There is no single inventor of the smash burger. Historians treat it as a diner technique that evolved in the United States, then got a modern name and a second life as a trend. The honest story is a stack of overlapping Midwestern and Southern practices, not one restaurant’s “first.”

What a smash burger actually is
A smash burger starts as a loose ball of ground beef, not a pre-formed thick patty. That ball hits a very hot flat-top griddle and is pressed hard—once, early—so it spreads thin. The point is surface area: more meat touching the steel means more browning, lacy crisp edges, and the Maillard reaction that makes it taste toasted and savory instead of just “grilled.” Cheese often melts on the second side. Classic toppings stay simple: American cheese, onions, pickles, mustard, a soft bun. 
The earliest layer: speed, not branding
Burger historian George Motz argues that some of the first American hamburgers—sold at fairs and factory gates in the late 1800s and early 1900s—were already thin patties pressed into pans because cooks had to feed people fast. Those early pressed burgers were not necessarily the ultra-crispy, lace-edged version people post online today. Motz dates that crisp style closer to the late 1920s and early 1930s, after restaurant flattops added grease traps so fat could run off instead of frying the patty in its own grease. 

Oklahoma’s onion smash: the Depression-era cousin
A closely related and well-documented ancestor is the Oklahoma fried onion burger. Around 1922–1926, Ross Davis at the Hamburger Inn in El Reno, Oklahoma (on Route 66) stretched expensive beef with cheap sliced onions, then smashed the onions into the meat on the grill. The usual story places this during hard times for railroad workers and, later, the Great Depression: less meat, more onion, still a filling sandwich sold cheap. El Reno still treats the onion burger as local heritage. Many modern smash burgers quietly descend from this idea even when they skip the mountain of onions. 

Indiana and Illinois diners keep the method alive
Miner-Dunn, which opened in 1932 and later settled in Highland, Indiana, is often cited as a place that has served smashed-style burgers for nearly a century. In 1948 Allen Schoop bought a former Miner-Dunn space in Hammond, Indiana, and kept the thin-smash tradition going. 
Steak ’n Shake opened in February 1934 in Normal, Illinois, founded by Gus and Edith Belt. Gus ground steak cuts in front of customers (“In Sight It Must Be Right”) and cooked thin “steakburgers” with crisp edges on a flattop. That Midwest diner style—thin, fast, browned, stacked—is one of the main bridges between old short-order cooking and later smash culture. Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer, who grew up around St. Louis, has cited Steak ’n Shake as an influence. 
Carl’s Drive-In in Brentwood, near St. Louis, started smashing burgers after Carl Meyer bought the place in 1959. It became another Midwestern shrine for the thin, griddled patty. 

Dairy Cheer and the bean-can story
The most repeated “named invention” story comes from Dairy Cheer in Ashland, Kentucky. Owner Bill Culvertson had split from Dairy Queen so he could serve burgers. In the 1950s or 1960s (sources disagree on the exact decade), a cook reportedly used a bean can to press a beef ball onto the griddle. Culvertson liked the crust and put the style on the menu. Dairy Cheer later claimed a role in the name “smashburger” and, in 2010, sued the Denver chain Smashburger over trademark; the case settled. Historians treat Dairy Cheer as important popularization and naming lore, not as proof that no one smashed burgers earlier. 

The name and the chain: Smashburger, 2007
The Denver chain Smashburger did not invent the technique. Founders Tom Ryan (formerly of Pizza Hut and McDonald’s concept work) and Rick Schaden bought a small Denver diner called Icon Burger in 2006, tested a high-heat smash method, and opened the first Smashburger in 2007. Internally they already called the product smashburgers; research with “heavy burger lovers” pushed them to use that name on the door. The chain scaled the word nationally and later internationally. Ryan has said he popularized the method and the brand, not the idea itself. Jollibee later acquired the company. 

The 2000s–2010s revival
While Smashburger branded the word, Shake Shack (first permanent shop 2004, after a 2001 Madison Square Park cart) helped make a pressed, griddled diner burger fashionable again in the “better burger” wave alongside Five Guys. In 2012, writer-cook J. Kenji López-Alt published an influential Serious Eats piece arguing for the smash technique and explaining the science of the crust. That article is often credited with teaching home cooks and chefs why the thin smash works. 

The 2020s boom
TikTok and Instagram made the lacy edge a visual signature. Independent smash shops and pop-ups spread in the U.S., then the U.K., Australia, and beyond. Variations multiplied: Oklahoma onion smashes, double and triple stacks, smash-burger tacos (an older idea with a new viral life), hot-honey versions, and pub-menu smash burgers like the ones at places such as Riip in Huntington Beach. George Motz opened Hamburger America in New York as a deliberately old-school smashed-patty diner, calling that style the “primary-source” American burger. 

What did not happen
• Smashburger the chain did not invent smash burgers.
• There is no clean 1920s patent or single “patient zero.”
• Thick steakhouse burgers and smash burgers are different traditions; the smash style is the older everyday diner method that later looked new because thick pub burgers had taken over menus.