Who is reputed to have introduced the cheeseburger at Pasadena's Rite Spot?

Lionel Sternberger is reputed to have introduced the cheeseburger at Pasadena’s Rite Spot.

The story places the event around 1924, when Sternberger was a teenage short-order cook at his family’s roadside restaurant on Colorado Boulevard. One version says he covered a burned hamburger patty with cheese; another says a customer simply requested cheese on a burger. The resulting sandwich was called the “Aristocratic Burger,” advertised as an original hamburger with cheese.

The claim is supported by a surviving Rite Spot menu and by later accounts, including a 1964 Time obituary that credited Sternberger. Pasadena continues to celebrate the story with Cheeseburger Week and a historical plaque near the former restaurant site.

This is not an uncontested claim to the invention of the cheeseburger. Louisville’s Kaelin’s Restaurant claims a 1934 origin, and Denver’s Louis Ballast is associated with the 1935 trademark for the word “cheeseburger.” Because the question asks who is reputed to have introduced it at the Rite Spot, Sternberger is the canonical answer.