Like many American-raised kids, I ate a whole lot of hot dogs and cheeseburgers when I was young.
I ate them at home, and whenever possible, I ordered them at restaurants. When I was a kid, raised in the Eastern part of North Carolina, when you ordered a hot dog or burger, the person taking your order would ask, “all the way?” This may seem like a common question that all restaurant servers will ask when you order a hot dog or hamburger, but in hot dog or burger stands in North Carolina, “all the way” means something different than it does in most other parts of the world.
I wrote about the Carolina hot dog four years ago, when I was just getting started on this sandwich blog, but I never really shared a full recipe. At that time, I briefly touched on its sibling, the Carolina-style burger, but I definitely didn’t do it justice since it’s a style of burger that’s part of my upbringing. And that brings us here.
Normally, when writing these sandwich blogs, I go directly from the short introduction into describing what this burger actually is. But in this case, I’m first going to talk about what a Carolina burger is not.
I was recently reminded by a restaurant in NYC called Hamburger America to write about the Carolina-style burger. The social media post that reminded me is just below.
Since this is a long burger blog post, here are some navigation links if you want to jump around the content.
Carolina-style burger discussion
Making our own Carolina-style burgers
What is NOT a Carolina burger?
It appears that a lot of people (mostly non-southerners and/or non-Americans) have no idea what a Carolina burger actually is. I’ve done a little digging in the lead-up to writing this burger blog post and found quite a few examples of chain restaurants that have created and sold their own “Carolina Burger.” And they’re almost all very wrong.
The majority of these chains have made the mistake that a lot of non-Carolinians make in thinking that both North and South Carolina only produce one type of food (barbecue), and it’s always covered in yellow-colored mustard-based sauce. This is absolutely not true, and if I take just a slight tangent here, I have to remind you, dear burger-enthusiasts, that North and South Carolina do not share one type of barbecue sauce. The two states produce at least 3 distinct types of barbecue sauce between them.
THERE IS NO “CAROLINA BBQ SAUCE.”
You have to be specific when talking about barbecue sauce from North or South Carolina. Just using the generic term “Carolina barbecue sauce” means nothing. Words matter.
Below I have images from four burger marketing campaigns I found for four fast food “Carolina Burgers” from different chains. Three of them are from outside the United States, but they all have the same issue in thinking that:
- North and South Carolina are the same state
- Both states only have one barbecue sauce, and it’s a version of the mustard one (from South Carolina)
- A Carolina burger is just a regular burger with some smoky elements and barbecue sauce.
I have not linked to any of these restaurants or burger marketing materials because I do not like them, and they are all limited-time offerings that only exist in the past. But you can go looking for them if you want. They’re all very easy to find since it only took me about 15 minutes to dig them all out.
None of those are Carolina burgers because the Carolina burger is already a thing.
And that thing doesn’t have any damn barbecue sauce on it.
Now that we know what a Carolina-style burger is NOT, we can discuss what this burger actually is supposed to be.
What is a Carolina burger?
A Carolina burger, or a Carolina-style burger, or sometimes a Carolina Classic, is not a fancy burger. This type of burger is often sold at diners, gas stations, or hot dog and burger stands, and the really good examples of a Carolina Burger are served at the type of establishment where you order at the counter, pay in cash, and the entire food menu is posted with prices up on the wall.
The type of places that make a great Carolina-style burger have been doing it for 40+ years. They will not take your debit card, and if you look in the back, you might find a table full of 75+ year old men sitting around drinking lukewarm coffee at 10:30 in the morning. That’s the type of place where you should be able to say “all the way” and get a very tasty burger.
A Carolina burger is a hamburger or cheeseburger that has the same toppings or components that are used to top a Carolina-style hot dog. These four components are a beef chili with no beans, creamy and sweet coleslaw, diced white onion, and yellow mustard. Combined, they create a great, flavorful, if not slightly messy, burger experience.
Fast food chains doing Carolina-style right?
There are at least 3 restaurant chains that I am aware of that are doing a Carolina burger correctly.
Wendy’s will occasionally put a Carolina Classic burger on their menu. They started this in the 1990s and seem to bring it back from time to time (mostly only in North and South Carolina). I remember a time when I was college-aged and they would run a $0.99 promo deal for Carolina Classic burgers after any winning UNC football games.
Here’s a 1995 promo advertisement for Wendy’s Carolina Classic. Do you remember Dave Thomas?
