Steuben's Uptown

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• Top 6 Cheeseburgers in Denver

  Currently #6 · score 0

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• The Cherry Cricket

  The Cherry Cricket has occupied the corner of 2nd and University in Cherry Creek since 1945, when it opened as Mary Zimmerman's Bar. Lloyd Page bought the place in 1950 and gave it the name that's stuck ever since, and the marquee sign he put up — still glowing over the sidewalk today — has become one of the most recognizable landmarks in a neighborhood that's otherwise filled with upscale shopping and condo towers built up around it. That contrast is a big part of the Cricket's identity: it's long described itself as the "black sheep of Cherry Creek," a genuinely divey, unpretentious bar that never got remodeled into something glossier as the surrounding blocks did. The burger is built for choice rather than a single fixed recipe — a hand-formed patty customers dress from a long list of toppings, from green chile and grilled onions to fried eggs and jalapeños, so that regulars tend to have a specific, personal build they order every time rather than a single "house" version everyone gets. National attention has followed the local reputation rather than the other way around: Food Network's Aaron Sanchez called his burger there "the best thing I ever ate," and Travel Channel's Man v. Food singled the Cricket out as one of the best burger joints in the country. The bar took a real hit when a kitchen fire closed it the night before Thanksgiving in 2016, but it reopened five months later with its character intact, and has since grown carefully to a handful of additional metro-area locations without losing the original Cherry Creek room's rough edges. For a Denver cheeseburger list, the Cherry Cricket is the essential "this is the one everyone already knows" entry — an 80-year-old dive bar burger, built to order from a genuinely long topping list, that's held its reputation through a fire, a neighborhood's total transformation around it, and decades of newer competition trying to take its place.

• My Brother's Bar

  My Brother's Bar occupies a building at 15th and Platte that's been serving drinks continuously since 1873, making it the oldest operating bar in Denver. It ran under other names for most of that history — including Paul's Place — before brothers Jim and Angelo Karagas bought it in 1970 and renamed it, the story going that vendors collecting payment would be told "don't look at me, it's my brother's bar" often enough that the name just took. A framed letter behind the bar ties the building directly into Beat Generation history: it was written in 1944 by Neal Cassady from the Colorado State Reformatory, asking his old high school counselor to cover his tab at "Paul's Place" — this same corner. Cassady, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg were all known to drink there, giving a genuinely unassuming Denver bar a direct line into the circle that produced On the Road. None of that history would matter much for a cheeseburger list if the food weren't good, and the burgers are the actual draw for most people walking in now. The JCB — a jalapeño cream cheese burger — and the Ralphie Burger, built on bison instead of beef, are the two most specifically ordered items on a menu that otherwise keeps things simple: classic sandwiches, pastrami on rye, and a newer weekend brunch service built around breakfast burgers. For a Denver cheeseburger list, My Brother's Bar is the essential "oldest bar in the city, with the history to prove it" entry — a 150-year-old building with a framed Beat Generation letter on the wall, still serving a jalapeño cream cheese burger and a bison patty to a crowd that's as likely to be there for the burger as for the history.

• Bastien's Restaurant

  Bastien's has stood on East Colfax Avenue since 1937, when the Bastien family bought the Moon Drive Inn that previously occupied the site. The current building — a striking, curved-roof example of Googie architecture designed by a member of the Bastien family himself — replaced the original structure in 1958 and has been the restaurant's home for well over six decades since, making it one of the more architecturally distinctive steakhouse buildings anywhere in Denver. The restaurant's signature is actually a steak, not a burger — the "Sugar Steak," rubbed with a sugar-based seasoning before searing, is what most first-time visitors are told to order. But Bastien's has run a sugar-rubbed hamburger built on the same technique for just as long, applying the restaurant's defining flavor idea to a simpler, cheaper format for regulars who want the Bastien's taste without a full steak dinner. What's most notable about Bastien's now is how long it's stayed a genuine family business: it's currently run by a fourth generation of Bastiens, with Ryan Bastien in the kitchen as head chef, and the menu has stayed close to its 1958 form rather than chasing contemporary steakhouse trends. Diners describe it as loud and unpretentious rather than formal — an old-school Denver restaurant that's never tried to be quiet or precious about its own history. For a Denver cheeseburger list, Bastien's is the essential "steakhouse burger, done the same way for generations" entry — a sugar-rubbed hamburger from a nearly 90-year-old, family-run Colfax Avenue institution, served inside one of the city's most distinctive pieces of mid-century architecture.

• Park Burger

  Park Burger opened in 2010 on South Pearl Street in the Platt Park neighborhood, founded by Jean-Philippe Failyau on a straightforward premise: a scratch-built, quality-first burger served in a casual, family-friendly counter setting rather than a full-service restaurant or a late-night bar. The Pearl Street original has stayed the flagship as the concept expanded to additional Denver neighborhoods under parent company Gastamo Group. The approach is built around ingredient quality rather than novelty toppings or a signature gimmick — fresh, never-frozen beef, a compact list of well-executed builds, hand-cut fries, and milkshakes, all served fast enough to function as a genuine weeknight option rather than a destination meal. That focus has earned Park Burger a steady local reputation as one of the city's more consistently well-reviewed neighborhood burger counters, the kind of place regulars recommend without much fanfare because it simply delivers the same solid burger every time. Park Burger has also shown real staying power as a small local chain rather than a single beloved storefront — expanding from the original Platt Park location into other Denver neighborhoods over more than a decade, a genuinely difficult thing to do without diluting quality, in a city with no shortage of newer, flashier burger openings competing for the same customers. For a Denver cheeseburger list, Park Burger is the essential "reliable neighborhood counter" entry — a scratch-kitchen, family-friendly burger spot built on ingredient quality over spectacle, still running out of the same South Pearl Street storefront where Jean-Philippe Failyau opened it in 2010.

• Smashburger

  Smashburger is a Denver original in the most literal sense: the chain was founded here in 2007 by Rick Schaden, a former owner of Quiznos, and Tom Ryan, a food scientist who had previously helped develop Pizza Hut's stuffed crust pizza and served as chief concept officer at McDonald's. The pair bought an existing Denver restaurant to test cooking and management techniques before opening the first official Smashburger in June 2007, backed by $15 million in outside capital and a genuinely research-heavy process that reportedly included a blind taste test of roughly 300 kinds of beef before settling on Angus. The name describes the technique exactly: a ball of fresh beef pressed hard onto a hot flat-top grill, searing the surface into a crisp, caramelized crust in a matter of minutes, a method the founders helped popularize nationally well before "smashburger" became the generic term it is today for the entire style. Ryan and Schaden's research-driven approach — treating burger development more like food science than short-order cooking — was unusual for a fast-casual chain at the time and became a big part of the brand's early identity. The bet paid off fast: Forbes named Smashburger to its "America's Most Promising Company" list in 2011, and again in 2014, as the chain expanded well beyond its original home market into a national and eventually international footprint. That growth hasn't erased its roots — the company still operates several Denver locations, including a longtime spot on East 35th Avenue, keeping the smash technique available in the city where two Denver entrepreneurs first built it into a business. For a Denver cheeseburger list, Smashburger is the essential "the format itself started here" entry — a thin, hard-smashed patty from the fast-casual chain that helped take the smashburger technique from a diner trick to a national category, launched in Denver in 2007 and still serving out of the city that built it.