Bud's Cafe & Bar

Bud's Cafe & Bar opened in 1948 at 5453 Manhart Street in Sedalia when Bud Hebert bought what was then Herman's Garage and turned it into a roadside burger joint. Seventy-seven years later, Bud's is still in the same building, still pressing the same patties on the same flattop, and still cash-only. Some staff have been working there for 50+ years. This is the part most people don't believe until they sit at the bar and the cook hands them a paper plate without asking what they want.

The menu is one item with three variables: hamburger or cheeseburger, single or double, with or without (pickles and onions are served on the side as "superfluous garnishments"). $4-8 depending on configuration, served with a bag of Lay's chips. That's the order. There is no other order. The kitchen will not customize. They will not substitute. They will not take credit cards. The phone might or might not be answered.

The burger itself is steamed first then finished on the flattop, a method most modern burger places have abandoned but that Bud's has never changed. The patty is thin, salty, and tender; the bun is steamed soft on the surface; the American cheese melts in a way no fancier cheese does. There's an entire genre of burger food writing on this place. It's the only Colorado burger joint in the book "Hamburger America."

Bud's is the destination at the end of a Sunday motorcycle run (the bikers line the front of the building most weekend afternoons), and a stop on the route from Denver to the Black Forest, Pikes Peak, and points south. Sedalia itself is a 10-minute drive from south Castle Rock, 25 from Highlands Ranch, 40 from downtown Denver.