Just remember the three C’s: chili, coleslaw, chopped onions.
Wendy’s Marketing Jargon from 1995
These other two chains are both founded in North Carolina, and they have roots where the Carolina-style burger and hot dog were invented. Cook Out has more than 300 locations, and Hwy55 has a bit more than 100 locations.
Old school Carolina-style burgers in NC
Since most of you reading this are probably not from North Carolina, and maybe some of you are like me, a visual learner, I figured I would create a map of some of the more well-known, older diners, drive-ins, and burger stands that are still selling a Carolina-style burger as their “all the way” option. I focused my research on North Carolina only, because that’s the state I grew up in, but you should be able to find burgers like this in South Carolina as well.
DISCLAIMER: This map does not contain every establishment that serves a Carolina-style burger because that number would be in the hundreds. Please do not get upset if I missed your favorite spot. Just let me know in the comments if you think your favorite burger and dog joint should be mentioned and maybe I’ll update the list.
Burger stands from the map listed from West to East.
All links are to Google Maps.
- The Icey Freeze – Lenoir, NC (open more than 40 years)
- Hap’s Grill – Salisbury, NC (open since 1986)
- Dairi-O – King, NC (1947 – now a chain – multiple locations)
- Tucker’s Grill – Horneytown, NC (grill opened in the 1970s)
- Dixie Burger – Ellerbe, NC (open since at least 1985)
- Johnson’s Drive-In – Siler City, NC (open since 1946)
- Melvins’ – Elizabethtown, NC (open since 1938)
- Dick’s Hot Dog Stand – Wilson, NC (open since 1921)
- Dairy Palace, Washington, NC (open since at least 1986)
- El’s Drive-In – Morehead City, NC (open since 1959)
Andre the Giant of wrestling and The Princess Bride fame spent the last few years of his life living near Dixie Burger in Ellerbe, NC, and often frequented the burger joint to visit with locals.
It was challenging to research these locations because, as you can imagine, if a restaurant does not have a website, its presence online is not updated very often. I did a whole lot of peeking into Google Map photo results and Yelp photo uploads to confirm that these spots were all still open and served Carolina-style burgers as their “all the way” option. For the locations on the map above, I tried to ensure that somewhere on their menu or signage, they list what “all the way” means in that restaurant.
There are likely hundreds of places that serve burgers like this, but they’re in very small towns and hard to research. For example, this is a TikTok video shot in my hometown of a restaurant called Lydia’s Grill that I’ve visited under different ownership and two different names (shoutout to T.A.’s, which became Jennifer’s Grill!). The person in the video says that he ordered the burger all the way, and it contains “mustard, onion, chili, slaw,” but there’s no other place on the internet that I have found that shows that bit of knowledge.
In many of these small North Carolina towns, it’s just assumed that “all the way” will be served in this manner, and these tiny restaurants have been selling burgers and hot dogs for decades, so they don’t really feel like they need to announce on the menu or signage to describe how their burgers or hot dogs are served.
Other Carolina burger spots
The map above leaves off a ton of establishments like Winnie’s Burgers in Wilmington, Player’s Retreat in Raleigh, and Troy’s 105 Diner in Boone that have all the ingredients for a Carolina-style burger, and even have a “Carolina burger” on their menu, but chili, slaw, mustard, and onions are not how they serve “all the way.”
Often, these sorts of North Carolina restaurants will have a build-your-own burger or dog as the default burger or hot dog on the menu.
My favorite Carolina-style burger
Melvins’ in Elizabethtown, North Carolina, serves my absolute favorite Carolina-style burger. It’s a small restaurant in the downtown area with very few frills. The burgers are amazing and well worth a visit. They serve burgers and hot dogs, and that’s pretty much it. Melvins’ opens at 7:30 am, which is normally breakfast time, but they don’t serve breakfast items. They just serve burgers and hot dogs all day long, or at least until 5:30 pm. You can’t get fries at Melvins’; they just have small bags of chips, so this is definitely a place where I suggest that you order two burgers or a hot dog and a burger.
What Randy [Randy Harris = Melvins’ owner] will reveal about the process is that every five seconds, a made-to-order burger or hot dog materializes on the counter. “Before you have your money out,” he says, “it’s ready.”
5 on the Flat-Top: Melvins’
Melvins’ makes their burgers unbelievably fast, and the menu is very streamlined, so even if you show up and there are 30 or 40 people in the line and it stretches out the back door, you will not be waiting nearly as long as you might expect. It moves fast, and the employees are always hustling. Get your cash out while you’re in line.
