Representative photography. Actual appearance may vary.
The standard-bearer for America's original smash tradition — the Depression-era Oklahoma fried onion burger, pressed and caramelized on the flat-top since 1929. Food Network's #4 burger in America.
Representative photography. Actual appearance may vary.
Sid's Diner opened in 1989 when Marty Hall brought the Depression-era El Reno fried onion burger tradition to a dedicated counter-service home on Route 66 — named for his late father Sid, who passed away before the doors opened. El Reno's onion burger dates to the 1920s, when cooks at Depression-era lunch counters started pressing mountains of paper-thin Spanish yellow onions directly into smashing beef patties to stretch expensive meat. Now run by third-generation Adam Hall, Sid's has become the institution most associated with this tradition by national food media: Food Network ranked it #4 in America, Saveur published its recipe, and George Motz made it a stop on his Burger Bucket List.
The technique is the whole story: a hand-formed beef patty hits the flat-top, and a pile of paper-thin Spanish yellow onions goes directly on top before the patty is pressed firmly down. The onions steam against the searing meat, caramelize under the press, and fuse into the crust — creating a unified patty where onion and beef are inseparable. It's not a topping. It's a cooking method. Served simply with yellow mustard and crinkle pickles on a soft bun, nothing competes with the onion-and-beef flavor that only this technique produces. This is what smashburgers looked like in 1929.
Sid's represents the Oklahoma fried onion burger, a historic regional smash tradition that predates the modern smashburger label by decades. The score focuses on that burger technique specifically.
Sid's Diner's Fried Onion Burger earned the #4 spot on Food Network's list of the best burgers in America — a remarkable achievement for a 30-seat diner on Route 66 in a town of 16,000.
George Motz — author of Hamburger America and host of Burger Scholar Sessions — was 'very enthusiastic about the fried onion burger' at Sid's, calling it a pillar of America's flat-top smash tradition.
Saveur magazine published Sid's Onion Burger as a standalone featured recipe — an editorial stamp of authority on the El Reno technique, where paper-thin Spanish yellow onions are pressed directly into the smashing patty on the flat-top.
The 405 Voyager called the fried onion burger at Sid's 'unforgettable' — a must-visit for anyone passing through El Reno on Route 66.
OKMag described Sid's as 'the homey '50s-style burger joint of your dreams,' positioning it as a bucket-list stop for the Oklahoma food canon.
Adam Richman and the Man v. Food crew made El Reno's fried onion burger tradition the centerpiece of an episode — with Sid's Diner as a featured stop on the national food television pilgrimage.
Route 66 Road Map included Sid's Fried Onion Burger in their '66 Must-Eat Dishes on Route 66' — the only El Reno restaurant on the list and one of only a handful in Western Oklahoma.
KFOR profiled Marty Hall's five decades of flipping onion burgers at Sid's, documenting the Hall family's role as custodians of one of Oklahoma's most iconic food traditions.