My first hubcap burger was a local place in my hometown during the late 70’s. The typical hamburger bun is roughly 4 inches.
This older gentleman (retired Navy) used buns at least 6 inches in diameter. The patty was a typical thickness and fitted the bun. Topped with lettuce, onion, & Cheddar cheese and nicely seasoned. There was always a long line of cars at lunch. It was only open a couple years and closed after his death.
We have a local place in the Little Rock area, that has featured hubcap burgers since the 1980’s. It’s been featured on the Travel Channel. This location burned in 2017 but we still have one in downtown LR. It’s packed at lunchtime.
You can get this burger with 4 patties. A silly gimmick IMHO but it does sell. I assume it feeds several people.
I wish more independent restaurants featured hubcap burgers. I think it’s the perfect size. It’s not as filling as a standard double patty burger. That’s too much for me. Hubcaps are just a bit more filling than a standard high end burger from 5 Guys. Great for days when I missed eating breakfast.
The challenge must be sourcing a bakery that will bake several hundred oversize buns a week. That’s a small custom order for the bigger bakeries. I guess only the small independent bakeries would be interested.
I’m sure these burgers go by many names.
Are you familiar with them? Have you seen them recently in your local restaurants? What do they call them?
AFAIK none of the major fast food chains offer these oversize burgers. It’s the independents that might have them if they can source the custom buns.
I assumed that “Hubcap Burgers” were burgers cooked under an actual car hubcap, which supposedly keeps in the moisture during cooking, making for a more juicy, flavorful hamburger.
There is at least one New Orleans French Quarter dive bar (Jimani) that has used this as their claim to fame for many decades, but I have always managed to resist this particular gastronomic allure while in the Crescent City, somehow managing to always find something else acceptable to eat instead of a fucking hamburger in a vile shithole in a city that is America’s only true culinary mecca.
(I have never heard of what the OP is talking about.)
My husband and I took his sister and her husband to the Cotham’s in Scott, AR before it burned down. Really interesting experience, with all the antiques and whatnot. We were sad to hear it burned down. I haven’t tried the one downtown; how does it compare?
The food at Cothams downtown is just as good. My wife and I usually order the daily plate specials. I love their fried chicken and pork chop dinners.
I still order the hubcap burgers occasionally.
I miss the original location. It really was a mercantile store that served the Scott community for a hundred years. The restaurant (started in the 1980’s) was an unexpected success. We loved looking at all the old stuff they had.
I’m glad they still have the downtown location.
I’ve been searching with Google. Saw other cities with hubcap burgers. The one in Houston looks good.
If it’s really 6" diameter compared to a normal 4", and the same thickness, then it’s over twice as much meat as a standard burger, as well as over twice as much bun and other toppings. By comparison, a double patty burger will have twice as much meat as a standard burger, and the same amount of bun. So the thing you’re calling “not as filling” is bigger than the thing that’s “too much”.
It might even be true: How “filling” something is is largely a matter of subjective perception. Big things that don’t seem very “filling” are a large part of why America has a weight problem.
I have heard this called “Jackson Hole style” - not after the city, but the burger restaurants by that name in Manhattan. Also, they’re not “hubcap size”; they put a 1/4-lb or so ball of meat on the grill, then cover it with a metal bowl. About 35 years ago, there was a place in Berkeley (long since turned into a Nation’s) that made them that way.
Just a very large burger? Yeah, we got those here. There’s a very popular frozen custard place in Milwaukee/Waukesha that sells manhole sized burgers (not the actual name, just what people say sometimes).
They may not be as big as the one’s your talking about however. I typically can’t eat a ton in one sitting but I can easily get down 3/4 of a burger and still comfortably drink a milkshake.
I know everyone in my area already knows which place I’m talking about, but for the rest, it’s Kopps.
Driving up to Leavenworth, WA last Friday, and we stopped off at the Wolf Den in Wapato for lunch. They serve the six-inch burgers there(I had the double cheeseburger).
I think Kopps calls them butter burgers since they melt a pad of butter on the meat while it’s cooking. Culver’s picked up the name also.
Never hear of the hubcap term though.
