to tell you about the best burger I ate since the 2024 National Hamburger Day and today…

The best burger I ate over the past 365 days was cooked in a small, no-frills café in downtown Coeur d’Alene. Called Hudson’s Hamburgers, you walk into the joint and there is literally a giant mound of ground beef out in the open on the employee side of the bar. You place your order, the cook grabs meat from the mound, throws it on the grill, and cooks your burger.

You can see the hamburger meat to the left. When I was there, the meat was much more plentiful and packed in a high tower but I didn’t have the presence of mind to take a photo of it (photo courtesy of Adam Peter Shinn).

I had never seen such an operation. I had also never tasted a burger quite like the one I had at Hudson’s. It was juicy, tasty, and savory. But its real distinguishing characteristic? The FRESHNESS! How do I explain? Well, as a blogger who finds it a challenge to truly define what freshness tastes like, eating that burger conveyed to me immediately what freshness is…words not needed.

I took this photo of one of the burgers we were served at Hudson’s Hamburgers. It was delicious and FRESH.

But it gets better. In a world of $20 burgers, a Hudson’s hamburger won’t even cost you $4. What kind of parallel universe are we living in?!

Our lunch at Hudson’s Hamburgers occurred in July. We had brought my in-laws to Coeur d’Alene for an afternoon of boating. I was a little nervous to bring them inside Hudson’s for a quick bite before we hit the water. But you know what? It was probably the favorite meal they ate the entire 11-day trip. Go figure.

Happy National Hamburger Day. Don’t Blink.

It is National Hamburger Day and since I missed National Cheeseburger Day back in September (😂), I thought I should probably write something today. However, I don’t want to beleaguer the topic too much so how about just a few points—or better yet—bites? Just the perfect amount it takes to devour a good-sized slider.

There is nothing better than a great burger.

I have much admiration and comfort for the universality of the hamburger on a restaurant menu…and when I say “universality” I am of course speaking of just American restaurants. You won’t just find a hamburger on the menus of restaurants like Applebee’s, Chilis, and Buffalo Wild Wings. You will also find them on the menus at the fish house you don’t like because you hate seafood, the Thai place that intimidates you a bit, and the steakhouse where you don’t want to shell out $60 for a steak. Hamburgers are seemingly on most restaurant menus and provide the perfect fallback option.

Retro photo of me eating a hamburger in 2012.

Although ordering a hamburger can be the economical choice on many menus as I just alluded to with the steakhouse example, don’t think it has been immune to inflation. I see many burgers priced at $17-$20 these days and let me say this: I have had a lot of bad $20 burgers over the past couple years. But I have also enjoyed some pretty good ones over that span as well. Case in point, just this past weekend we ate at a place called Pint House Burgers and Brews here in the Spokane Valley. My $17 cheeseburger came with two patties, a shiny/fresh bun, and the necessity that two hands be used to eat it. Almost worth every penny.

I ordered this cheeseburger just this past Friday at Pint House Burgers and Brews.

I can easily make due with just the bun, meat, and slice of cheddar cheese but I am not opposed to enhancing a burger with toppings. Back in 2017 I wrote a post that revealed my top five burger toppings but I can save you the link click (because I am feeling nice today) and just tell you them here: bacon, pepper jack cheese, french fries, BBQ sauce, and blue cheese crumbles. And oh yeah, I also love some peanut butter on my burger too!