(FORTUNE Small Business) – There is no dessert at Tessaro's. Dessert just slows people down, makes them linger when they should be leaving. Tessaro's owner, Kelly Harrington, who at 50 could pass for an aging bouncer, wants his customers in and out. And for that the people of Pittsburgh owe him a debt of gratitude. Because any slowdown in turnover might mean someone would be forced to abandon his spot in line (and there's always a line), missing out on the chance to sample what is easily the tastiest, juiciest burger ever created.

Sure, a lot of restaurants claim to have the best burger. Tessaro's makes those statements seem as if they've been audited by Arthur Andersen. Instead of using chop ground from a distributor, the in-house butcher at Tessaro's buys his own meat, grinds it himself, and passes it on to the chefs in the glassed-in kitchen. There each tortoise-sized burger is cooked over a grill fueled by locally grown maple, oak, and ash. The end result is a hamburger not merely delicious but so Pittsburgh-infused it's about as close as you can get to eating raw steel (yet better for your teeth).

For the burger-shy, Tessaro's still has plenty to chose from: Harrington's sister, Ena, buys fresh seafood every morning. (In fact, all nine siblings and both parents either work in the restaurant or drop in regularly, and one wall is taken up by a mural of the staff painted by Tee, the matriarch.) The chicken salad has big chunks of chicken cooked over the grill, and all Tessaro's dressings are made in-house. On Thursdays only, Harrington offers ribs. No matter what you order, the portions are uniformly huge. Which makes dessert, even if you could get it, barely an option. --DANIEL ROTH

4601 Liberty Ave.; 412-682-6809. Open Mon. through Sat., 11 a.m. to midnight.