{"id":255554,"date":"2026-04-07T10:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/255554\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:38:09","slug":"california-smashburger-pioneer-is-for-sale-but-still-dishing-them-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/255554\/","title":{"rendered":"California smashburger pioneer is for sale but still dishing them up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

REDDING\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The tale of one of California\u2019s oldest smashburger joints<\/a> begins during the Great Depression, with an 18-year-old named Bud Pennington.<\/p>\n

In 1938, Pennington pitched a tent outside the hiring hall for workers building the Shasta Dam, set up some tree stumps for seats and started hawking grub.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five cents bought a cup of coffee, a piece of pie and one of the thin, crispy hamburgers that would make Pennington a legend in Northern California.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t exactly the best time to be starting a business, with 19% of the country\u2019s workforce out of a job. But thousands of men were pouring into Redding to build the dam \u2014 a 602-foot concrete behemoth<\/a> that irrigates millions of acres of Central Valley farmland \u2014 and they sure worked up an appetite.<\/p>\n

The builders took a liking to the young man and his aptly-named pop-up stand: Damburger. <\/p>\n

\"Damburger <\/p>\n

Damburger owners Nell Cox, left, and Julie Malik have decided to sell the Redding fast-food institution that has been in their family since 1979.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

And for 88 years, Damburger \u2014 now operating out of a squat brick-and-mortar restaurant in downtown Redding \u2014 has dished out what is, according to its official motto, \u201cthe best hamburger by a dam site.\u201d <\/p>\n

Only three families have owned the unpretentious diner with its black bar stools, scuffed tile floors and enough nostalgia to fill Shasta Lake. <\/p>\n

But the people of Redding nearly had a collective heart attack last August when the restaurant\u2019s longtime owners, sisters Julie Malik and Nell Cox, made a stunning announcement: Damburger is for sale. <\/p>\n

The restaurant has been in their family for four decades. Their parents bought it in 1979 \u2014 when Malik was 8 and Cox was 6 \u2014 and gave it to their daughters in 2005. <\/p>\n

Malik and Cox, now in their 50s, said it\u2019s time to pass the baton. The restaurant is listed for $975,000 \u2014 the median sale price<\/a> of a single-family home in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

Customers flipped out when they announced the sale, grilling the sisters \u2014 puns intended \u2014 about whether the restaurant would close. After assuring them it would not, the owners always heard the same plea: Don\u2019t let anyone change it. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about it, Damburger\u2019s been through World War II, it\u2019s been through Vietnam, it\u2019s been through all these economic downturns and recessions,\u201d Malik said. <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A patron enters Damburger in Redding. <\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Damburger survived the deadly 2018 Carr fire that took out a swath of west Redding, burning within two miles of the restaurant. And it survived the COVID-19 pandemic, with cooks sweating at the grill behind masks and customers relegated to the patio. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo much changes in the world that it\u2019s nice to have this place to come back to,\u201d Cox said. <\/p>\n

There have been a few people seriously interested in the restaurant but no formal offers yet, the sisters said. They are being discerning, they added, looking for someone who will respect the history and keep the place much the same. <\/p>\n

Although smashburgers \u2014 ground beef patties squashed on a griddle and cooked until the edges turn crispy \u2014 have become trendy<\/a> in recent years, they were a staple of the 1930s, said George Geary, author of \u201cMade in California: The California-Born Burger Joints, Diners, Fast Food & Restaurants That Changed America.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Depression, he said, restaurateurs \u201creally had to stretch food,\u201d and smashing the meat made it fill out the bun. <\/p>\n

\u201cMake the food look bigger, and they felt like they got their money\u2019s worth,\u201d Geary said. <\/p>\n

Damburger, he said, is one of the oldest continuously operating smashburger restaurants in California.<\/p>\n

Workers prep hundreds of patties each morning, using ice cream scoops to form the ground beef \u2014 purchased from a market down the street, with just a pinch of salt added \u2014 into meatballs, which are flattened in a tortilla press. <\/p>\n

\"Julie <\/p>\n

Julie Malik, a Damburger co-owner, flips through old order tabs for loyal customers.<\/p>\n

