Solly’s Grille is the Wisconsin restaurant Anthony Bourdain visited and called extraordinary, and it’s been serving the original Wisconsin butter burger in Glendale since 1936. For anyone researching the restaurants Anthony Bourdain visited during his travels through the Midwest, Solly’s stands out as one of the few Wisconsin stops he singled out by name. Long before Culver’s turned the butter burger into a regional chain staple, Solly’s was already melting real Wisconsin butter over a fresh beef patty, the way it’s been done here for nearly 90 years.
Since 1936, Solly’s Grille has served the Wisconsin butter burger in its purest, most unapologetic form: not a modest smear, but a generous, deliberate pat of real Wisconsin butter melting dramatically over a freshly cooked beef patty. It’s a simple, brilliant thing.
Anthony Bourdain ate at Solly’s during a visit to Milwaukee and called it extraordinary. In a state that produces some of the finest dairy on earth, Solly’s decided the best use of that butter was right here, on this burger, for you. They were right.
The current Solly’s location is in Glendale, Wisconsin. The butter burger tradition it carries is specific to Wisconsin: the combination of dairy state pride, German-American cooking traditions, and the richness that butter adds to a beef patty produced a preparation that has outlasted most burger format innovations of the 20th century. It earned a spot on our 50 legendary local restaurants.
What to Order: Butter Burgers, Caramelized Onions, & Malts
The butterburger: a fresh beef patty cooked in butter, topped with a significant amount of butter melting over the meat as it arrives. For more of iconic Milwaukee and Wisconsin dining, Solly’s is the original that every butter burger on the market owes credit to…