My steamed Hamm Army must theme Damn Army at Burger scholar George Moz is what you call a road warrior.

He's locked thousands of miles in his car, chasing down burgers all over the country.

And today I'm lucky enough to be his copilot as he takes me through one of the most important roots in hamburger history in the most unlikely of places.

Central Connecticut.

It's home to some of the most unusual burgers on the planet, as well as the birthplace of the original hamburger.

Barely any clouds in the sky.

The sun's out, awesome day for a road trip.

I do this all the time and I love it.

I mean, I feel the most comfortable in my car driving to eat burgers now that we're on this like Burger Quest.

I mean, I'm with the man in Connecticut in Connecticut's and your license plate even says hamburger on it.

Why are we here?

Captain is a very unique place for hamburgers because it really was the birthplace of manufacturing in America.

Pathetic.

It has a very, very strong hamburger working at working man food burgers.

Sense makes sense.

You've done this before, but you're showing me where it all started, what started, but also where, where, how and why it started here.

Well, how does this hamburger culture proliferate in a place that is, you would normally think of?

You think of New York City, California.

Think of Chicago.

I you wouldn't think of Connecticut, but people definitely should.

Today we're going to lose lunch and New Haven, Connecticut.

Ted's Restaurant in Meriden, Connecticut, which is the home of the steamed cheeseburger.

And then, of course, shady Glen.

It's a mid century diner that looks like it is lost in time.

This place is, I believe, the most historically significant hamburger restaurant in America is because it has actually been the longest continually operating hamburger restaurant, America.

It's been around for 118 years.

Being in here, this is like eating at a museum.

Basically, you read that you're you're actually in the cradle of Hammer is Yeah, man.

I'm excited to try everything.

Louie's Lunch turn of the century.

This place was a horse drawn hamburger cars.

They were selling Hamburg steaks, which is something you ate with a fork and a knife on a plate.

But the guy came in, he was in a rush.

Apparently, these guys said, Hey, we'll put it on some toast for you.

Any round door.

And that was it.

The hamburger.

Apparently, that point was born.

Now, there are earlier claims of the hamburger that happened at state fairs in the Midwest.

Maybe if years earlier, 10 20 years earlier.

But this is the actual documented case of a hamburger being invented.

Had a place has never stopped serving hamburgers.

You ready?

I'm ready.

You're gonna be kind of blown away by its simplicity.

I can't wait.

The big reveal.

Yeah, Nothing to it.

Looking to basically you think of a grilled cheese with hamburger ship in the middle of it.

Wow.

You know, this is all about the burger because the person you get the beef is beef flavor.

He's gotta start with two balls together to make a single patty.

It's actually pressed into this cage.

And then it was cooked from sides in an upright broiler.

No cheese that can't.

But she's not, because that's actually sitting.

Squeezing this cage upright, cook sideways to the cheeseburgers.

They put cheese spread on the toast.

Keep by that.

This also predates the hamburger bun by easily by 12.

More than 20 years.

The toast has a toaster from the twenties.

Toaster goes back to the twenties.

Yeah.

So cooking in this kitchen is like cooking like a vintage car garage.

That's you know, you have your old school Enzo Ferrari.

I've never seen other boroughs like this in America.

Has a burger historian like yourself.

You probably want to have one of those.

I would love to have one eye.

You should see this steed house.

I like it a lot of lot of contraptions in a lot of stuff.

I blasted 1/4 generation proprietor.

You heard the background talking, George.

Now, George is a great guy.

What do you really think of the number one rule at being Louise?

Don't be an asshole, period.

That's what it should be like that in every Russian, But it can't be.

Goddamn yelp is whatever.

It's right between reviews and all that crap.

You can't do it.

But you're gonna have some of this place.

You're out.

I love you.

You're an asshole in this place, you don't belong here anyway.

Exactly.

Symbols that you want a brioche bun.

Get the hell out of.

Yeah, that this is not the place for that.

This is for and honest meat.

Cheese, onion, tomato, burger sandwich, pit stop Number one, Newhaven, Connecticut.

Louie's lunch, The home of the Ogi Burger.

You're the Roadmaster.

Yeah, and you'll see the road that I need to get a hard and fast rule is that I really am very serious about this.

No farting at red lights, no farting only fart when the car's moving and then you have to roll the window down No Dutch ovens to I kind of drive like a maniac And no complaining about my driving What I was saying about the front of place.

Don't judge a book by its cover, right?

Don't judge this place.

This is tense.

The steamed cheeseburger did not start a test, but this is arguably the best place at this point.

To get the best primary source example of cheese.

And you're telling me this in season one like this is like, uh, a regional favorite five mile radius of this place.

Is everything custom there?

Steamers are all custom made.

Their spatulas where they pull the meat out are all custom made.

It's just a one of a kind burger stand.

Really?

Where does it come from?

