Midwestern cuisine is a regional cuisine of the American Midwest. It draws its culinary roots most significantly from the cuisines of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe, and Native North America, and is influenced by regionally and locally grown foodstuffs and cultural diversity.
A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, or chilis; condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, or a "special sauce," often a variation of Thousand Island dressing; and are frequently placed on sesame seed buns. A hamburger patty topped with cheese is called a cheeseburger.
Dairy Queen (DQ) is an American fast food chain of soft serve ice cream and fast food restaurants owned and operated by International Dairy Queen, Inc., which also owns Orange Julius, and formerly owned Karmelkorn and Golden Skillet Fried Chicken. Its corporate offices are in Bloomington, Minnesota. The first DQ restaurant opened in Joliet, Illinois, a suburb in Chicago. It was operated by Sherb Noble and opened on June 22, 1940. It served a variety of frozen products, including soft serve ice cream.
Dick's Drive-In, or simply Dick's, is a fast-food restaurant chain located in the Seattle, Washington area. It was founded in 1954 by Dick Spady, H. Warren Ghormley, and Dr. B.O.A. Thomas. It currently operates eight locations in the Puget Sound region.
The Red Barn restaurant was a fast-food restaurant chain founded in 1961 in Springfield, Ohio, by Don Six, Martin Levine, and Jim Kirst. In 1963, the small chain was purchased by Richard O. Kearns, operated as Red Barn System, with the offices moving briefly to Dayton, Ohio and in August 1964 to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. During the late 1960s United Servomation, also called Servomation, bought the Red Barn chain. In 1978 United Servomation merged with the City Investing Company's GDV division which also owned the Motel 6 motel chain. Only interested in real estate, construction, and financial services the new owners ceased advertising for the chain along with allowing the franchise leases to expire with the last of the leases expiring around 1988. At its peak, Red Barn had 300–400 restaurants in 19 states, as well as outlets in southern Ontario, elsewhere in Canada, and Australia.
The Johnny Rockets Group Inc. is an American restaurant franchise whose themed decor is based upon 1950s diner-style restaurants. Décor includes Coca-Cola advertising, featuring nearly life-size cardboard illustrations of women in World War II armed services uniforms, individual jukebox stations, chrome accents and red vinyl seats.
Burger Time is a regional chain of drive-through fast food restaurants that is headquartered in West Fargo, North Dakota. Its original restaurant was founded in Fargo, North Dakota in 1987, and it currently has nine locations in North Dakota, Minnesota, and South Dakota.
Mickey's Dining Car is a classic diner in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It has been in continuous operation at the same location since 1939. Designed to resemble a railroad dining car, the prefabricated building was constructed in 1937 by the Jerry O'Mahony Diner Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, then shipped to Saint Paul by rail. Its unusual architecture made it a local landmark. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 for having local significance in the themes of architecture and commerce. It was nominated for being "a beloved, longstanding and unique social institution," an unaltered example of railroad car-style diners, and one of the few surviving examples of its type in the American Midwest.
Blake's Lotaburger is a fast food restaurant chain, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with 75 locations in the Southwestern United States, mostly located in New Mexico, as well as Tucson, Arizona, and El Paso, Texas. Their menu focuses on New Mexico green chile topped hamburgers and french fries, as well as New Mexican foods such as breakfast burritos.
Louis' Lunch is a hamburger restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut, which claims to be the first restaurant to serve hamburgers and the oldest hamburger restaurant in the United States. It was opened as a small lunch wagon in 1895 and was one of the first places in the U.S. to serve steak sandwiches. According to Louis' Lunch, the hamburger was created in 1900 in response to a customer's hurried request for a lunch to go. In 1917, Louis moved the business into a square-shaped brick building that had once been a tannery.
Lund Food Holdings, Inc is an American supermarket operator. Headquartered in Edina, it owns the upscale supermarket chain Lunds & Byerlys. The company opened its first supermarkets in the Uptown area of Minneapolis. In 2015, it changed its name from Lunds to Lunds & Byerlys. It operates 28 stores in Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area of Minnesota.
A Jucy Lucy or Juicy Lucy is a stuffed burger with cheese inside the meat instead of on top, resulting in a melted core of cheese. Two bars in Minneapolis claim to be the inventor of the burger, while other bars and restaurants have created their own interpretations of the style.
FLIP burger boutique is an upscale full-service American restaurant based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company opened its restaurant in West Midtown, Atlanta in 2008. The restaurant has been generally well-received by food critics for its ambiance and food, though there has been criticism that the restaurant is "overdone". It has been credited as increasing competition among hamburger restaurants in Atlanta.
The Band Box Diner is the oldest operating diner in the Elliot Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The restaurant, located at 729 South 10th Street, is modeled on the White Castle chain, but is entirely locally built. It was opened by Harry Wyman and his wife Bert in 1939. They eventually built 15 Band Boxes in the chain by 1950. All of the restaurants were in Minneapolis, with the exception of one in Columbia Heights. In 1953, the Wymans sold the chain, and by 1972, this location was the only one that remained. It was purchased in 1998. Its new owners hired architects Robert Roscoe and Karen Gjerstad to plan the restoration and expansion of the building.
Wayback Burgers, previously known as Jake's Wayback Burgers, is an American fast casual restaurant chain based in Cheshire, Connecticut. Wayback serves typical hamburger restaurant foods such as hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, milkshakes and salads along with a variety of regional selections. Originally created in Newark, Delaware, Wayback began expansion in the late 2000s; in 2013, it was announced that the chain was expanding internationally to an additional 28 countries, with locations in the Middle East and North Africa slated to open in early 2014. The second international agreement signed is with Argentina.
World's Best Donuts is a doughnut shop and American restaurant in Grand Marais, Minnesota. It is located along the waterfront of Lake Superior. World's Best Donuts is an independent family-owned business established in 1969 by Merieta Altrichter. The shop has been featured in Minnesota Monthly and The New York Times, both of which described the shop's donuts as living up to the business's name.
The Dime Store was a short-lived restaurant in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. It was established by Dayna McErlean, with additional conceptual development from Jeremy Larter. The restaurant opened in 2014, replacing Leo's Non-Smoking Coffee Shop, a diner which had operated for thirty years. The Dime Store's menu included diner classics such as burgers and milkshakes, along with all-day breakfast and weekend brunch specials. Despite receiving a positive critical reception, the restaurant closed in November 2015.
The 5-8 Club Tavern & Grill is a restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1928 as a speakeasy, the eatery is one of two Minneapolis establishments that claim to have invented the Juicy Lucy cheeseburger in the 1950s, the other being Matt's Bar. The 5-8 Club also serves its Saucy Sally burger and other dishes including fried cheese curds and onion straws. The restaurant, which has been featured on several Travel Channel TV series, has three additional locations in Minnesota.
