I am Houston’s Foremost Hamburger Expert™️, having eaten at and reviewed more than 75 hamburger/smashburger places in the Greater Houston area!
MY TOP 30 HAMBURGERS IN HOUSTON (as of August 2025)
Burger reviews from a burger obsessive, showcasing the best burgers around! Email me to be featured!
bestburgersnearme@gmail.com
Here’s my MASTER BURGER RATING / TRACKING SPREADSHEET
All reviews on Best Burgers Near Me are written by Larry Koestler, a New York City native who has lived in Houston for the past decade-plus, and who absolutely loves hamburgers.
If this is your first visit here, check out my annual “Favorite Burgers of the Year” roundups to get acquainted:
If there’s something you’re looking for and can’t find, there’s a giant search box at the top of the home page! Chances are if it’s hamburger-related (and in Houston or New York City) I may have written about it.
About the Author
While burgers are his food passion, Larry Koestler is also a longtime hophead utterly obsessed with Hazy DIPAs. He is the founder of itinerant brewing project Musical Box Brewing, which focuses on extravagantly saturated Hoppy Ales. Most of the burger photos seen on this blog usually also appear in Musical Box’s Instagram Stories.
In 2019, Musical Box’s Where It All Began Hazy DIPA was featured in Hop Culture Magazine; in 2021 was included in that publication’s “The 5 Best Breweries to Visit in Houston, Texas;” and in 2023 Musical Box’s Gotta Have My Hops Hoppy Ale collaboration with Chris Shelton was not only recognized as the very best beer Hop Culture Magazine drank in January 2023, but one of just 23 (and only three Hazy / Hoppy Ales) beers selected by the publication in its “Best Beers We Drank in 2023” year-end wrap-up.
Larry has also brewed collaborations with SpindleTap Brewery (Juiceton Hazy DIPA); Baa Baa Brewhouse (Group High 5 5XDH Hazy IPA); and Ingenious Brewing (Joose Wayne Hazy DIPA; The Hop Knight Hazy DIPA; and The Hop Knight Rises Hazy TIPA). In 2014 Larry co-founded the now-defunct NYC-based gypsy brewery Third Rail Beer, which was among the first breweries in New York City to can its beers.
His most recent collaborative effort, in April 2025, was an 8% Hazy DIPA called Musical Baax brewed with Fulshear’s beloved Baa Baa Brewhouse. That beer landed on Instagram influencer @TopBeerDrops’ weekly list of Highest-Rated Beers, clocking in as the #6 best-received beer in the nation that week with a 4.57.
Larry lives in Houston, Texas, but is a native New Yorker who was born, raised, and lived most of his life in Manhattan.
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