OPEN: 1950–2011
LOCATION: 9201 Sunset Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90069
ORIGINAL PHONE: OL 2-1993
CUISINE: American
BUILDING STYLE: 1950s Storefront
CURRENTLY: Roku Restaurant
Wall menus at the original Hamburger Hamlet.
IN 1950, MARILYN LEWIS, GIRLFRIEND OF ACTOR HARRY LEWIS, SPENT HER DAYS OFF SCOURING THE HOLLYWOOD AREA FOR A PRIME LOCATION TO OPEN A RESTAURANT. That year, the couple put down a deposit on a little place on the Sunset Strip, where they would run their restaurant for eighteen years. They named the place Hamburger Hamlet, after the role every actor wanted to play: Hamlet.
At the upscale hamburger/steak house, Harry was in charge of the kitchen and Marilyn waited tables and trained the staff. The Hamburger Hamlet training manual, which Marilyn wrote herself, could have been a textbook on how to treat restaurant customers. The manual touted what were known as the Nine Commandments, which decreed, for example, that servers should never use the word “fried,” but say “sautéed” instead, to sound more classy and European.
Hamburger Hamlet on the Sunset Strip, next door to the Opera House, Golden Violin, and Whisky A Go Go, 1962.
Hamburger Hamlet’s first chef was Marcelion Martinez, a Zapotec Indian from the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. Harry was impressed by his work ethic, and urged him to find more people from his area of Mexico to join the business. Martinez recalled that he had never seen so many black people in one place; it was the first Westside restaurant to break the color barrier. At twenty-four years old, Martinez became the director of the chain’s kitchens. He traveled to Washington D.C. to open the East Coast locations and even visited the White House.
Customers outside the Hamlet, 1953.
Just two years after the Lewises opened the Hamlet, Tony Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr., and Jeff Chandler made a touching offer—they would run the restaurant and cook for the customers for a couple of nights so that Marilyn and Harry could drive to Las Vegas and officially get married. The three stars took orders and made hamburgers while the couple tied the knot in a Vegas wedding chapel. A few years later, the three men got back behind the counter to run the place when Marilyn gave birth to the Lewises’ first son.
One late night in 1953, actress Sarah Churchill (daughter of British prime minister Winston Churchill) paid a visit to the Hamlet and demanded that Harry serve her a glass of beer. Since it was after 2:00 AM—the deadline for public drinking in California—Harry refused. Churchill reportedly proceeded to call him a “dusty American” and criticize American laws. Someone at the next table called the story in to the International Herald Tribune, and it ran the next morning in every paper in the nation and even in some foreign countries. The publicity was golden for the Lewises and helped attract stars to the restaurant. Notable celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Al Pacino began coming in for the Hamlet’s burgers. When Sammy Davis Jr. performed at Ciro’s on the Strip, he would often head to Hamburger Hamlet for dinner after his closing number at 1:30 AM. It was not uncommon for him to pour sugar onto one of the restaurant tables and and do a soft-shoe tap routine on top of the table for late-night diners.
Publicity continued to soar for the eatery—so much so that Marilyn had to call Hollywood reporter Sidney Skolsky and ask him to stop writing about the restaurant’s success. Crowds of people were overflowing outside the Hamlet and lining up around the block. Some customers were even sitting on the restaurant’s stoop to eat their food.
But competition on the Strip was fierce. Former disc jockey Larry Finley opened a restaurant down the street called My Own Place and broadcast The Larry Finley Show from the location, taking business away from the Hamlet. Harry and Marilyn did not take this lying down. Marilyn, who had just finished a twenty-six-week contract for a TV series called The Farmer’s Daughter, talked to radio station KGIL and set up sponsors ranging from Muntz TV showrooms to Triumph sports cars. The Lewises installed a radio wire and, between making burgers and soups, began to broadcast their own show every night, from midnight to 2:00 AM. Sometimes they interviewed patrons eating at the restaurant, but mainly the show centered around the life of the married couple. It was unscripted—“reality radio” for the 1950s.
Hamburger Hamlet had its share of troubles. One morning in January of 1964, the manager opened the restaurant in the morning and was surprised to find a former employee waiting for her inside. Carrying a sawed-off shotgun, he ordered the manager to open the safe, but found that it was on a timed lock. Frustrated, he took her keys and ordered her to her car, where he shot her in the back and took the $10 that was in her purse. The manager survived, but the disgruntled former employee shot and killed a maintenance worker and a deliveryman who happened upon the scene. The suspect was arrested the following week in West Hollywood.
In 1968, the Lewises moved the Sunset Boulevard Hamburger Hamlet to a new location four blocks down the street. They also opened a trendier restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard called Kate Mantilini. Eventually, the Lewises were able to open twenty-four different restaurant locations. In 1987, they sold the entire company for $33.1 million, with a deal stating that, after five years, they could buy back the Kate Mantilini brand. The Lewises’ sons, David and Adam, ran the day-to-day operations at the Wilshire and Woodland Hills locations, both of which closed in 2014.
When Harry Lewis passed away in 2013, a memorial service was held at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Over three hundred people were in attendance. Adam Lewis said his father had a “relentless drive that never extinguished.”
The Pasadena Hamburger Hamlet, one of the last two locations in the Los Angeles area, closed in January 2014 and was transformed into a Du-Par’s. In September 2014, Kevin Michaels and partner Brett Doherty of Killer Shrimp restaurants purchased and reopened the last remaining Hamburger Hamlet in Sherman Oaks, keeping the original burgers, shakes, and other specialties—like its party brisket and onion soup fondue—on the menu that Hamlet fans love. 
Inside Hamburger Hamlet.
Jeff Chandler and radio star Byron Kane working behind the counter while owners Marilyn and Harry Lewis got married in Vegas, 1952.