Best Burger in Utah? Why Locals Keep Choosing Hires Big H
Utah has no shortage of burger joints. From the fast-casual chains popping up on every corner to the trendy smash burger spots, there's never been more competition for your lunch break. So when people keep driving past all of them to get to a drive-in that's been open since 1959, it's worth asking: what makes Hires Big H different?
The answer isn't complicated. It's just hard to do.
It Starts with the Beef
Most burger restaurants — even the ones that advertise "fresh" — receive their patties pre-formed and frozen from a distributor. They thaw them, grill them, and serve them. There's nothing wrong with that, exactly. But it's not what happens at Hires Big H.
Every morning, our kitchen crew receives fresh USDA Choice beef. They trim the connective tissue by hand and grind the meat in-house. Every patty is formed that day, served that day. No freezer. No stockpile. If we run out at the end of a busy Friday night, that means we did our job — because it means nothing sat around waiting.
This is why regulars say the burger tastes different here. Because it is different. You're eating beef that was ground hours ago, not days or weeks ago.
Fresh-Cut Fries — The Real Ones
The phrase "fresh-cut fries" gets thrown around a lot. At Hires Big H, it means exactly what it sounds like: whole potatoes, cut by hand every morning before we open. No bags. No freezer. No distributor.
Our process takes seven steps. Cut. Hot water soak to pull the starch. Rest. Blanch at low temperature. Rest again. Final fry at high heat for that golden crunch. Season. It's labor-intensive and it would be so much easier to just open a bag of frozen fries. But you'd taste the difference, and we'd know the difference. So we do it the hard way.
If you've ever had our fries and thought "these taste like actual potatoes," now you know why. They are actual potatoes. Cut this morning.
Hand-Dipped Onion Rings
Our kitchen goes through hundreds of pounds of fresh onions every week. Each ring is sliced by hand, dipped in our homemade egg batter, coated in seasoned breadcrumbs, then dipped and breaded a second time. Double-breaded. That's what gives them the signature crunch on the outside while the onion stays sweet and tender inside.
You can't get this from a food service distributor. This is the kind of thing that only happens when someone in the kitchen actually cares about what they're making.
The Fry Sauce
If you're from Utah, you know that fry sauce is serious business. Hires Big H fry sauce isn't ketchup-and-mayo stirred together. It's a house-made recipe that's been refined over decades — tangy, slightly sweet, perfectly balanced. It's the reason people order extra sides of it. It's the reason out-of-state visitors ask if we ship it (we should, honestly).
Every batch is made fresh in our kitchen. Like everything else on our menu, there's no jar, no packet, no shortcut.
Signature Root Beer in Frosty Mugs
Hires Big H root beer is iconic for a reason. Served in frosted mugs that come out of the freezer so cold they fog up the second they hit the counter, it's the perfect complement to a fresh burger and a basket of fries. The recipe hasn't changed. The experience hasn't changed. And if you want to make it at home, our root beer extract ships anywhere in the U.S.
Scratch-Made Everything
The details that most restaurants skip are the details Hires Big H obsesses over:
- Salad dressings — every single one made from scratch. Real buttermilk ranch. Authentic Roquefort. Thousand Island, French, Italian, and vinaigrette. No jars.
- Bakery buns — from a local bakery using Don Hale's original 1959 recipe. The same recipe for over six decades.
- Garlic bread — real butter, fresh garlic, herbs, on local bakery French bread. Toasted golden.
- Brownies — a family recipe from the 1980s. Real butter, vanilla, cane sugar, whole eggs, Dutch-processed cocoa.
- Limeades — hand-squeezed. Hundreds of limes, every day. Over our signature crushed ice.
This isn't marketing. Walk into any Hires Big H location before opening and you'll see it happening — potatoes being cut, onions being sliced, beef being ground, limes being squeezed. It's a working kitchen, not an assembly line.
Three Generations, Same Standards
Don Hale opened the first Hires Big H in 1959 on 400 South and 700 East in Salt Lake City. He was a grocer by trade — a man who knew produce, knew quality, and knew that the best food comes from knowing your farmer by name. That grocer's instinct became the foundation for everything.
Three generations of the Hale family have carried those standards forward. The recipes have grown — Jon Hale created the Veggie H from scratch, the family's brownie recipe has become legendary, the fry sauce keeps getting better — but the philosophy has never changed: do it the hard way, because the hard way tastes better.
Three Utah Locations
Today, Hires Big H serves the Wasatch Front from three locations:
- Salt Lake City — 425 S 700 E. The original. Open since 1959.
- Midvale / Fort Union — 835 Fort Union Blvd. Right off I-215.
- Daybreak / South Jordan — 5414 Center Field Dr. Opened 2025, near the Bees ballpark.
Same fresh food, same family commitment, same hand-cut everything — at a location near you.
Why Locals Keep Coming Back
Utah has plenty of good burgers. But there's a difference between a good burger and a burger made by people who wake up before dawn to hand-cut potatoes and grind beef because they refuse to do it any other way. That difference is what you taste at Hires Big H.
We've been doing this for 66 years. We're not a trend. We're not a franchise. We're a family that feeds families — the same way we've always done it, because we've never found a reason to stop.
Come taste the difference. We'll save you a frosty mug.