Louisville Named a Top City for Burger Lovers in New Study

The Vernon Lanes burger kills. Photo by Kevin Gibson

I’ve been a food writer around these parts for quite a while, and I’ve always considered Louisville to be a pretty good place to grab a tasty burger. Well, apparently I’m not alone in this feeling. In a new study listing 200 of the largest markets, Louisville ranked in the top 25 as one a 2023 Top City for Burger Lovers.

Conducted by Lawn Love — yeah, it’s a lawn care company, but they’ve got to get their clicks somehow — the study has New York at the tippy-top, with San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston rounding out the top five. Louisville didn’t make the top 10, but did land at a respectable 24. Not bad for a study that included 200 of the largest cities and metro areas in the U.S.

The study considered access to burger vendors, consumer ratings, and national recognition, among nine total metrics. (If you want to dig deeper into the full metrics, you can do so here.)

But the list was compiled starting with a survey of culinary experts, who were asked questions like, “What makes a quality burger?” and “What’s the best burger you’ve ever had?”, among others. The study then collected metrics and assigned a weight to each metric based on its importance. They were then grouped into four categories, with each city being ranked in every category. They are: Access, Consumer Satisfaction, Recognition, and Demand.

Louisville ranked No. 17 in Access — at the very least, we know we can find a burger when we crave one — and No. 19 in Recognition, which comprises information from “top burger” rankings from several sources like Thrillist and The Food Network, among others. The Consumer Satisfaction rank, which incorporates reviews and online rankings, wasn’t quite as high at No. 42, while Louisville ranked 49th in Demand, which was determined through Google search results.

But let’s face it, if you live in Louisville and love burgers, you likely have a favorite burger. I love the burgers at Vernon Lanes, for instance, and Mellwood Tavern, which is known for its Tuesday and Thursday chicken frys, also has a sneaky good burger on its menu. I hear great things about Toasty’s Tavern, and don’t sleep on Kaelin’s 80/20, Bunz or, heck, a good old-fashioned Ollie’s Trolley burger.