If you’re road-tripping Route 66 and your stomach’s rumbling for something classic with a local twist, make a pit stop at Sid’s Diner in El Reno, Oklahoma. This hometown favorite is serving up a fried onion burger so tasty, it might just bring a tear to your eye—though we’ll blame that on the onions sizzling on the grill.
Sid’s Diner is a third-generation, family-owned restaurant that has been flipping burgers for more than 50 years. Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the menu at Sid’s features everything from cheese omelets to Coneys. But most visitors come for one thing: the fried onion burger.
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Fried onion burgers, also known as Oklahoma onion burgers, were born from the Depression era when meat was expensive but onions were cheap. In the 1920s, Homer and Ross Davis, who owned and operated El Reno’s Hamburger Inn, began adding shredded onions to their meat patties to bulk up their burgers. This birthed a local specialty that is still respected today.
Hamburger Inn is now long closed, but a trio of other local joints carry on the tradition: Johnnie’s Grill, Robert’s Grill, and Sid’s Diner. Sid’s Diner is perhaps the most famous of the three, thanks to numerous appearances on TV shows and in magazines, including a feature on Food Network’s Man v. Food.
The small diner, dressed up in red and chrome accents, can fill up quickly, so you might have to squeeze into a space at the bar (a perfect spot for watching the line-cooks in action) or wait a little for someone to finish up, but it is worth the wait. Sid’s adds paper-thin Spanish yellow onions onto hand-formed beef patties, pressing them onto a seasoned flat-top grill until golden brown. You’ll get a mixture or chewy and crispy onions that give the typical beef a powerful punch. Enjoy your burger dressed with mustard and pickles with a side of freshly-cut fries or golden onion rings and a thick and creamy chocolate milkshake.
Visit Sid’s year-round for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or stop by El Reno for their annual Fried Onion Burger Day Festival. This festival celebrates their local legacy games, car shows, live entertainment, and the creation of the world’s largest fried onion hamburger. Talk about an a-peel-ing road trip stop!
While in El Reno don’t forget to pop across the street to take photos with the El Reno Mother Road Monument and Route 66 Centennial Monument.
Photos of Sid’s Diner in El Reno, Oklahoma
