

"1st Street Burger has been serving the East Los Angeles community for decades. It is by no means meant to be a complete list, so rep your local burger hustler in the comment section if we missed them! ~ Laura Tejeda & L.A. To start you on your journey familiarizing yourself with L.A.’s ‘hood burger way-of-life. TACO created this list of 35 of L.A.'s most beloved ‘hood burger joints. When many classified parts of Los Angeles as “food deserts,” those $19.99 family value packs of burgers and fries were feeding many mouths. It’s important to remember that these places have fed many inner-city families. If you recently moved here, you’ve probably walked by to check one out, and hopefully, you tried a burger that genuinely represents Los Angeles food culture. Paired with chili cheese fries, a watery fountain Coke, and greasy empty packets of ketchup that are either virtually never-ending or never enough. If you grew up in Los Angeles, you undoubtedly have a soft spot for these delicious community beacons of salt and fat. That primal scent has a way of setting off the most vivid sense of voracious hunger as you drive, walk, skate, or jog by. The 'hood burger hits differently, especially in L.A., where there’s something special about driving through streets heavily filled with the aromatic scent of quarter-pound charbroiled cheeseburgers and freshly salted and unapologetically thick-cut steak fries.

And the serving of steak fries will always be stupidly generous. It might be a carefully curated, tenderly treated masterpiece overseen by an ingenious neighborhood entrepreneur of famed repute with a hatred of frozen patties. It may be huge and barely kissed by the grill overflowing with shredded lettuce. It could be greasy and dripping with cheese. What’s a ‘hood burger? All those Jims, Patras, Tom’s, Arry’s, Tommy’s, and any other old-timey name that illuminates famous corners in our respective neighborhoods. We're talking about all the 'hood burgers that have nourished generations of families, workers, and students throughout multiple generations, enduring changes in tastes, society (and the occasional societal shutdown) to stand high above the tired arguments about In N’ Out vs. It's time to talk about the best, most legendary burgers in Los Angeles.
