6 Restaurant Chain Smash Burgers, Ranked Worst To Best

While some may say the burger is overdone, cliched, or even boring, the iconic American meal has an outstanding amount of variety for something that appears so simple. From patties that are as thick as your wrist and piled high with absurd quantities of cheese to fast food options so small you could eat three of them, the burger comes in many different shapes and sizes.

The mixing of ground meat is a recipe that traces back to ancient Roman times, but the smashburger is distinctly American. It started with one cook who had taken to smashing his patties with a can of beans until they became thin and crisp at the edges. The discovery has since catapulted the food world into all sorts of trends, chains, and burger enthusiasm. Not only does this smashing technique allow for more texture, but it also means more flavor. The challenge with a huge patty is seasoning it properly to avoid a mouthful of flavorless ground beef, but with the slim smasher you have the perfect balance between bun, burger, and add-ons.

There are several chains that have made their name off of a smashed patty and still others that offer a smashburger as an option alongside burgers of more traditional thickness. I set out on a hunt for those crispy edges, trying burgers from national chains that offer a smashburger on their menu to decide which one does it best. In order from worst to best, here are six restaurant chain smashburgers, ranked.

Chili's smashburger is no joke in terms of size, and at $14.89 it is the most expensive burger on this list (although it also comes with fries on the side). The patty is smashed but in the way you would expect of a smashburger? Not so much. Typically, a good smashburger would start with a smaller portion of ground beef than a normal patty, and the smashing would be done with a heavy spatula so as to press the meat firmly without breaking it into pieces. From there, you allow the thin patty to crisp up before flipping.

Chili's Big Smasher Burger is a pretty normal-sized patty that was squashed to the point of falling apart without achieving those crispy edges that make this style of patty so delicious. It's overly thick and a bit awkward to try to hold together. Topped with diced purple onion, chopped iceberg lettuce, cheese, pickles, and mayo, this burger doesn't have anything quite flavorful enough to redeem the poor execution of the patty, which is too thick to call it a proper smashburger. I also am of the belief that if you're going to put lettuce on a burger, there should be tomato as well to bring out the maximum in fresh veggie flavors, but the tomato was missing. This burger failed on the main front with smashing the patty and couldn't save itself with the flavor. It's safe to say that if you're going to order something from the chain, there are many other popular items at Chili's to choose from.

Shake Shack's burgers (which we've previously ranked from worst to best) aren't listed as smashburgers, so much as the company found its roots in smashing its patties and uses that design for each available option. Its ShackBurger costs $7.49 and comes with Shake Sauce, lettuce, and tomato, a combination that perhaps when compared to other fast food cheeseburgers could be good, as it has some freshness to it. But compared to the other smashburgers I tried, it was quite bland and fell short on both the patty and the choice of toppings. I missed the acidity and crunch of a good pickle and the bite of onion, and while the Shake Sauce is good, there wasn't enough of it to make up for the overall blandness of the burger.

As far as the patty, it was smashed, but not quite a smashburger, and tasting a piece of the meat by itself tells me that these burgers don't get salted on the grill. While not nearly as large and unwieldy as Chili's attempt, the ShackBurger didn't measure up. If you're looking for crisp edges and a thin patty, you'll have to look further down this list.

While flipping burgers may be cliched as a deadbeat job, I firmly disagree — a cook who can properly execute requested temperatures on hundreds of burgers a day, or achieve the perfectly smashed, crunchy-edged smashburger I crave has to use a lot of attention and care. Those cooks are apparently hard to find, as I have yet to come across a patty that I would confidently call a smashburger. In a ranking of smashburgers, one would expect the chain bearing the name of the item itself to really deliver, but I still found myself disappointed with this patty. Perhaps I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, given that even in the photo of the Classic Smash on Smashburger's website, the patty looks pretty average.