(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The menu includes \u201coriginal\u201d burgers (mustard, lettuce, onions), the Hot Dam! (pepper jack cheese, jalape\u00f1os, chipotle mayo) and the Dam Thing (two split hot dogs with a ground beef patty<\/a> on a hamburger bun.)<\/p>\n

Kids giggle when they order because it sounds like they\u2019re cussing. Some prudish grown-ups call it \u201ca darnburger.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pennington and his wife, Babe \u2014 the daughter of his meat supplier \u2014 moved Damburger to its current spot behind the Shasta County elections office<\/a> in 1962 and hired Marge Thayer, a stout woman with a bouffant bob who remembered every regular\u2019s exact order, if not their name.<\/p>\n

If she forgot a customer\u2019s name, she\u2019d call them Curly (No one knows why. Thayer just thought it was funny.) Or she\u2019d refer to them by their order.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d say, \u2018Oh, here comes The Double With Onions coming across the street,\u2019\u201d Malik said of Thayer, who taught her how to squish patties.<\/p>\n

The Penningtons retired in 1977 and sold the restaurant to a married couple, who had it for 18 months before selling to Cox and Malik\u2019s parents, Ron and Kathy Dickey. <\/p>\n

As they are today, customers were apprehensive about new ownership, but Thayer spanned the gap and put them at ease. She worked there for 44 years before her death in 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bittersweet to have a place this long, because you do go through the generations,\u201d Cox said. \u201cYou see people pass away. You see the new kids coming, but also their grandparents are getting old.\u201d<\/p>\n

One customer loved Damburger so much that his family asked after his death if they could spread some of his ashes in the restaurant\u2019s flower beds. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Sure, why not? Feed the flowers,\u2019\u201d Malik said. <\/p>\n

Orders used to be handwritten on paper tickets and hung for the cook to grab. Regulars had their usual jotted down in shorthand and kept in a folder to be used as soon as they walked in. Now, orders are taken with a computerized system. <\/p>\n

On a recent Wednesday, Malik and Cox pulled out the tag for Jessica Stelter, who was having lunch with her husband, Steve. <\/p>\n

Their orders, scrawled in black Sharpie, were: SC Ket\/Mayo (single cheeseburger with ketchup and mayonnaise) for her and DPJ W+++ (double burger with pepperjack and \u201cthe works\u201d \u2014 mustard, lettuce, onions, pickles, ketchup and mayo) for him. <\/p>\n

Stelter, 36, earned her tag as a kid, coming with her grandparents. She gets the same burger each time. But her husband mixes it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him it was an honor to have a card,\u201d she said. \u201cBut he doesn\u2019t keep his order. He changes it. It\u2019s sacrilege.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stelter, 36, worked at Damburger for a single day as a teenager. She was nervous, as a Damburger fangirl, and didn\u2019t eat before her shift. She got hot standing at the grill and fainted. Cox and Malik\u2019s dad caught her before she fell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got paid with a cheeseburger and fries,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was such a great day.\u201d <\/p>\n

Stelter teared up when the owners pulled out her grandparents\u2019 tag. Her grandpa died two years ago, and her grandma now lives out of town. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s Nana,\u201d she said, pointing to the slip of paper, which read: SC hay\/may (single cheeseburger with lettuce and mayo). Grandpa was a double burger with extra cheese, \u201coriginal\u201d style. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt never changes,\u201d she said of Damburger. \u201cIt\u2019s a piece of my childhood that I get to now share with my kids and hopefully someday they\u2019ll share with their kids if they stay in Redding.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled at Malik (who always orders the single Damburger) and Cox (who prefers the vegan Beyond Burger).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited for you guys,\u201d Stelter said. \u201cBut you\u2019re going to be missed.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REDDING\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The tale of one of California\u2019s oldest smashburger joints begins during the Great Depression, with an 18-year-old named…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113155,11102,7,9,8,113153,9182,113149,113152,113154,25958,113150,113151,12244,1310,1457,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-255554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-bud-pennington","9":"tag-burger","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-headlines","12":"tag-california-news","13":"tag-chipotle-mayo","14":"tag-customer","15":"tag-damburger","16":"tag-exact-order","17":"tag-jessica-stelter","18":"tag-lettuce","19":"tag-malik","20":"tag-nell-cox","21":"tag-onion","22":"tag-redding","23":"tag-restaurant","24":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}