Best Burgers in Metro Little Rock

Cotham's Hubcap Burger earns the top position not through novelty but through the kind of institutional excellence that comes from doing one thing, in one place, for decades. The burger is hand-formed and enormous — named for its approximate size relative to an automotive hubcap — and cooked in a way that makes you understand why people drive from Little Rock to Scott on a weekday for lunch. The setting (a 1917 general store that hasn't been over-renovated) adds to the experience in a way that can't be manufactured. Lunch only, Tuesday through Saturday. Go.

Lost Forty's kitchen has taken the brewery pub burger more seriously than most taproom operations bother to, and the result is a smash burger that earns its place in a serious conversation about the metro's best. The double smash with a pour of Rock City Amber is one of the better simple meal combinations you can have in Little Rock. It's not trying to be Cotham's — it's a different thing entirely — but it wins on its own terms.

Flying Saucer's burger isn't the most ambitious on this list, but it hits the right notes consistently enough to earn a spot. It's a properly constructed pub burger — good beef-to-bun ratio, appropriately seasoned, cooked to order — in a room with 200+ beers on tap. The combination of reliable food and exceptional beer selection makes it the metro's most useful pub burger destination.