Reader: Even Better, Smother That Cheeseburger With Green Chile. That’s a Classic Colorado Meal!

While some favorite Colorado agricultural items are now showing up at farmers’ markets and grocery stores – Palisade peaches! Sweet corn! – we celebrated five of this state’s top culinary inventions on Colorado Day, August 1.

But in their comments on the Westword Facebook page, some readers got right to the meat of the matter regarding Colorado’s claims to being the home of both the cheeseburger and the Mexican hamburger. Says Joe:

The Mexican hamburger was not created here. Wtf.

Adds Craig: 

Call it a Colorado hamburger; that shit is an abomination.

Responds Kim: 

I call it delicious!

As for cheeseburgers, credited to the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In, Jered notes:

There are records of cheeseburgers ranging further back than 1935.

Replies Ethan:

The Humpty Dumpty Drive-In in Denver invented it in 1935. They got a trademark and court order to prove it.

Concludes Sally:

Give me a great cheeseburger with some Colorado sweet corn, and I’m a happy gal. Even better: smother that cheeseburger with green chile! That’s a classic Colorado meal.

No less an authority than Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, credits the long-defunct Joe’s Buffet on Santa Fe Drive with the creation of the Mexican hamburger in the late ’60s. As for the cheeseburger claim, Louis Ballast, owner of the Humpty Dumpty, trademarked the term “cheeseburger” in 1935, an act commemorated with a marker where the drive-in once stood on Speer Boulevard.

Who’s serving the best Mexican hamburger in metro Denver these days? How about the best cheeseburger? For inspiration, see Molly Martin’s list of the ten best burgers in Denver; then post a comment or share your favorites at editorial@westword.com.