Where To Find The Best & Worst Chain Restaurant Smash Burgers

The history of the original smash burger starts not with the Smashburger chain but with a method of cooking burgers that dates back almost a century. Nevertheless, leading up to and through the first half of the 2020s, smash burgers became trendy. Around that time, plenty of chains outside of the eponymous Smashburger started to embrace thin, crispy burger patties.

As is the case with practically every food trend in recent times, it was independent restaurants — Burgers Never Say Die, for example, which is the best burger spot in Los Angeles according to Owen Han — that helped popularize the style. Inevitably, smash burgers at major chain restaurants followed. Chains like Shake Shack and Five Guys had been serving burgers prepared with smashed patties, the latter two simply lacking verbiage explicitly labeling them as smash burgers. 

So, the present-day smash burger landscape includes both the chains that developed smash burgers in the wake of the style's rise in popularity and chains that smash their burger patties without necessarily advertising that fact. I visited all of the biggest chains serving smash burgers accessible to me in and around Las Vegas in order to determine which chains' smash burgers are worth trying and which are failed attempts at chasing a fad. I've outlined my process further below. The following are the very best and absolute worst smash burgers available from chain restaurants.

At Shake Shack, I ordered a Shackburger, which consists of two burger patties, two slices of American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and ShackSauce on a potato bun. A big part of what makes Shake Shack's Shackburger so delicious is its smashed patties. Those come standard on all Shake Shack burgers, so my experience applies to the majority of the chain's burger menu.

The Shackburger was my single favorite of all the chain restaurant smash burgers I tried, and the expertly smashed burger meat was its single best ingredient. Shake Shack, then, is not just a great burger chain that serves smash burgers, but one of the best chains at making the smashed style of burger patty. Key to a great smash burger is a char on the burger's outer rim, and my Shackburger had more char than any of the other burgers I ate. 

With two patties at once, there was still some heft to the meat, counteracting the thinner form factor of a typical smash burger. Amplifying the perceptibly high-quality beef was a pronounced saltiness, perhaps bordering on excessive, but ultimately accentuating the burger's rich flavor. The bread and lettuce were also of high quality. At one point mid-meal, my cat got on the table, and the first burger he sniffed before I pulled him away was my Shackburger. I'm convinced that was evidence that even cats can tell Shake Shack's smash burgers are top-notch.

The Smashed Jack made its debut on the Jack in the Box menu in January of 2024, with the chain seemingly attempting to capitalize on the trendiness of smash burgers at the time. A few variations on the Smashed Jack then became a part of the chain's permanent menu, with the Buttery Smashed Jack, for example, replacing the Buttery Jack burger. I went with a Classic Smashed Jack, consisting of one patty, American cheese, pickles, grilled onions, and Boss Sauce on a brioche bun.

While I would technically describe the Classic Smashed Jack as a smash burger, the patty was so nominally crispy that it seemed smashed for the sake of checking a box rather than actually contributing to the burger's quality. I thought my Classic Smashed Jack tasted more like a slightly worse McDonald's cheeseburger, which wasn't the case with any of the other smash burgers I tried. Compounding my issues with the burger was the fact that it was around the same price as a couple of decidedly superior options, eliminating the potential for budget to justify its lower quality. Smashed or not, I just didn't enjoy my Classic Smashed Jack all that much. The fact that it failed at being a smash burger certainly didn't help. Jack in the Box has its strengths, like these secret Jack in the Box menu items you need to order, but smash burgers are not among them.

It's safe to say Smashburger invites some extra scrutiny when it comes to the quality of its smash burgers, given that the burger style is its raison d'être. I ordered a Double All-American Smash, consisting of two burger patties, two slices of American cheese, red onions, pickles, ketchup, and mustard on a toasted bun. Smashburger highlights the low prices of its standard burgers, and my Double All-American Smash was indeed priced the same as my Jack in the Box burger, and just 20 cents more than my Sonic burger, landing among the cheapest options available to me.

Competitive price or not, I found that Smashburger backed up the promise of its name, making one of the very best chain restaurant smash burgers I tried. Somehow, the two burger patties were relatively thick while still maintaining the crispy edges that define the smash burger style. The toppings were pretty inconsequential, but I did find that the Smashburger bun was particularly satisfying — it was both dense and pillowy, adding some heft without veering into dry or unwieldy territory. All in all, Smashburger offers the most smashed meat for your buck. Since that meat is prepared so well, budget-friendliness isn't even its defining characteristic but a bonus, solidifying Smashburger's status as one of the best chains for the very thing after which it's named.

While a recap of Chili's major resurgence in 2025 outlines a years-long, multi-step process, one key to the chain's growth in popularity was a menu revamp. That meant eliminating a fair number of items, but simultaneously added to the Chili's menu during that process was a smash burger called the Big Smasher. Each Big Smasher consists of a single patty claiming twice the beef of a Big Mac, accompanied by American cheese, red onions, lettuce, pickles, and Thousand Island dressing.

