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Dick's Drive-In
Dick's Drive-In opened on January 28, 1954, in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood, founded by Dick Spady along with H. Warren Ghormley and Dr. B.O.A. Thomas. The original NE 45th Street location was designed by architect Raymond Peck with a look the chain has replicated at nearly every location it's opened since — a low, angular drive-in silhouette that's become as recognizable around Seattle as any restaurant sign in the city. The menu has stayed almost defiantly simple for more than seventy years: hamburgers, hand-cut fries, and milkshakes, with the Dick's Deluxe as the closest thing to an upsell. The cheeseburger itself is unfussy diner-style fast food — a thin, griddled patty cooked quickly and dressed simply, built for a counter window rather than a sit-down meal, at prices that have stayed remarkably low for a Seattle institution. That combination of speed, consistency, and value is exactly what's kept Dick's in the center of Seattle's cultural identity for generations — it was voted "the most life-changing burger joint in America" in a 2013 Esquire poll, a distinction that speaks less to culinary ambition and more to how deeply embedded the chain has become in daily Seattle life, from late-night runs to a genuine rite-of-passage first job for generations of local teenagers. The Spady family expanded carefully rather than aggressively over the decades — Capitol Hill in 1955, Crown Hill in 1957, Lake City in 1963, a Bellevue location in 1965 that later closed, and Queen Anne in 1974 — eventually taking full ownership of the chain and keeping it a genuinely local, family-run operation even as Seattle's fast-food landscape filled up with national chains. The company only crossed into new territory recently, opening its first Everett location in June 2025, still moving at the same unhurried pace that's defined its growth since the 1950s. For a Seattle cheeseburger list, Dick's Drive-In is the essential "this is just what a Seattle burger is" entry — a thin, fast-griddled cheeseburger from a 1954 Wallingford drive-in that's stayed so unchanged, and so beloved, that it's less a restaurant at this point than a piece of the city's identity.
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Red Mill Burgers
Red Mill Burgers traces back to 1937, when the original Capitol Hill location first opened, giving it one of the longest lineages of any cheeseburger spot in Seattle. That original run wasn't continuous, though — the Capitol Hill restaurant closed in 1967, and the Red Mill name sat dormant for nearly three decades before new ownership revived it in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood in 1994, the location that's since become the flagship most people mean when they say Red Mill. The burgers lean thick and hand-formed rather than smashed, dressed with classic diner toppings and, notably, a genuinely well-regarded onion ring alongside the fries — the kind of place where the sides get talked about nearly as much as the burger itself. It's a straightforward, no-reinvention approach that's stayed consistent across the chain's modern locations. That revival proved durable: a second location opened in the Interbay neighborhood in 1998, and a third followed near the Ballard Locks in late 2011, occupying a restored historic building known as Totem House. Each expansion has kept the same counter-service, cash-friendly, lines-out-the-door format that made the Phinney Ridge original a neighborhood fixture in the first place. Having a nearly 90-year-old name — even with a multi-decade gap in the middle — gives Red Mill a different kind of credibility than a newer gourmet burger concept chasing the current smashburger trend. The 1994 revival team clearly understood what they were reviving: a genuinely old-school Seattle burger identity, not a nostalgia-branded reinvention, and that's part of why regulars across three neighborhoods still treat Red Mill as an established fact of the city rather than a recent discovery. For a Seattle cheeseburger list, Red Mill Burgers is the essential "old Seattle name, three thriving locations" entry — a thick, hand-formed cheeseburger with roots back to 1937, now anchoring Phinney Ridge, Interbay, and a restored Ballard Locks storefront.
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