That's a good question.

I don't really not only know, Do you know the real origin stories now, do you?

No, we don't see.

No one really knows.

It's a funny thing because we do know that was invented.

We don't know why it stuck around, but it stuck around because it's awesome.

Yeah, simple is that it's absolutely one I made for you is very good.

The one I made for you was really good.

But this is far better.

Okay?

I can't do it.

I don't know why, but I can't make this magic happen.

Oh, yeah, You have water.

So the burger to get Is that the works?

It's mayo, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato to discuss Branyan pickle, salt, pepper It cooked meat, the cheese separately and then comes out and goes in a booth.

Cheers!

Cheers.

This is not what I eat at your house.

Cheese has this really nice sneakiness to it.

I kind of like a loony or cheese curds on on a poutine.

The way this burger works is that it's a loose crime that's actually loosely packed into these trades.

Trey's going to the steaming cabinet.

Cook for 10 12 minutes ahead of him.

How busy it is in that steaming box.

The nice thing about that is, if someone could run in your national burger, they're already ready to go.

Yeah, but the nice thing about the loose grind definitely keeps.

Keeps it so it won't.

It doesn't become a dense piece of ray matter.

It's cooked.

It's far from that.

Well, this beef renders.

Yeah, but instead of there being admired reaction from a flat top, Or like a flame reaction from, like, the carbonic compounds of, like, you know, being a grill, this is very different.

This is actually just just rendered beef fat.

Any burger that requires special equipment.

Special technique will always have that next level burger appeal.

Agree.

This is definitely a next level.

Burger pitstop number two.

Ted's steamed cheeseburger.

The regional oddity here in Connecticut, my mind is blown.

You've been doing this for years, man.

You must know a lot of, like, skull and bones.

Burger secrets, you know, like I'm sure like you know, the stuff that they tell you.

I've seen things.

Yeah, Yeah.

I can tell you that you had some juicy details on certain places.

I can't I would say I probably have over 50 or 60 difference pieces of very private information that they were told me accidentally that I will never reveal you've been everywhere.

No, I watched it, though.

We did it.

Stop Number three Classic.

First, let's just let's admire the place itself for a second.

I mean, dude, look at this place.

It actually looks like you are inside of a cheeseburger.

It's got the Browns.

Yellows, yellow.

It's very horizontal, like a like a cheeseburger.

People are still wearing paper caps.

You have amazing murals on the walls.

Like to describe the mural behind me as a phantasmagorical expression of hamburger fantasy.

Yeah, it's almost like when you take your first bite of a hamburger and like this, I like what goes through your head.

Yeah, In the beginning, it was a dairy farm.

They started to actually sell milk had been a building at the edges of Dairy Farm on the road, The winner and come around.

They were trying to find some way to keep business going.

You got a grill.

It started making sandwiches in Hamburg, burned And that's how it began.

If you thought the steamed cheeseburger or something else when you see this thing, I could feel it.

The fairies are telling me the burners Air near, guys.

Here it is.

Bernice.

Original Excuse.

My reach experience was the first thing you noticed right away is to smell right.

But with this Billy, Billy, Billy is one of the owners.

Thanks for having us.

Hey, Billy.

How you doing?

Good to see you.

Hi.

There were some crazy sign It's going on, right?

No, because not every cheese just, you know, pop off the griddle, not stick.

Right, Chief in America Chase.

And this is American cheese made just for you.

Guys are something that we could buy on the market, but it wouldn't work.

And then you have to come see me.

So there's a whole method to the madness.

Enjoy.

Thank you.

This is actually four slices of American cheese.

Four sides, Americans, a Kaiser roll, one pat, single patty, single patty.

There's probably some time pickle in there yet, So the way it works actually take four slices of cheese to make a crust pattern on the top of the burgers and a lot of the cheese is hanging out.

At that point, people eat a different way.

Some people just go ahead, just go in there.

Or why don't you take the top off and fold the extra cheese in?

So you have a sort of crispy cheese thing going on.

You see that?

And now you're the burger.

It's like a crunch wrap.

It's like a pinwheel of cheese.

Get wow.

Took a gooey Cheez It very t bird.

I'm getting bread crunch crunch meat like oozy cheese on bread.

So in season one, we did a whole episode on son burgers.

Like to captivate an audience on instagram Twitter social media.

In every sense of the case, this burger is the same kind of burger, right?

But it predates all of that by about seven decades.

Seven decades.

People invented this burger New like, Hey, you eat with your eyes first so you can obviously get the cheese crisps on your burger.

But really cool about this place is that I think it's actually off menu item on the menu could actually order the cheese crisps alone.

Look at this.

Thank you.

Really?

Yes.

Look at that.

Yeah.

Cheers.

I can sell this at Coachella.

It makes so much money.

Your experience at Shady Glen is not complete.

Unless you had ice cream all the extra made here.