10 Surprising Facts About Culver’s

Whether you’re sitting down for a hearty ButterBurger and crispy, golden crinkle cut fries or just popping through the drive-through for a fresh, creamy scoop of frozen custard, there’s so much to enjoy about Culver’s. Heck, everything down to Culver’s root beer is delicious. The beloved fast food chain celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2024, and in the past four decades the business has continued to expand its footprint and its menu.

Despite the chain’s openness about its ingredients and origin, there are still some pretty interesting and unexpected facts that you probably don’t know about the Wisconsin-based chain. Below are 10 fascinating tidbits for you to ponder the next time you head to your local Culver’s. They might just illuminate the history behind your ButterBurger or fish fry or even give you a greater appreciation for that delicious dish of custard that Scoopie Token got you. Let’s dig in.

Though Culver’s is now a billion-dollar company, founder Craig Culver didn’t anticipate becoming a restaurateur and successful businessman when he was in college. His parents had decades-long ties to the restaurant industry, but Craig Culver wasn’t initially planning on following in their footsteps. Instead, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, a mid-sized college along Lake Winnebago in the northeastern region of the state.

You might think that, based on the way his professional life panned out, he’d have studied business, hospitality, or even food science — nope. Culver opted for a STEM major and studied biology. He graduated from UW-Oshkosh in 1973, but by the time he left school, Culver wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do for a career. Since the study of living organisms was no longer striking his fancy, he pivoted to what he knew best: restaurants. Considering how celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern’s favorite fast food burger comes from none other than Culver’s, it looks like Craig Culver made the right call.

Before he could launch his family’s namesake restaurant, Craig Culver actually worked at a few different restaurants, two of which you’ll recognize: A&W and McDonald’s.

Craig Culver was long exposed to the restaurant industry, thanks to his parents’ careers as restaurateurs. Some of his earliest fast food experience came when working with his parents George and Ruth Culver at their A&W franchise. Eventually, the Culver family went on to run other restaurants, like the Farm Kitchen resort — a supper club at Devil’s Lake in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Despite his knowledge, Craig Culver was still reluctant to delve into the family business. After college, he was hired to manage a McDonald’s in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital. He worked there for over three years, and Craig Culver credits the fast food giant for showing him the ropes when it came to the business side of things. In 1984, he finally teamed up with his parents to repurchase the A&W property the Culver family owned two decades earlier in order to create the iconic fast food chain everyone knows and loves.

In 2021, Culver’s marketing team came up with what they thought would just be a silly April Fool’s Day joke: teasing a fake menu item called the CurderBurger. The original Photoshopped photo was just a bun with a giant fried Wisconsin cheese curd on it, but folks on the internet went nuts for it.

Met with thousands of likes, shares, and comments demanding the chain bring the item to life, Culver’s director of menu development Quinn Adkins began testing recipes out of curiosity — but he didn’t tell anyone else at Culver’s. Obviously, one giant cheese curd on a bun wouldn’t do, so Adkins opted to make it into more of a classic Culver’s ButterBurger, simply swapping the cheese slice for a hockey puck-sized fried Wisconsin cheese curd. After solidifying the prototype, Adkins presented his invention to Culver’s leadership. They knew customers would love it and gave Adkins less than three months to perfect the item.

The CurderBurger was offered for a single day on October 15, 2021 and sold out almost immediately. Culver’s revived it in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and the CurderBurger continued to sell out. Fingers crossed that Culver’s makes it a permanent addition to the menu.

From the get-go, Culver’s has been a family venture. George and Ruth Culver spent decades in the restaurant industry before bootstrapping their namesake chain with son, Craig, and daughter-in-law, Lea. Now, over 40 years since the original Sauk City, Wisconsin, location opened, Craig Culver continues to be the face of the business.

For the majority of the frozen custard joint’s history, it was entirely family owned. It wasn’t until 2017 that Culver’s sold off a minority stake in the company to Roark Capital, a private equity firm known for holdings in chains like Arby’s and the fast-casual Tex Mex spot Moe’s Southwest Grill. Nonetheless, Culver’s is still primarily owned by the Culver family, and the chain continues to thrive, slinging ButterBurgers and frozen custard. In 2025, it boasts over 1,000 restaurants across 26 states. Over 150 of those restaurants are located in America’s Dairyland where it all began. With such a sprawling business, it’s important that a restaurant chain like Culver’s maintains consistency across many locations.

Fish fries are a big deal in Wisconsin, and nearly every comfort food restaurant in the Badger State will have one on Fridays. Which means that Culver’s, of course, has one, too. The state’s custom actually stems back to early Catholic Milwaukeeans of German and Polish descent, who wouldn’t eat meat on Fridays leading up to Easter while observing Lenten tradition. Nowadays, more than Catholics participate in the meal, and it’s become a staple for locals.

