Contrary To Popular Burger Belief, Wendy's Didn't Invent The Square
Wendy's is known for many things, including its Frosties, the red-haired girl on the logo, and the fact that it also serves baked potatoes. But when it comes to the burgers, there are two things that make them unique. One is the "fresh never frozen" beef, but perhaps more distinctive is the chain's square shaped patties. While round patties are standard even outside of fast food joints, Wendy's has had square ones since 1969 when it first opened its doors. But though most people typically associate Wendy's with the differently shaped patty, the truth is it wasn't an original concept.
It's easy to assume that Wendy's made its burgers square in order to set itself apart from other burger joints, but there were actually other restaurants already doing so, including Michigan and Ohio-based chain Kewpee Hamburgers. Wendy's founder Dave Thomas grew up eating at Kewpee, and when he opened Wendy's, he decided to model its patties after his childhood favorite. As it turns out however, Kewpee wasn't the first burger chain to use square burgers either.
Who invented square burgers?
The invention of square burgers can be traced to Walter Anderson, who was the co-founder of White Castle. Along with E.W. Ingram, the two opened the first hamburger chain in the US in 1921. The square shape came about because of how Anderson cooked the patties. He'd roll the ground beef into meatballs, then press them into the griddle, turning them into a square. This was much easier than making round patties, he reasoned.
If you look closely at the buns White Castle uses, you'll also notice that while they do have a domed top, the actual bread is square-shaped. With a square patty, therefore, there's a perfect bun-to-meat ratio. At Wendy's and Kewpee, however, the buns are fully circular, further corroborating the fact that it was White Castle's invention. There isn't much room for debate regardless, since Kewpee officially opened seven years later in 1928, and Wendy's, several decades after that.
Why is Wendy's better known for square burgers?
Despite the fact that there were at least two fast food franchises that had already been serving square burgers, it's now become a Wendy's signature. The main reason for this is that only Wendy's uses it as a selling point. Its advertisements often encourage customers to "look for the square," frequently using the tagline "Square's the beef" to draw attention to its patties. But on top of marketing its burgers as easily differentiable from its competitors, Wendy's also manages to convince customers that there's a reason the square shape is better.
In reality, Wendy's made its burgers square because of the influence of Kewpee on Dave Thomas's childhood, but Wendy's has given different explanations over the years. John Li, Wendy's vice president of culinary innovation told CNN Business it's because you can fit more burgers on a griddle if they're square, while the Wendy's website says it's so that the burgers hang off the bun, making the quality of the beef more visible. "At Wendy's, we don't cut corners," is the chain's go-to explanation, suggesting that you get more meat in a square patty because the corners aren't cut off. It's safe to say White Castle's co-founder probably wasn't thinking of these reasons when he invented the square patty, but it's a selling point for Wendy's nonetheless.