If you ever find yourself near Elizabethtown, North Carolina, you’d better go to Melvins’ and tell them that I sent you. They don’t know who I am, but I’m sure they’ll be excited to learn. Get your cash out, you’re holding up the line.
Now that we know what is and is not a Carolina-style burger, we can make our own. First, we need some buns.
Soft burger buns
A typical Carolina burger will be built and served to you in a very soft, most likely cheap white bread bun. I like to encourage people to bake their own bread, but I’ll be honest and say that if you want to create the most authentic experience for yourself at home with this style of burger, you should just buy a cheap burger bun that you can get at the store.
But if you want to make your own buns like I did, my super soft potato bun recipe is the best recipe I have for this type of burger. It’s easy for beginners and advanced bakers alike, and it just works. It creates a light bun that has a lot of color on the exterior and is really soft and tender in the middle.
Whenever I want to create a burger bun that appears similar to a store-bought bun, I have two tips. First, flatten the dough into a disk during the shaping process. This helps the buns to be a bit flatter instead of spherical. A bun that looks like a ball is a dead giveaway that it was homemade. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
My second tip for recreating a bun that looks like it was commercially produced is to arrange your shaped dough disks on your baking pan so that they are less than an inch away from each other. This forces the dough to rise together, which gives you a bun that has “pull apart” areas, which you’ll see in a lot of buns that are sold in stores.
I paint melted butter on the exterior of the buns, which makes them very shiny and wet-looking until the butter dries. This process seasons the exterior of the bun and also softens each bun.
Here’s the best soft burger bun recipe that I know how to create. Yes, it has some special ingredients and requires a scale to finish the recipe, but it’s worth it. As I said above, if you’re really trying to replicate a Carolina-style all-the-way burger from one of the diners or burger stands, you might want to buy some cheap, white, and soft buns from the store.
Super soft potato buns v2
Here's my updated, soft and squishy bun recipe that's perfect for your next burger night. This updated version that uses potato flour and dry milk powder for a lighter bun with longer shelf life.
Get RecipeBurger patty
I think the best Carolina-style burgers I’ve ever had were more about the flavors from the slaw and chili and less about the burger patty itself. The all-the-way burgers that you buy at some of these old school burger stands are also usually pretty small burgers, so I made my patties like that as well.
I tried 5, 4, and 3-ounce patties, and I think somewhere between 3 and 4 ounces—or a quarter pound—works the best. You do not need to weigh your patties, but I like to do that to make sure they’re all consistently sized.
Once I’m ready to make a burger, I take a square of parchment paper and create a patty. I make my patty on parchment paper because you can season the visible meat and then, with clean hands, pick the patty up with the paper and flip it onto your pan or griddle. This just makes things easier and means there is one less opportunity for you to get your hands on the raw beef.
I season my patties with just salt and ground black pepper. I think most of the diners or burger stands would probably be using salt and pepper, or maybe a simple seasoning blend on their patties. They definitely are keeping it fairly simple and quick.
If you want a cheeseburger, add the slice of cheese on top of the patty when there’s only a minute or so left in the cooking process. This gives the cheese an opportunity to soften and melt just a little bit.
Creamy coleslaw
Eastern North Carolina coleslaw is made with the base of cabbage, mayonnaise, and a little bit of sugar, which creates a sweeter slaw experience than you might be used to. The cabbage is shredded or chopped very finely, and this sort of slaw is typically served on the side of pulled and chopped pork barbecue or even added inside of an Eastern NC barbecue sandwich along with the pork.
There are two other ingredients in this slaw that influence the flavors and create a bit of depth. Those ingredients are yellow mustard and celery seeds, and I think they both really solidify the flavors that I expect in a good slaw.
If you’re really trying to replicate North Carolina slaw in your own kitchen, you should start with green cabbage. Do not buy a “slaw mix” at the store. First off, those slaw mixes aren’t shredded or chopped fine enough, and secondly, they contain stuff that’s not typically in North Carolina slaw. You may see a few tiny pieces of orange carrot in Eastern NC slaw, depending on the restaurant, but if you see pieces of purple cabbage, you’ve probably gone to the wrong place.
Red or White slaw?
