Stalking the West's best burgers - Best of the West - Cover Story

Sunset, Feb, 1993 by Bill Crosby

OF ALL THE EXPLORATIONS undertaken for Best of the West, perhaps the most fun--and certainly the most fattening--was tracking down the West's best hamburgers. More than 1,100 readers cast votes for the best version of the humble but lovable sandwich, lauding 726 different burger joints--not including the legions of readers who insisted they made the best burgers.

Here you see the biggest vote getter (both in numbers of votes and in sheer mass) of any single-location burger emporium: the 1-pound Papa Burger served up at Val's in Hayward, California (2115 Kelly Street). The picture, taken in front of Val's old-fashioned soda fountain, is worth a thousand words; the burger itself easily packs twice that many calories. Our full report salutes Val's and 19 other joints, from Anchorage to San Antonio, New Mexico, for their contributions to the West's waistlines.