Once you notice it, you can’t unsee it. The burgers at Sam’s Tavern on Capitol Hill come to the table positioned just so, tipped so it looks like the bun is forming a grinning face. “We want it smiling at you,” Sam’s founder James Snyder says. “Sitting on the edge of the basket and showing all the ingredients.”

Sam’s has plenty of hefty offerings under the Gourmet Burgers heading on its menu, like a patty that’s 50 percent bacon or one topped with “a gargantuan amount of mushrooms.” But hidden lower down is my secret solution to a burger craving: Sam’s All American Cheese Burger. A sly little smile of a meal, a one-hander of a burger.

Meat, American cheese, ketchup, mustard, plus one extra that elevates the three-ounce burger to entree status: chopped dill pickles. With a pile of fries for a total of $12, it’s one of the best deals on the Hill, a bit of nostalgia not designed to end up a gut bomb. In a town of superb burgers, it’s a stealth contender for one of the best.

When Sam’s opened on Capitol Hill in 2012, it came with a burger pedigree. Snyder’s father and uncle were the first franchisees of an Eastlake joint that had launched in the 1940s as Sam’s Tavern, which morphed into the corporate Red Robin chain we know today.

But the corner of Pike Street and 11th Avenue is no suburb, and Snyder wanted—and achieved—a “really cool bar atmosphere.” Between the exposed brick and kitschy taxidermy animals, plus booths repurposed from a Bellingham dive bar and an over-21 rule, it’s hardly a Red Robin. Not the kind of place where, say, a gaggle of teenagers could roll up to share three baskets of Clucks and Fries for the bottomless fry refills (er, sorry about that, Olympia Red Robin employees of the late ’90s).

This distant relative does hit a core memory or two for anyone raised on Freckled Lemonade and Buzz Sauce; the callback is a feature, not a bug. Service at Sam’s is breezy, flavors are straightforward. Though the All American doesn’t technically come with bottomless fries like the rest of the joint’s burger offerings, every time I’ve ordered the compact little meal, the server offers more.

Sam’s Tavern, along with the South Lake Union and Eastside locations it has spawned, offers a 30-minute challenge that involves four of its full-size “gourmet burgers” and four servings of fries. (“Probably a couple hundred people have tried it, and maybe 10 percent finish,” says Snyder.) But the All American is blissfully the opposite, a burger experience that leaves the diner on the comfy side of full.

The last time I popped into Sam’s for an All American burger, the patron at the next barstool apologized in advance, saying, “Claudia’s just gonna look at you.” Claudia, as it turned out, was a chihuahua-size dog in a little jacket he held on his lap, and she indeed glared at me for the whole meal. It’s the kind of thing that would never happen at a Red Robin but feels perfectly fitting for a Seattle bar. I may not be ready to share a smile with my cheeseburger, but I’ll beam at the too-cool Capitol Hill pooch at the next barstool.