Most of the Carolina-style burgers that you’ll find in North Carolina are made with slaw that looks a lot like mine in the photo above. But if you’re on the western side of NC, you might find yourself in a place that serves Lexington-style red slaw or barbecue slaw. This starts out similarly to traditional Eastern NC slaw with finely shredded or chopped cabbage, but instead of vinegar and mayonnaise, they use vinegar and ketchup. I’m not the biggest fan of red slaw, but maybe that’s because I didn’t grow up eating it. My slaw recipe, like the one just below, is sometimes called “white slaw” if the person you’re talking to is from the western part of the state.
Eastern North Carolina coleslaw
A quick easy slaw that replicates the flavors you'd find in Eastern North Carolina coleslaw. Works great as a side dish or on top of a barbecue sandwich.
Get RecipeHot dog or burger chili
Every hot dog chili that you find in these Carolina-style burger or hot dog joints will be different. They do share some ingredients, but every single restaurant will have its own “famous,” secret house recipe for their chili. Almost always, the chili will be made from ground beef with garlic and onion (or garlic and onion powder) along with chili powder and tomato sauce or tomato paste.
Notice that I didn’t mention beans because there are no beans in a typical hot dog chili. This is not the type of chili that you will enter into a chili contest; hot dog chili is more akin to a thicker meat sauce than a chili.
I like the ground beef in my chili to be fairly fine. An old-school hot dog and burger joint is likely making vast quantities of chili every day, and they will cook the meat in the sauce for a very long time, which ends up creating a chili with a fine texture. We can replicate that at home by breaking up the meat with a potato masher or the back of a spoon near the end of the cooking process.
Some Carolina-style burgers that I see cooks making on YouTube will have a pretty thin, liquidy chili, and in my opinion, that’s a big mistake. The consistency of hot dog chili needs to be fairly thick so that the burger isn’t too messy. In order to get that right, you need to cook the meat sauce until a lot of the liquid simmers away. If you need to reheat the chili later and it seems too thick, you can always add a little more water or broth to the chili in a pot and simmer until everything is warm and the texture and consistency are what you’re looking for.
Hot dog chili
No beans in this chili, but it's perfect for topping a hot dog or burger. This type of chili is also superb for chili cheese fries.
Get RecipeOnion and yellow mustard
These are the easiest of all of the ingredients to get right in the burger, because they’re going to be pretty much the same at every restaurant. There are no secret recipes involved in diced onion and yellow mustard.
For a Carolina-style burger, you need a diced white onion and some mustard that you buy at the store. I’m going to assume that most of these restaurants are using a different brand of mustard that their wholesaler supplier sells, but in my opinion, you’ll get the right flavors with French’s brand classic yellow mustard.
Cheese or nah?
Cheese is not required in a Carolina burger, but it’s almost always there. Basically, you order a hamburger or a cheeseburger, and then you’re asked, “all the way?” and that’s how the toppings are added. So if you’re lactose intolerant or don’t like cheese on your burgers, you can get that out of the way quickly.
BUT, I typically order a cheeseburger, and that normally means American cheese since these are mostly made and sold at burger stands where cheese options are scarce. This is only a problem if you’re ordering one of these burgers in a restaurant, though. If you’re reading this burger blog post, then you already have the recipes, and you can use whatever cheese you want.
Or you can even use pimento cheese to add extra Southern in your burger.
Use your favorite cheese, but just know that you’ll probably be getting American slices if you find one of these burgers in a North Carolina burger joint.
Burger Assembly
The build process for a Carolina-style burger is pretty much up to you. I like to put all the toppings on top of the burger, but occasionally you’ll see the burger patty placed on top of the slaw or chili.
Basically, it’s up to you. Most burger joints that I’ve witnessed also put all the toppings on the top of the patty, but they end up wrapping their burgers up in paper, so they do not turn out to be very pretty.
Here’s a slideshow of photos on how I build my burgers.
To wrap or not to wrap?
If you really want to recreate the experience that you might get at a burger joint that sells Carolina-style cheeseburgers, you will have to wrap them up in paper. The wrapping process serves one main purpose for the restaurant, which is to keep things nice and tidy for you to take your burger to go or move it to another spot to eat. But the burger wrapped in paper also forces all the ingredients to intermingle a bit more, and it has an added effect of helping to steam and soften the bun and melt any cheese that might be involved.
I wrapped a few of the burgers that I ate while testing recipes, and I do think it’s helpful to replicate that burger stand experience. It’s a tiny bit more work, and it creates some waste, but it honestly does seem to make the whole burger better.
