I work at White Castle – there’s a reason the burgers have holes in them and it’s to help the taste

IF you have ever eaten a burger at the fast-food chain White Castle, you might have noticed that the burger patties are filled with holes.

Those holes are there by design, to help the burgers to cook faster.

White Castle burger patties all have five perfectly even holes punched in

GettyThe technique was created in 1954 by a White Castle employee[/caption]

In 1954, one White Castle employee, Earl Howell, put a note in the chain’s suggestion box.

He wrote that if you put holes in the patties, they would cook faster, leading workers to be able to cook more burgers in less time.

After trying Howell’s suggestion, White Castle chefs discovered that not only did the burgers cook faster, but the holes helped them to cook more evenly as steam rose up to heat the meat.

The holes also took away the need to flip the patties halfway through cooking, as the steam cooked the top of the burgers.

The holes also distributed more onion flavor on the patties.

Now, Howell is remembered for his suggestion at the White Castle headquarters Hall of Fame in Columbus, Ohio.

“Why do we have holes in our burgers?” White Castle’s VP Jamie Richardson asked Thrillist rhetorically. “Well, there’s the metaphysical answer, which is: They simply do.”

“OK, there’s also a functional answer, too,” he added.

“At that time, we were having a major burger boom,” Richardson said.

“Earl was trying to figure out ways for us to get our burgers out faster because the store was having trouble keeping up with orders. We tested out his theory, and well… he was right.”

White Castle steams their hole-filled patties on a grill in groups of 30 patties at a time.

“The holes let the patty capture even more of that flavor, and, when we put the bun on top of the patties on the grill for just a second, the steam travels through the onions and the patty and fuses with the bun,” Richardson told Thrillist.

This means that even their buns have an onion taste, not just the meat patties.

White Castle even invented a machine that puts holes in each patty, saving their employees from having to poke holes by hand.

The patented machine, The Meat Horn, puts five even holes in each meat patty.

They also use 100 percent real beef on every patty.

White Castle has been contacted for comment.