9 Fast Food Places Where You Can Order A Burger During Breakfast
The fast food burger is a cornerstone of American cuisine. Hamburger, cheeseburger, with or without bacon, whichever your preference, nationwide joints like McDonald's and Wendy's will have you covered. Even if you're a burger lover who has gone meatless, franchises like Burger King have given Impossible burgers and other meat alternatives regular spots on the menu. International and regional fast food chains will serve you a burger at any hour of the day. Well, almost any hour. As it stands, most fast food establishments with a breakfast menu won't serve you a cheeseburger during breakfast hours.
If you go to McDonald's before breakfast stops being served (typically 10:30 or 11 a.m. at most locations), you will be limited to ordering off the breakfast menu and won't be able to get a Big Mac, for example. This is the case in most fast food burger joints, but there are a handful of restaurants that will serve you lunch at any hour. You can order a burger for breakfast at any of these nine fast food places.
Many chains can't serve breakfast burgers
There are a couple of reasons why a lot of fast food joints don't serve burgers during breakfast. The majority of these pertain to space constraints. To put it simply, most fast food restaurants only have the space to prep and cook one set of items at a time. Often, burgers cannot be cooked during breakfast hours because the grill is packed with breakfast foods such as eggs and sausages.
To further compound matters, grills are often set to different temperatures in the morning. This means that, even if there is space, burgers cannot be cooked on a grill that's set up for breakfast. Richard Widman, an ex McDonald's employee, highlighted this in a Quora post: "There was no way to cook a hamburger at temperatures used for eggs," he said, explaining that burgers won't sear when cooked at low temperatures and eggs will become tough if they're cooked at too high of a temperature.
As a result, fast food restaurants are forced to prioritize foods that are most likely to sell. Unfortunately for burger-lovers, this often means focusing on sausages, hash browns and eggs at breakfast — instead of burgers and fries.
1. Jack in the Box
Regional chain Jack in the Box is probably best known for its dirt cheap tacos, which go back many years to the 1950s when the franchise was founded. However, that doesn't mean you can't get a burger at Jack in the Box. In fact, all of the locations of Jack in the Box restaurants serve their full menu all day long. This means you can get tacos, burgers, chicken sandwiches, as well as the items on the Jack in the Box breakfast menu, at any time of the day.
The best part of the Jack in the Box all-day menu is that there is a strong chance your nearest location isn't just serving burgers at breakfast time, but at every conceivable hour around the clock. Many Jack in the Box locations are open 24/7. So if you have a 24-hour Jack in the Box near you, then you are in cheap burger heaven. Go pick one up whenever the craving strikes you.
2. Carl's Jr./Hardee's
Carl's Jr. and Hardee's are two regional American burger chains you may have seen around without realizing they are the exact same brand. Carl's Jr. is predominantly located in the Southwest and on the West Coast, while Hardee's locations can be found throughout the Midwest. Regardless of which chain you go to, both are known for serving up hearty, charbroiled burgers that will more than exceed your daily nutritional needs. And at either chain, regardless of if you stop by Carl's Jr. or Hardee's, you will be able to get a charbroiled breakfast burger.
For starters, Carl's Jr. makes no qualms about serving its burger options at any hour. The Carl's Jr. and Hardee's breakfast menu contains multiple burger options, including the classic The Big Carl burger. In addition to more traditional breakfast sandwich options, you can also opt for The Breakfast Burger, an item that combines the best of both worlds.
Exactly as it sounds, The Breakfast Burger is a charbroiled patty topped with cheese, crispy bacon, an egg, and Hash Rounds. While you can get lunch at any time at Carl's Jr. or Hardee's, this item is only served during breakfast hours — until 10:30 a.m. at most locations.
3. Whataburger
Whataburger is a fast food favorite in the South, and anyone who grew up near one will make sure you hear all about it — especially if they now live hundreds of miles away from the closet location. If you are blessed enough to be near a Whataburger, you might already know the glory of the fast food chain's 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. all day breakfast. And while the breakfast exclusive Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit may reign supreme in terms of Whataburger menu items, that doesn't mean you are precluded from getting a burger whenever your heart desires.
For starters, many Whataburger locations have drive-thrus that are open 24 hours, so you can get your late night or early morning burger on as long as you are willing to pick it up. Additionally, Whataburger is known for its special exclusive Breakfast Burger. This burger topped with cheese, egg, bacon, and hash browns is a fan-favorite item that is brought back with some frequency, so keep your eyes and ears open for the next time your local Whataburger offers it.
4. Steak 'n Shake
Steak 'n Shake isn't your traditional fast food establishment. With a diner-style emphasis on eating in, the fast food franchise still pumps out some of the fastest and most inexpensive burgers in the country, granted you can find a location near where you live. In recent years, the traditionally quick service restaurant is even transitioning to kioks, and more standard fast food service options like drive-thrus, to offset recent losses in dine-in profits. So yes, Steak 'n Shake is fast food, and more importantly, you can get a trademark Steakburger at any location at any time, even during breakfast hours.
