Oklahoma Fried Onion Burgers are king at this old-fashioned small-town diner
Back in the early 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, meat was limited and expensive, but the market rate for burgers was only 5 cents. What was a restaurant owner to do?
The enterprising owner of the Hamburger Inn along Route 66 in El Reno, Oklahoma decided to take extremely thinly-sliced onions, which were cheap and plentiful, and mix them in directly with the meat. This enabled him to stretch a dollar and thicken the patty while using less meat.
It turns out, people found it tasty. So the idea stuck and spread throughout the region.
Unfortunately, the Hamburger Inn did not stick around all these years, as the new interstate system lured drivers away from historic Route 66.
But in its place, competitors popped up to fulfill Oklahomans’ craving for this unique take on America’s quintessential food. As a result, there are now a bunch of decades-old small-town diners dotted throughout Central Oklahoma pumping out fried onion burgers.
I decided to drop by one of these onion-burger-slingin’ establishments in a little town called Chickasha, only 30 minutes from Norman, where I’m staying for the annual Bedlam game between OU and Oklahoma State. If you’ve watched the Hulu series “Only Murders In The Building,” you’ll know that it’s pronounced “Chick-a-SHAY,” not “Chick-a-SHAW.”
In Downtown Chickasha, there’s a little diner called J&W Grill. It’s small, it’s cozy, and it’s old-timey in the most perfect way. It’s also hyper-local, with no pretenses about attracting out-of-town guests. Most of the guests seemed to be known by name by the servers, yet I felt welcome despite being an outsider.
The menu is simple and limited, and the cooks are perhaps the most efficient I’ve ever seen, with the grillmaster slinging fried onion burgers at an incredible clip and the fry guy churning out basket after basket of natural-cut fries.
So how was Oklahoma’s under-the-radar twist on the classic cheeseburger?
Well if you like onions — and I do — I’m pretty sure you’ll dig this smashed and grilled delicacy and all of its little charred bits of beef and bulb.
If you’re ever in Oklahoma, you’ve gotta try one.
CFB Travel Guy 