Burger history
For most of the 20th century, the burger’s trajectory was standardisation. The craft movement changed that — and here’s how it happened.
The craft burger movement began in the early 2000s as chefs and restaurateurs started applying quality sourcing, house-made components, and technique-led cooking to a format that fast food had stripped of all those qualities. Shake Shack (2004) was the most commercially significant early expression. The movement has since spread globally, reaching Bali’s food scene in the 2010s.
For most of the 20th century, the hamburger’s trajectory was one of industrialisation. From White Castle in 1921 to McDonald’s global expansion in the 1960s, the story of the burger was the story of standardisation: the same patty, the same bun, the same sauce, produced identically across thousands of locations. By the 1990s, the fast-food burger had become so ubiquitous that it was easy to forget the format could be anything else.
The craft burger movement was a reaction to exactly that.
The movement began to coalesce in the early 2000s in New York City. In 2001, chef Daniel Boulud launched the DB Burger at his restaurant db Bistro Moderne — a short rib and sirloin patty stuffed with foie gras and black truffle, served in a toasted parmesan bun, priced at $29. It was a deliberate provocation: taking the fast-food format and applying fine-dining technique and luxury ingredients to see what it became.
The DB Burger did not define the craft movement — it was too expensive and too theatrical to do that. What it demonstrated was that the burger format was capable of culinary seriousness. That demonstration opened a door.
The more influential moment came in 2004 when Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group opened Shake Shack as a permanent stand in Madison Square Park, New York. Shake Shack was not a fine-dining experiment. It was a fast-casual operation with a short menu, quality ingredients (fresh, never-frozen beef; Martin’s Potato Rolls), and a focus on doing a few things very well. The queues were immediate and sustained.
Shake Shack demonstrated something that the industry had either forgotten or chosen to ignore: that customers would wait, and pay a bit more, for a significantly better burger. It established the fast-casual burger as a viable commercial proposition and triggered a wave of investment and imitation across the industry.
In the UK, the craft burger movement developed slightly later but with significant intensity. Meatliquor opened in London in 2011, bringing an American diner influence combined with a genuinely chef-driven approach. Bleecker, Patty & Bun, and others followed — each with a focused menu, house-made components, and a serious approach to sourcing. The British craft burger scene was arguably more ingredient-obsessed than its American counterpart, with a greater emphasis on traceable beef sourcing and in-house production.
Across all its geographic expressions, the craft burger movement shared a set of defining characteristics:
By the 2010s, the craft burger movement had reached beyond the US and UK. Melbourne, Sydney, and Auckland developed strong craft burger scenes. Singapore and Hong Kong followed. By the mid-2010s, the movement had arrived in Bali — a food-destination city already familiar with the premium casual dining category through its existing coffee, brunch, and restaurant cultures.
The craft burger in Bali is part of a global trend but adapted to a local context: an international tourist audience accustomed to quality, a resident expat community, and a domestic dining culture that has increasingly embraced the format at the quality end of the market.
BB52 is part of the craft burger movement that began in New York, spread through London, and has now reached Bali. The brand shares the defining characteristics of that movement: a focused menu, house-made components, quality sourcing, and a chef-driven approach. From a global trend to a Bali institution. What is a craft burger? →
We use cookies to enhance your experience and optimize our website’s performance. By continuing to browse, you agree to our use of cookies. These help us improve functionality, analyze usage, and deliver better services.