A double Carolina-style burger?
I had two 4-ounce patties and one homemade bun left on the last day of testing this recipe. So, I just had to make a double cheeseburger.
As you can probably imagine, it was great, but I still think a single patty actually works best here because a Carolina-style burger, to me, is more about the combination of the four components and less about the burger and/or cheese. Basically, the addition of the second patty threw off the ratios a bit. I’m still glad I tried it, though, and I wish I had another right now.
Carolina burger photos and recipe
Now that we’ve covered all the bases, it’s time to wrap things up (in paper) and share my recipe.
I made a bunch of burgers this week and took a whole lot of photos. You can see what I mean if you keep scrolling. The full recipe for my Carolina-style cheeseburger, including the chili and slaw, is just down below.
Carolina-style cheeseburger (aka all-the-way burger)
This recipe goes all the way to create a fantastically flavorful and cohesive cheeseburger experience. This is my version of a Carolina-style burger that's found in North and South Carolina, and you can cook it in your own kitchen.
Ingredients:
Carolina style slaw- 1 medium head of cabbage, shredded
- 3⁄4 cup mayonnaise
- 1⁄4 cup white sugar
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons yellow mustard
- 1 tablespoon celery seed
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 pound ground beef (80/20 or 75/25)
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 cup water or beer or beef broth
- 8 ounces canned tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- pinch of MSG (optional)
- 3 to 4 ounces ground beef
- salt and black pepper (or your favorite seasoning salt blend)
- 1 soft white burger bun
- slice of American cheese (optional - Cheddar will also work)
- scoop of chili (from above)
- onion, diced
- scoop of slaw (from above)
- yellow mustard
Directions:
Carolina-style slaw: add your shredded cabbage to a large bowl. If you have a food processor, don't forget that some of them have a shredding feature. Use that to shred if you can. Makes things quick.
Add mayonnaise, sugar, apple cider vinegar, yellow mustard, celery seed, salt, and black pepper to your bowl and mix with a spoon to combine everything thoroughly.
You shouldn't need any extra salt, but you should taste the slaw to see if it needs anything else at this time.
Store in a container in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Hot dog chili: in a medium pan over medium-high heat, brown your ground beef. With your spoon or spatula, try to break the meat up into small pieces while it browns.
Once the meat is browned and cooked through, drain and remove all of the grease and liquid from the pan.
Add the tomato paste to the meat and return it to medium heat. Cook the tomato paste for a couple of minutes, stirring it into the meat.
Add tomato sauce, water/beer/broth to the pan and stir everything to combine.
Add worchestershire sauce, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder and salt, black pepper, and a pinch of MSG (if using). Bring chili to a simmer in the pan.
While chili is cooking and simmering, use a potato masher to mash the meat and chili. I like to twist the masher. You do this to get the texture and consistency that you need.
Cook the chili until you get a somewhat thick consistency. It usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes of simmering.
Store in the fridge until it's time to make burgers or hot dogs. Warm up in a small pot or in the microwave. If the chili seems too thick, you can add just a small spoonful of water or beef broth when warming to thin it out slightly.
Burger patty: pre-heat a large skillet or griddle over high heat for 5 minutes. Measure out about a 3 or 4-ounce portion of ground beef and form it into a patty that's around 1/4 inch thick. Season both sides of your burger patties with salt and black pepper.
Place your ground beef patty on the hot skillet or griddle. Cook for 4 minutes and flip the burger. Once flipped, cook 3 more minutes. When there is 1 minute left on the burger cooking process, add the slice of cheese (if using).
Remove the patty to a plate to rest for a couple of minutes. While the burger is resting, get all of your ingredients ready.
Burger assembly: open an untoasted burger bun and place the cooked cheeseburger patty on the bottom bun. Add a scoop of chili on top of the patty, then sprinkle on some diced onion.
Top the onion with a bit of slaw and a nice squirt of yellow mustard. Add the top bun on top to finish the burger.
For the most authentic Carolina-style burger experience, wrap the burger in a 12 x 12-inch piece of deli paper or parchment paper so that the bun will steam and soften, and the cheese will melt into the burger and chili.
Allow the wrapped burger to sit for a couple of minutes. Serve and enjoy.
Check back next week
First off: next week, the sandwich blog will be coming on Tuesday instead of Monday. Prepare yourself.
Next week (on Tuesday), we’ll be discussing a crunchy sandwich! Check back and find out how crunchy.