But, this chain did level itself up in terms of the toppings. For $7.49 (the same price as the Shackburger) you get fresh lettuce, tomato, onion slices, and crunchy pickles. All of the toppings were fresh and crisp — even the onions seemed to be freshly cut as they didn't have the sweaty smell of day-old product. The sauce was a signature Smash Sauce that seems to be some sort of mixture of mayo and ketchup. There's no skimping in the toppings department, and despite my disappointment at the patty, the chain at least made up for it with plenty of flavorful toppings. There were other chains, though, that really brought their A-game in terms of quality and freshness.

There's a reason Five Guys is known as one of the more expensive fast food burger joints around. While the cheeseburger (which comes as a double) costs $12.29, its ingredients are some of the freshest in the biz. The chain prides itself on not using freezers in any of its establishments, an effort that is readily noticeable in the food. When ordering your burger, you can choose from a variety of toppings, which include jalapeños, grilled mushrooms, and green peppers. I opted for the more traditional combination of lettuce, tomato, mayo, pickles, and grilled onions. While the toppings at Smashburger were fantastic, Five Guys was just a step above in terms of the crispness of the lettuce, the thickness and fresh, sweet flavor of the tomato, the crunch of the pickle, and the ability to choose grilled onions instead of raw.

When it came to the patty, it was flattened, but not quite smashburger-level. Similar to Shake Shack, Five Guys doesn't advertise a special smashburger on the menu and instead smashes all its patties to a certain degree. The fact that the patty doesn't have crispy edges is actually intentional in this case, with an employee telling Insider that employees use a specific tool to make the patties "flat — but not too flat." The result is a patty that's thin and fresh but not quite what I'm looking for. So while this one came in at No. 3, there were two other places that really hit the mark on perfecting their patty.

Sonic's double-pattied smashburger may not be quite as large as the one from Five Guys, but it's only about $8 and delivers on many qualities I crave in the American treat. The edges are caramelized and crunchy. The patties are thin enough to meld with all the toppings, and the fact that there are two of them allows for the two slices of American cheese to be evenly dispersed on top and between the patties. This Sonic burger is the first on this list I can confidently say represents what a smashburger should be. A thinner patty is nice, as you can taste more of the accompanying flavors beyond a mouthful of ground beef, but a patty that has been smashed to achieve caramelization at the edges is simply the best.

The toppings are kept simple, which is often the more traditional route with a smashburger. Onions, pickles, American cheese — a match made in heaven. The pickles provide acidity, the cheese offers texture, and the onions give it a bit of pep. I enjoyed that this burger was simple, well executed, and delicious, although there was one other smashburger that really knocked my socks off.

Born in New York City 7th Street Burger smashes all of its patties, and while some of the other chains that tout this action had burgers that lacked the characteristics of a true smashburger, 7th Street's cheeseburger was utter perfection. It had a patty smashed so far as to poke out of the bun, but still, miraculously, not fall apart. Edges had been simmered away in their own grease for just enough time to become crunchy and textured. This burger had the perfect amount of salt, the perfect cook — clearly, 7th Street Burger knows all the tips for achieving a top-notch smashburger.

The toppings, like at Sonic, are simple and highlight the patty. A potato bun, pickles, onions, American cheese. But the chain that has less than three dozen locations in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia sets itself apart from Sonic with its house sauce. I'm not quite sure what's in the concoction, but it rounded out the whole burger perfectly and made every bite addictive. When I was finished, my only wish was to have another. And at a reasonable price of $6.50, this burger was my No. 1 pick. I may just indulge in a second the next time I visit.

To compile this ranking, I first looked into chains that have multiple locations in the U.S. and that are either known for smashing their patties or for serving a smashburger. When judging them, the patty was by far the most important factor. I expect a smashed patty to be thin, but not crumbling, and to have those signature crunchy bits at the edge. The toppings were more of a secondary factor, setting apart the burgers that had fairly similar patties. I didn't factor price into my ranking, although I did include the prices of each burger for reference. Note that prices may vary depending on your location.