Top Burgers in Seattle

Red Mill has taken Seattle Weekly's Best Burger title for ten consecutive years running a formula that never needed updating: charbroiled patties, melted cheese, and cornmeal-dusted onion rings - regulars call them Babe's Rings - fried to a peppery crunch. The Phinney Ridge original still runs it on fire-engine-red picnic tables, thick-cut bacon piled on by request, milkshakes churned the old way. It's the order-at-the-counter joint that outlasts every trend because it never chased one.

Dick's Drive-In opened in 1954 and has operated as Seattle's defining fast-food institution ever since - not because it faced no competition, but because it decided decades ago never to change. The menu has barely evolved: a Deluxe burger with hand-leafed lettuce, hand-dipped shakes, and a price point that makes every other burger in the city feel like a lifestyle decision. There are six locations across Seattle, each operated the same way, each staffed by workers paid above minimum wage since the 1950s. The Queen Anne location is the neighborhood anchor it's always been.

Georgetown is old Seattle - industrial, artsy, and proudly off the tourist map - and Loretta's fits right in. It's a proper dive, the kind you find dotted throughout the outskirts of Seattle and Tacoma, offering burgers, beer, and a shared reprieve from the cold outside. Loretta’s has cheap beer, vintage neon, and a kitchen that turns out one of Seattle's most underrated burgers for about what you'd pay for a latte nearby.