When the Culver family opened in Sauk City, Wisconsin, people didn’t know what a “ButterBurger” was. They also didn’t know what frozen custard was. The first year was rough enough that they nearly didn’t survive it — broke even in year two, turned profitable in year three. By 1988 they started franchising, and by 1990 the first successful franchise location opened.

The founding insight was that two simple things, done correctly, beat complex things done carelessly: fresh beef seared hard on a flat top, and real butter on a toasted crown bun. Craig’s mother had always buttered the top half of a hamburger bun before serving it — not the bottom, not the patty, just the crown. Craig and Lea built that technique into their first menu item. More than 1,000 locations later, every Culver’s uses butter from Alcam Creamery, a small family-owned Wisconsin creamery. The spec has not changed.

The bottom bun absorbs moisture from the patty and toppings. Butter it and toast it, and within two minutes the crust turns soft. By keeping the bottom bun unbuttered — just a quick dry toast to warm it — it stays structurally firmer under the beef and holds the stack together.

The crown bun faces upward on the finished burger. You bite through the butter-toasted top first. The fat from the butter carries flavor toward the front of your palate, creating an immediate richness before the beef. If you buttered the bottom instead, you’d lose that first-bite effect and end up with a soggy base by the time you finished eating. The asymmetry is intentional.

At home: about 1/2 teaspoon of softened salted butter on the cut face of the crown bun, toasted butter-side down in the same cast iron until it turns golden brown, about 60–90 seconds. Use real butter, not margarine. The Alcam Creamery butter Culver’s uses is a high-quality Wisconsin product; Kerrygold or any European-style salted butter works as a home equivalent.

Culver’s uses a blend of sirloin, chuck, and plate — all from 100% Midwest-raised cattle, with no fillers. Each patty weighs 2.75 oz before cooking. The three cuts serve different purposes:

Sirloin comes from the rear of the animal near the hip. It’s leaner than chuck, with a pronounced, beefy, slightly minerally flavor. Without fat it would produce a dry patty; combined with the other cuts, it provides the clean beef backbone.

Chuck comes from the shoulder. It’s well-marbled with intramuscular fat, which makes it the standard choice for ground beef and the reason most burger recipes call for 80/20 (meaning 80% lean chuck, 20% fat). Fat carries flavor and keeps the patty moist during the fast, high-heat cook.

Plate comes from the lower chest and belly area. It’s the same primal section that yields skirt steak and hanger steak — cuts known for deep, beefy, slightly funky flavor. Plate fat is also less prone to rancidity than kidney fat (which is why some commercial ground beef has a slightly off taste). It’s rarely used in home grinding but contributes something distinctive when it’s in the mix.

At home, you can’t easily replicate a three-cut blend without a grinder. The closest single-purchase approximation is a good 80/20 ground chuck from a butcher who sources from local farms. For a closer match, ask the butcher to grind a roughly equal-weight blend of chuck and sirloin together; the sirloin brightens the flavor without reducing fat to the point where the smash loses its crust.

Fresh, never frozen is not a technicality. Freezing beef damages cell walls and increases the moisture that releases during cooking. More moisture means more steaming on the griddle, less browning, and a flatter crust. Culver’s sears each patty after you order — there’s no holding drawer, no pre-cooked staging, no assembly line. That’s structural to the product.

The first ButterBurgers in Sauk City in 1984 were portioned with an ice cream scoop — which made uniform beef balls — then pressed flat on the griddle. This was a smash burger before “smash burger” was a named category.

Smashing works because of surface area. A pre-formed 3-inch round patty touches the pan only where the two surfaces make direct contact, which is a fraction of the total surface. When you smash a beef ball flat, the entire bottom face makes contact with the cooking surface all at once. Maximum surface contact drives the Maillard reaction — the chemical process by which amino acids and sugars in the beef brown and produce hundreds of new flavor compounds, including the savory, caramelized, almost-nutty notes that characterize a well-seared burger.

Smashing also spreads the fat across the surface quickly, creating lacy, crispy edges where the fat renders and the thin exterior crisps. Those edges are the best part of a smash burger. A formed patty with rounded edges never achieves them.

One critical rule: smash the patty, then leave it alone. The crust needs undisturbed contact with the pan to build. Moving or pressing the patty after the first 15 seconds breaks the crust before it forms and forces the juices out. You’ll know the patty is ready to flip when the edges have turned gray and the top surface shows moisture beading — usually about 2 to 2.5 minutes on a properly preheated cast iron.

Culver’s ButterBurger menu separates into two main styles and three sizes:

ButterBurger (The Original) — beef patty, buttered crown bun, and your choice of classic toppings (ketchup, mustard, onion, pickles). No cheese is standard on the Original. This is the minimalist version — beef and butter, nothing else hiding the flavor.

ButterBurger Cheese — same as the Original, but adds Wisconsin American cheese. This is what most people who say “ButterBurger” are actually picturing.

The Culver’s Deluxe — Wisconsin American cheese + pickles + mayo + onion + lettuce + tomato on the buttered crown bun. The fully loaded version that Culver’s considers its flagship.

Sizes: Single, Double, or Triple (one, two, or three patties per burger). Doubles are the most common order. Each patty is approximately 2.75 oz before cooking, based on nutrition disclosures — Culver’s does not publish the exact pre-cook weight officially.

Other versions: Bacon ButterBurger, Mushroom & Swiss ButterBurger, and specialty variations that rotate by region and season.

American cheese, specifically: American cheese melts evenly at low heat without becoming greasy or oily, coats the patty in a thin, uniform layer, and has a mild, slightly salty, slightly tangy flavor that complements beef without competing. Aged cheddar has more flavor but turns grainy when it melts fast. Swiss sweats oil. Provolone firms up. American was designed for this application. The dome-lid trick — covering the pan for 30 seconds after the cheese goes on — uses residual steam from the patty to melt the cheese without drying out the beef or over-browning the bottom side.

The technique matters more than the recipe here. You need three things:

A very hot surface. Cast iron preheated over high heat for 4–5 minutes. Infrared thermometer should read 450–500°F. Too cool and the beef steams rather than sears.

No pre-formed patties. Portion the beef into balls, season the top of each ball right before it hits the pan, then smash immediately with a metal spatula held flat and pressed down firmly. Hold the press for 10 full seconds. The thinner you go, the more crust you get.

Butter only on the crown. Softened salted butter, about 1/2 teaspoon, spread on the cut face of the top bun. Toast face-down until it turns golden. No butter on the bottom bun. This is the entire concept — not because it’s complicated, but because it’s asymmetrical in a way that home cooks rarely think to do.

Culver’s opened its first restaurant in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1984 and began franchising in 1988. As of April 2025, the chain operates more than 1,000 locations across 26 states. It’s most concentrated in the Midwest — Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa — but has expanded to Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Colorado. In February 2026, Culver’s announced its first Virginia location in the Richmond area.

For the roughly half of American states that still don’t have a Culver’s, the smash-and-butter-crown technique in this recipe is as close as you can get.

Looking for more fast-food burger recipes? The copycat Five Guys burger uses a similar double-smash technique on a higher-fat patty blend. The copycat In-N-Out burger takes the opposite approach — a formed patty with the real focus on Animal Style’s mustard-sear and spread. For the McDonald’s Big Mac, the sauce is the whole story — and the Big Mac sauce recipe is worth making on its own for any burger night. The Burger King Whopper covers flame-broiling at home, a fundamentally different technique from the flat-top smash.