Tracing The Origins Of The Juicy Lucy Burger

The all-American cheeseburger is beloved from coast to coast, so naturally, you'll find abundant delicious variations nationwide. And whether it's the Great Depression origins of the Oklahoma onion burger or the unique Connecticut-style steamed cheeseburger, every type of patty tells a story. With Minnesota's juicy Lucy burger, there's even some heated contention regarding the origin narrative.

To those unfamiliar, the Minneapolis star burger essentially entails a restructured cheeseburger. Yet rather than throwing a slice of cheese atop the meat, the dairy is encased between two patties, with the beef edges pressed down to prevent leakage. Then, the patty is prepared well-done in order to ensure the cheddar melts, with the extra-fatty beef ensuring juiciness. Sure, a few extra condiments can complete the mix, but the Minnesotan magic really lies in the molten-hot combination of cheese and beef.

Two Minneapolis eateries, Matt's Bar & Grill and the 5-8 Club, both vigorously claim to be the best place to get the Juicy Lucy. Both trace the burger's emergence to the 1950s. Matt's Bar outright claims to have invented the burger, offering the more precise date of 1954, and claiming a regular customer requested the cheese modification and then exclaimed, "that's one Jucy Lucy" — thus giving the burger its name and its distinctive misspelling on its menu. Meanwhile, the 5-8 Club, which started in 1928 as a Prohibition-era bar, simply credits itself as the pioneer, using the grammatically correct spelling and the pointed jab: "rivals imitate, but no one duplicates."

Nowadays, you'll find the stuffed burger at many Minneapolis restaurants and bars, occasionally burning tongues and dependably delighting diners. New takes on the regional classic are abundant: whether melded with blue cheese and jelly at the Blue Door Pub Longfellow or a fully vegetarian rendition at the Francis Burger Joint.

Yet to really understand the debated synthesis of the first juicy Lucy cheeseburger recipe, you'll need to head to the two original eateries. Matt's Bar keeps its rendition streamlined. Smaller-sized burgers are griddled alongside abundant alliums, with exclusively American cheese stuffed inside. You can get it with pickles and the delicious cooked onions, but unlike the regular in 1954, modifications aren't encouraged. Matched with the divey, charmingly out-of-date surroundings, it's easy to imagine eating such a rendition all the way back in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, the 5-8 Club may be a few decades older, but its take on the dish is more modernized. The burger comes standard-sized, and still utilizes American cheese and pickles. However, you're able to add on toppings like mushrooms, jalapeño, bacon, and onions, in raw or fried form. Plus, the 5-8 Club also serves spin-off creative concepts, like a Saucy Sally containing a signature sauce or a Buffalo chicken version. Now operating out of four locations — with a revamped family-friendly vibe rather than a bar setting — the 5-8 Club has evolved its Juicy Lucy approach. Whoever came first remains unknown, but the restaurants' distinct trajectories are evident.