Burgers were invented in the United States in the late 1800s. While the inspiration for the hamburger came from Hamburg, Germany—specifically the Hamburg steak, a minced beef dish—the actual invention of the hamburger sandwich (a ground beef patty served between slices of bread or a bun) took place in the U.S. Various claims exist about who invented it first, including:
- Frank and Charles Menches, who in 1885 at a fair in Hamburg, New York, substituted ground beef for sausage and served it as a sandwich.
- Charlie Nagreen of Wisconsin, who in 1885 flattened a meatball to serve between bread.
- Louis Lassen in New Haven, Connecticut, who claimed to have served the first grilled beef patty sandwich around 1900.
- Oscar Weber Bilby in Oklahoma, who is credited by some as the first to serve a hamburger on a bun in 1891.
Thus, the hamburger as it is known today was developed and popularized in the United States, inspired by a German minced beef dish from Hamburg but innovated into a sandwich form in the late 19th century American context.