What immediately stood out to me was that the Big Smasher was very, very sweet. I thought maybe the bun was on the sugarier side, but after trying a few ingredients in isolation, the culprit was simply a high-sugar Thousand Island dressing. The burger patty itself was hefty as advertised, but contrary to my Double All-American Smash from Smashburger, the size meant it was lacking in the crispy edges department. Nothing about the burger was bad, per se — though anyone averse to sweetness-dominant burgers may want to skip this one — but at the same time, nothing about it excited me. The Big Smasher was perfectly fine, but spots like Smashburger have it beat in all departments, rendering Chili's largely forgettable as a smash burger chain.

It's hardly controversial to suggest Five Guys makes a quality burger. It's for other reasons that the chain is sometimes criticized, namely its prices. Just because Five Guys can prepare a tasty burger, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good chain for smash burgers in particular, though. While the chain doesn't explicitly advertise what it serves as smash burgers, Five Guys smashes its burger patties for reasons predominantly having to do with flavor, as opposed to benefiting from the smash burger style's trendiness. 

The meat on the cheeseburger I ordered lacked the crispy edges that typically define a good smash burger. However, the beef was still the star of the show, around which the rest of the burger revolved. I ordered my cheeseburger with lettuce, onion, mustard, and mayo — those ingredients and the thick slices of cheese were ultimately in support of the quality beef rather than vice versa. Even if beef is never going to provide a truly bold flavor, my Five Guys burger had about as much boldness as beef from a fast casual burger chain is capable of offering. So, Five Guys isn't necessarily a chain that delivers on every aspect of the smash burger style, but the way the chain smashes its burger patties results in standout burger patties all the same.

In the past, I've found Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers to make a solid, high-quality burger. So, my expectations were somewhat high for my Freddy's Original Double, consisting of two patties, two slices of American cheese, onions, pickle spear slices, and mustard on a toasted bun. Freddy's Original Double was indeed a pretty tasty burger, but it was not a good smash burger. 

The two patties were the thinnest of all the burgers I tried, but they were missing the pronounced crisp that a smashed-thin burger patty should offer. Meanwhile, I found that the long pickle spear slices, onions, and bun were of a noticeably higher-than-average quality. So, it was those elements, rather than the beef, that defined my Freddy's Original Double. Beef is supposed to be the star of the show in a smash burger, whereas I found that Freddy's uses its smashed beef as more of an accent to whatever other flavor profile its burger provides. That's not a bad thing in a macro sense, but it does mean that Freddy's fails to rank among the best chains for smash burgers, even if it's otherwise a solid burger chain.

I found that Jack in the Box fell short as a smash burger spot due to its signature smash burger offering virtually no advantages over the competition. Sonic pulled off precisely what Jack could not — at, say, a Shake Shack price point, I might have found my Sonic burger a little disappointing, but as the most budget-friendly option of the bunch, it was a standout. My Double Sonic Smasher consisted of two patties, two slices of American cheese, diced onions, pickles, and Smasher sauce on a potato bun.

It was apparent from merely looking at the Double Sonic Smasher that it delivered on those all-important crispy edges. A pronounced crisp was indeed the burger's biggest strength, adding a little something to virtually every bite. What surprised me about the Double Sonic Smasher was an excess of pickles, despite the fact that it was not explicitly a pickle-focused burger. That heightened pickle character was basically a net neutral, but it's something anyone interested in Sonic's smash burgers should certainly be aware of before ordering. Smash burger crisp and pickle dominance aside, my Double Sonic Smasher was a pretty typical fast food burger, centered on a bold, super salty flavor that satisfied on a base level. Those for whom cost is not a factor can find superior smash burgers elsewhere, but Sonic's smash burgers are certainly better than at least a few pricier options, earning it a spot in the fast food smash burger pantheon.

The first step in my smash burger analysis was selecting the field of burger chains I would be visiting. I prioritized chains that offer items they explicitly categorize as smash burgers, but the majority of chains that smash their burger patties do not necessarily advertise the fact that they do so in the burger names. So, rounding out my selection were spots like Shake Shack and Five Guys, known for the smash burger style, even if they don't mention it up front. Of course, I was limited to chains available to me locally in the Las Vegas area — that said, Las Vegas is essentially a chain restaurant mecca, so I was able to cover most of the big names.

I visited five of the seven burger chains I selected in one trip and tasted all five of those burgers in one sitting. That allowed me not only to identify each burger's strengths and weaknesses, but also to analyze how they stacked up against one another. The following day, I picked up my burgers from Five Guys and Sonic and tasted those side by side. As mentioned in the relevant slides, I focused primarily on whether or not each burger was a good smash burger specifically, rather than my mere enjoyment of it as a burger. My thoughts are based solely on the burgers I tasted over the course of this experience and not on any past trips to these chains.