Whatever Happened To Montana's Infamous Nut Burger?

If you ever find yourself scrolling around online, looking up famous eateries in each state to add to your road trip bucket list (which is an everyday occurrence for all of us Guy Fieri wannabes at Takeout), you may have come across a mention of Matt's Place. This Butte, Montana restaurant is renowned for an oddball item called the nut burger. When you see that Matt's dates back to the Great Depression, the same era that brought us penny-pinching food substitutes like water pie and mock apple pie, you might assume that a nut burger is some kind of early 20th-century veggie burger. While meat rationing in the U.K. did prompt the spread of nut cutlets, which are patties made from ground nuts, Matt's nut burger is no such thing. Montana has long been cattle country, and the base of the nut burger is a beef patty, while the nuts merely serve as a condiment.

If you're intrigued by the concept of a nut-topped burger and you plan to be passing through Butte, we've got some sad news for you: Matt's seems to be gone for good. The last owner died in 2021, and although the restaurant's been on the market ever since, it seems that no one has purchased it at the time of writing. Even if any would-be restaurateurs do take over the site, there's no guarantee they'll keep either the Matt's name or the menu.

We may never know what nutty idea led to the nut burger's creation, but it seems to have been around for a long, long time. When Matt's Place opened in 1930, it was Montana's first drive-in, which earned it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. Throughout the years and subsequent ownership changes, the menu (if not the prices) remained much the same as it was back when Herbert Hoover was occupying the Oval Office, and nut burgers cost just 15 cents.

Some of the other menu items at Matt's Place might also have seemed out of place at a modern restaurant. These included a hot dog with sauerkraut, a cold pork sandwich, and an LT (that's a BLT minus the bacon, although Matt's offered the latter sandwich, as well). On the beverage menu, you'd not only find soda (or "pop," as Matt's styled it), but also grapefruit, pineapple, orange, and tomato juices — and even buttermilk. Yes, to drink. Not a common practice these days when we mostly use buttermilk (or its substitutes) for baking, but perhaps it was popular 90 years ago. The dessert menu featured another old-timey treat, malted milk, along with a nut sundae to match the nut burger.

While you probably won't ever be able to sit at the counter at Matt's Place and dine on a nut burger in its native habitat, you can make a pretty reasonable facsimile at home, since the concept isn't all that complicated. As we mentioned, it starts with a basic beef patty, which is smashed thin, but not too thin (¼-inch or so), grilled, and served on a plain toasted bun. What makes it a nut burger is the topping. This consists of nothing more than crushed salted peanuts  and Miracle Whip. While Miracle Whip can be a controversial condiment, here its sweetness and tang work well with the salty nuts and fatty burger, so plain mayo simply won't do.

Nut burger purists may prefer their burger with nothing more than a layer of nut spread — Matt's piled it on pretty thick — but pickles, tomatoes, and onions were also an option. The James Beard Foundation recommended ordering the nut burger with all the extras and accompanying it with a strawberry shake (another Matt's Place specialty) and a side of onion rings.