How Culver's Came Up With The Idea For The Iconic ButterBurger

Culver's wouldn't be the iconic fast food establishment it is without its frozen custard and fresh, never-frozen beef, and no item is perhaps more essential to the chain than the ButterBurger. When Craig Culver opened the first Culver's, he knew that he wanted ButterBurgers to be the restaurant's signature dish. At first, he struggled with deciding where to incorporate butter into the recipe. In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Culver shared, "We ended up actually buttering the bun — the crown of the bun — and then toasting the bun. So that's where the butter becomes involved."

The concept of a butter burger is simple — it's a hamburger with butter somewhere in the cooking or assembling process. What ended up giving the Culver's ButterBurger its distinct taste was melting butter on the buns and making the smash burger patties on the grill where they could sizzle in their own fatty juices. With over 1,000 brick-and-mortar locations and growing since 1984, it's safe to say that the ButterBurger was a smash hit for this restaurant chain.

The "ButterBurger" is original to Culver's, but a butter burger has been around in Wisconsin for a long time. Butter has always been a part of making hamburgers, dating back to Charlie Nagreen, or "Hamburger Charlie," a man from Hortonville, Wisconsin often credited for inventing the standard American hamburger in the late 1800s. In 1936, Solly's Grille started serving burgers with heaps of butter cooked into them, as one of the original homes of the butter burger. The concept spread to other Wisconsin restaurants and eventually Craig Culver, owner and founder of Culver's, in the 1980s.

Today, Culver's ButterBurgers come in three different sizes with several topping choices, along with flavors like the Mushroom & Swiss or Bacon Deluxe. Part of what gives these burgers their signature flavor is the company's refusal to "cheap out" on ingredients, even if that means having to charge more than competitors for what they believe to be a better product. Culver's sources its beef from American farmers, including those from Wisconsin. Each ButterBurger is made with butter from the Alcam Creamery, and you can expect a side of cheese curds from La Grander Hillside Dairy, both of which are Wisconsin-based dairy farms. With a commitment to supporting local businesses, it's easy to see how Culver's placed first in our ranking of fast food burgers.