While Steak 'n Shake does not serve breakfast all day, you can get a burger and fries at any hour at the restaurant. Many locations throughout the United States are open 24 hours, seven days a week to boot. So if you are in the mood for a diner burger on a budget, Steak 'n Shake has got you covered from dawn until dawn the next day.
5. Sonic
All hail the blue blur! Oh wait, wrong Sonic. Just like the hedgehog of video game and movie fame, fast food drive-in Sonic is known for being fast and delivering results of varying quality. You know if you like Sonic, and if you do, this is probably a good reason for it. Most Sonic locations are open 24/7 and will serve the entire menu 24 hours. That means no matter what time it is you can get Sonic's breakfast or lunch foods — whatever you want on the menu, Sonic employees will make it happen.
Sonic serves its full menu all day, which means that you can definitely get a burger for breakfast at the drive-in chain. You can also get a breakfast sandwich at 9 p.m. in the evening if that's your cup of tea. Burger fans can rejoice at Sonic's flexible offerings, but even if you aren't the biggest fan of the chain's cheeseburger, the menu is massive. This means corn dogs and onion rings at 5 a.m. are always an option on the table as well.
6. White Castle
Are sliders burgers? To avoid answering the age-old debate, we are just going to say that if you are craving an early morning breakfast burger, we can safely assume you will be content with a handful of White Castle sliders in its place.
Not every White Castle is open 24 hours a day — many of them open around 9 a.m., and closing hours will vary from location to location — but they all offer two important things: all-day breakfast and all-day lunch. Like at Sonic, White Castle will make anything you want on the menu at any time of the day. This means you can get your slider craving filled even in the morning. It also means that breakfast items like the Belgian waffle slider are available all day long, if you have that dinner-for-breakfast craving instead.
White Castle doesn't just serve lunch whenever, the long-lived fast food chain even has a breakfast burger on the menu. On its menu, White Castle lists the Original Slider with Egg and Cheese as one of its breakfast options. However, this combination of lunch and breakfast doesn't appear to be currently available at every White Castle location. If this is truly what you're craving, you can always order an original slider and a Breakfast Slider and combine the two, since there are no rules about which items you can order when at the chain.
7. Burger King
Okay, so this one is on here with a couple technicalities. You used to be able to easily get lunch offerings in the morning at Burger King. Long gone are the days of the Burger King "Burgers at Breakfast" campaign the franchise launched in 2014. Back then, for a limited time, all participating BK locations offered burgers, Whoppers, and chicken options starting at 9 a.m.
No burgers, not even the legendary BK Whopper, are listed on the Burger King breakfast menu, and if you are ordering online or on an app, you are probably out of luck. However, there are a couple ways to get a burger from BK in the early hours of the morning if you are up for it. You can either be polite and ask, or you can be a little more tricky and try to get around the system.
According to former Burger King managers and employees on Quora, it is possible to get a burger and fries as early as 7 a.m. Some say if you ask politely this is the best time to order a burger since it will have to be made fresh. However, you are going to risk the chance that the employee says no. Now, the other way to get a BK burger early in the morning is to find a 24-hour Burger King. These locations technically serve dinner until 6 a.m., so if you roll up to the drive-thru first thing in the morning you might be able to snag the final Whopper of the night.
8. Del Taco
Del Taco serves a special breakfast menu until 10:45 a.m. at most locations. This menu includes items including breakfast burritos, toasted wraps, and tacos filled with cheese, eggs, hash browns, and bacon. There are no burgers on the Del Taco breakfast menu. That being said, Del Taco does have a burgers and fries menu section that features three different burgers: the Double Del Cheeseburger, the Bacon Double Del Cheeseburger, and the Del Cheeseburger.
Unlike a lot of other fast food chains, Del Taco has no problem overlapping the regular and breakfast menus. At many locations, the lunch menu is available early, during breakfast hours. This means that customers can order any of these three burgers in the morning. What's more, they can do this with the knowledge that they're not annoying the Del Taco staff. As one employee explained on Reddit: "We serve lunch and dinner at all times, and we are totally not inconvenienced by it because it's normal procedure to prep said foods at all times."
9. Smashburger
During 2020, Smashburger offered an all-day breakfast menu which included a smash burger topped with bacon, eggs, and cheese. This burger, and the menu it came from, are no unfortunately longer served by Smashburger. However, Smashburger continues to serve a variety of burgers ranging from a smoked bacon brisket burger to a truffle mushroom burger to a turkey burger. These, and many more types of smash burgers, are available as soon as the restaurant opens — which, for most locations, happens at a fairly early hour.
The vast majority of Smashburger restaurants open their doors around 10 or 10:30 a.m. This means that customers looking to enjoy a burger in the early morning will be forced to frequent other fast food restaurants. However, patient customers that want to enjoy a burger as a late breakfast are spoiled for choice at Smashburger. It's important to note that those ordering online will have to be even more patient, as the first pick-up slot at most Smashburger restaurants is at least 15 minutes after the restaurant has opened.