A Salt Lake City man accomplished a feat Monday that he said he’d been dreaming about for years: Visiting every location of Crown Burgers in a single day and ordering something from the menu.
Bryant Heath — an electrical engineer who chronicles unusual Salt Lake City sights on his X and Instagram accounts as @SLsees — called his quest “summiting the eight crowns,” a nickname for the eight locations of Crown Burgers.
He spent $50.92 on food and drink during his Monday journey, which took seven hours and involved him traveling 92.3 miles, he posted on X.
Inspiration came to Heath in 2022, from an article written by Deseret News staff writer Meg Walter, about the origins of fry sauce. In the piece, Mike Katsanevas — one of several men with the same name who own a location of Crown Burgers — referred to the “seven crowns,” which got Heath thinking about the “seven summits,” or the highest peaks on each of the seven continents. (With the addition of the new Holladay “express” location, there are now eight “crowns.”)
Health said he felt like the nickname “was inviting some sort of trek or journey in order to visit them all.”
The project was a logistical challenge because the restaurants are spread out between Davis and Salt Lake counties, he said, and for a while, it never seemed to work out.
But “the planets aligned” Monday, he said. “I just decided on a whim to just go for it.”
Heath documented his journey on X and Instagram. On X, his post drew more than 128,000 likes. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox reposted it from his personal account.
The quest
(Bryant Heath and Ali Vallarta) A collage of Bryant Heath's eight stops on his tour of all eight locations of Crown Burgers.
Heath kicked off his Crown Burgers journey at 9 a.m. in South Salt Lake, at 3270 S. State St. Since the lobby wasn’t open at that hour, he used the drive-thru and ordered an egg and sausage breakfast sandwich.
“Ideally, I would have liked to order a Crown Burger at each location, but I’m a realist,” Heath said. “I knew that I wanted to vary the different menu items along the way.”
The breakfast sandwich was “delicious,” he said, and he ate it on the way up to the Crown Burgers location in Layton, at 1986 N. Main St. When Heath moved to Utah from Texas 14 years ago, he said, Layton was the first Crown Burgers at which he ever ate, “which is kind of ironic, because it’s the one that’s most out of the way.”
At the Layton restaurant, Heath ordered a junior cheeseburger, “because I knew this was going to be a long, long day,” he said. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So I had to pace myself a little bit.”
The next stop was the Salt Lake City location at 118 N. 300 West, where Heath ordered the chicken souvlaki for the first time. It was “amazing,” he said.
(A note here on Crown Burgers uniquely old-fashioned decor: The 300 West location is decorated with dark green wallpaper that has a pattern that feels European, and features a grandfather clock. When visiting the more heavily decorated Crown Burgers restaurants, the vibe feels like “stepping into a time capsule,” Heath said.)
After 300 West, Heath traveled to the oldest Crown Burgers location, at 377 E. 200 South. Lexi Aerakis, who owns the South Salt Lake location, said her dad, Nick Katsanevas, started the 200 South location with her uncle John Katzourakis in 1978. But originally, the concept for Crown Burgers came from her uncle Jim Katsanevas, who launched Minos Burgers in Long Beach, California, she said.
At the 200 South location, Heath said he met up with his friend Erik Nilsson, who hosts the podcast “Small Lake City.” With this restaurant being the fourth on Heath’s tour, he said he was “starting to feel it a little bit, so I went light with the baklava.”
Next, he headed south to the Millcreek location at 3190 S. Highland Drive. “This is normally my go-to location, because I live in Sugar House,” Heath said, but he had never ordered the gyro, so he went with that. Heath said it was “an amazing eat, I would say I would highly recommend. I’m definitely going to get that again.”
After Millcreek, he drove to the Holladay location, which is takeout-only. At the counter, “I told the guy what I was doing ... embarking on this trek,” Heath said. “He thought it was pretty hilarious.”
There, Heath ordered french fries with fry sauce, which he said “is definitely up there, in my opinion, as some of the best in the state.”
The next stop was the Sandy restaurant at 9604 S. State St., but first he had to fill up his gas tank because he was driving so much, he said.
At this point, he’d been on the road for about 4½ hours. “I was definitely starting to get full,” he said. “Definitely feeling it, getting a little bit tired.”
So once he arrived at the Sandy location, “I got the strawberry milkshake, spent some time, just to regroup a little bit before the finale at West Valley City,” Heath said.
At the journey’s last stop in West Valley City, at 2684 S. 3200 West, Heath ordered nothing else than a classic Crown Burger, made with a quarter-pound hamburger patty on a sesame bun topped with Thousand Island dressing, lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese and hot pastrami. He also met up with Ali Vallarta, host of the podcast “City Cast Salt Lake,” who snapped a photo of him holding his burger and standing in front of the Crown Burgers sign.
Heath said the Crown Burger is “my favorite burger in all of Utah. I know that’s debatable amongst others, but it’s my personal favorite.” He added he “enjoyed that Crown Burger as if it was my first.”
What the journey taught him
On his seven-hour journey, Heath said he learned that “I definitely need to try new things. I was stuck in the rut of just ordering the Crown Burger, but honestly, every menu item that I had was delicious.”
Lexi Aerakis, the owner of the South Salt Lake location, said, “We appreciate @SLsees for visiting all of our locations! That is AMAZING and he has officially become part of the Crown Burger family.”
Heath made news in 2020 for running on every street in Salt Lake City, and he said that project had a vibe similar to the Crown Burgers trek, because of the ambition involved. “It’s all about the journey, not the destination,” he said.
He said that online, his Crown Burgers quest got a “universally positive response, which is atypical in this internet age.”
He said he saw a lot of nostalgic posts from people who had moved away from Utah and were pining for the pastrami-laden Crown Burger.
“I think there’s something about Crown Burgers that just strikes a chord with natives here,” Heath said. “And I love it. I love how it’s just like a quirky hamburger chain that’s only local, that most everybody just loves, and a venture of mine was able to strike a chord with that feeling of love.”