For a Wisconsin fish fry to really be a fish fry, it has to include a few main components: a flaky fried white fish fillet eaten with tartar sauce for dipping and fresh lemon wedges to brighten everything up alongside potatoes (french fries or potato pancakes are common), coleslaw, and bread and butter (though rye is traditional, some opt for a less intense flavor, like a roll). The Culver’s fish fry checks all of those boxes. The next time you swing through the drive-thru, consider trying out this classic Midwestern food tradition — it doesn’t even have to be on a Friday.

Back when Craig Culver was helping his parents run the Baraboo, Wisconsin, supper club in the early 1980s, a friend of his came in for a visit. He reminisced about a delicious burger from an old Milwaukee drive-in called the Milky Way — but what exactly made that burger so special? Butter, of course.

Craig Culver filed that information away, knowing that if he’d ever get the chance, he’d have his own butter burger restaurant. Not long afterward, Craig and his family launched Culver’s, and the menu featured two signature items: frozen custard and ButterBurgers.

Nevertheless, Craig Culver admitted to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2013 that he “didn’t have a clue how the butter was going to be involved in the burger — whether it was going to be on the grill or put a slab of butter on the bun.” After some trial and error, Craig Culver found the perfect way to implement that rich, golden goodness — by lightly buttering the underside of the top of the bun and gently toasting it.

If you’re wondering where Culver’s gets that butter for its iconic ButterBurger, it actually comes from the county neighboring the fast food chain’s headquarters. A Wisconsin company through and through, Culver’s sources its butter from family-owned Alcam Creamery in Richland Center, Wisconsin — just an hour away from the original Culver’s location in Sauk City.

Though the beloved frozen custard chain also has connections with creameries in Missouri and Florida, the bulk of the dairy used in Culver’s products comes from America’s Dairyland itself. Beyond butter from Alcam Creamery, Culver’s has had a roughly 20-year partnership with Stanley, Wisconsin’s La Grander Hillside Dairy. You can thank the folks over at La Grander Hillside Dairy for those delicious cheese curds you can’t help but tack on to your ButterBurger order — they’re the exclusive provider of that fresh, unaged cheddar used to make the bite-sized bits of fried cheese. And that delicious frozen custard? The milk is primarily from Wisconsin family farms, too.

When you place an order at Culver’s, expect to be handed a little plastic table tent, but that small invention actually stemmed from the founders’ original DIY system. Back in the 1980s when Culver’s was just a single restaurant in Sauk City, Wisconsin, employees would write the order number on an upside down Styrofoam cup for customers to place on their tables.

As the business grew, Culver’s knew it had to upgrade the system. Thus, the table tents were born, and they’re certainly a step up — but why exactly does Culver’s use them in the first place? Unlike other fast food competitors, meals at Culver’s are made to order and employees will bring your food right to your table. Even though you’ll experience longer wait times at Culver’s compared to similar burger joints, the food quality tends to be a bit better. If you want the best experience, make sure you order the absolute best burger Culver’s has to offer.

Ever step foot in a fast food chain, only to learn that, ordering from a digital kiosk is the primary option available to you? Well, whether you like it or not, you won’t be encountering any of that modern fast food technology at Culver’s. Craig Culver says that sticking with that face-to-face interaction between customer and cashier actually gives the chain a leg up on its competition since in its four decades of business Culver’s has become synonymous with friendly employees and good service.

At a 2024 event hosted by Madison, Wisconsin newspaper The Cap Times, Craig Culver explained that because the chain sources fresh, quality ingredients, the service team members provide must also be top-notch. “If you’re going to charge more for (food), you better be providing great hospitality along with it: the ‘Please,’ the ‘Thank you,’ the ‘My pleasure,’ … and you mean it. The heart has got to go along with it,” Culver said. Not only is this strategy good for business, it also helps consumers keep dollars in their pockets since digital kiosks at fast food restaurants make you spend more.

Culver’s has had some pretty unique marketing strategies over the years, but one of its more creative online campaigns was Culver’s Community Theater –- a short video series on its YouTube channel parodying iconic films as a way to show off different menu items Released in August and September of 2014, these parodies are pretty brief (each coming in at only 15 seconds long), but they’re quite cheeky and fun. Each punnily titled, highlights include “Lord of the Onion Rings,” “Top Bun,” and “Frytanic.” Just go ahead and take a wild guess which movies those videos were based on.

In “The Wizard of Cod,” a ButterBurger, cone of strawberry custard, salad, and a soda, follow the “crinkle cut road” to Culver’s, accompanied by its very own Toto in the form of a little fried cheese curd. The bite-sized video series is perfectly bingeable and is sure to stir up your appetite.