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• Oil and gas prices across the US have surged amid the ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran.
• Gas prices have been spiking nationwide, with a gallon approaching or exceeding $4 in 30 states.
• Utah has seen the largest rise in gas prices over the past month, up 52.4%.

Americans are feeling the effects of the ongoing war in Iran at the gas pump.

Since the conflict started at the end of February, gas prices have been rising across the US, with a gallon of gas surpassing $3 in all 50 states for the first time since 2023. A dozen states have surpassed $4, with 19 others closely approaching at $3.75 or above. In California, the most expensive state for gas right now, regular gas costs an average of $5.88 per gallon.

The war, which has been ongoing after the US and Israel launched a joint military operation against Iran on February 28, has sent global oil markets soaring. It has significantly disrupted passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping artery through which roughly 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas travel regularly.

On average, gas prices across all US states have risen by 33.38% over the past month, according to AAA’s Fuel Price Tracker. In many states, gas prices are a full dollar higher than they were a month ago. (Gas prices typically vary between states due to factors such as local taxes, proximity to supply, and operating costs.)

We looked at the gas prices reported by AAA on March 30 and compared them with prices reported a month ago. We calculated the percentage increase for each state to determine where prices are rising the most.

In these 20 states, price increases are rapidly outpacing the national average.

20. Ohio

Average gas price: $3.82

Average price one month ago: $2.81

Increase: 35.9%

The Columbus metro area recorded the highest average price per gallon in Ohio at $3.88.

On June 9, 2022, the state average price per gallon jumped to $5.07, the highest in Ohio’s history.

19. Colorado

Average gas price: $3.90

Average price one month ago: $2.87

Increase: 36.0%

The state’s Glenwood Springs reported the highest average prices, at $4.35 per gallon.

Colorado’s highest-ever average gas prices were recorded on June 21, 2022, when the price per gallon reached $4.92.

18. Maryland

Average gas price: $4.01

Average price one month ago: $2.94

Increase: 36.2%

The Washington, DC, metro area in Maryland reported the highest average price in the state at $4.06 per gallon.

Maryland recorded its highest-ever average gas prices on June 14, 2022, when the price per gallon reached $5.02.

17. Florida

Average gas price: $3.95

Average price one month ago: $2.90

Increase: 36.4%

The West Palm Beach-Boca Raton metro area in the state recorded the highest average prices at $4.13 per gallon.

The state’s highest-ever average was $4.89 per gallon on June 13, 2022.

16. North Carolina

Average gas price: $3.76

Average price one month ago: $2.75

Increase: 36.5%

The Wilmington metro area in the state recorded the highest average prices at $3.84 per gallon.

The state hit its highest-ever average on June 13, 2022, when gas cost $4.67 a gallon

15. South Carolina

Average gas price: $3.65

Average price one month ago: $2.67

Increase: 36.7%

In South Carolina, the city of Sumter has seen the highest gas prices, with a gallon reaching $3.74 in the metro area, AAA reported on March 30.

The state set its highest-ever gas price record on June 12, 2022, when a gallon reached $4.61.

14. Alabama

Average gas price: $3.65

Average price one month ago: $2.65

Increase: 37.7%

The Montgomery metro area in the state saw an average price of $3.68 per gallon, the highest in the state.

On June 14, 2022, Alabama recorded its highest-ever average price at $4.63 per gallon.

13. Illinois

Average gas price: $4.21

Average price one month ago: $3.05

Increase: 37.8%

The city of Chicago saw an average price of $4.64 per gallon, the highest in the state.

On June 14, 2022, Illinois recorded its highest-ever average price at $5.56 per gallon.

12. Virginia

Average gas price: $3.89

Average price one month ago: $2.82

Increase: 38.0%

The Washington, DC metro area in Virginia saw an average price of $4.00 per gallon, the highest in the state.

On June 14, 2022, Virginia recorded its highest-ever average price at $4.87 per gallon.

11. Texas

Average gas price: $3.61

Average price one month ago: $2.60

Increase: 39.0%

In Texas, the highest prices were seen in El Paso, where the average gallon price hit $3.93.

The state’s highest recorded average price was on June 15, 2022, at $4.695 per gallon

10. Wyoming

Average gas price: $3.83

Average price one month ago: $2.74

Increase: 39.7%

The highest metro average price in Wyoming was seen in the Cheyenne area, where the average gallon price hit $3.72.

The state’s highest recorded average price was on July 1, 2022, at $4.91 per gallon

9. New Mexico

Average gas price: $3.86

Average price one month ago: $2.76

Increase: 39.9%

The Farmington metro area is seeing the sharpest hikes in the state, with prices hitting $3.94 per gallon, AAA reported on March 30.

The state saw its highest-ever gas prices on June 15, 2022, when a gallon of gas hit $4.83.

7. (tie) Louisiana

Average gas price: $3.61

Average price one month ago: $2.56

Increase: 40.8%

Located in the southeastern region of the state, Houma-Thibodaux recorded the highest average gas price in Louisiana at $3.65.

The state saw its record prices on June 15, 2022, when a gallon reached $4.56.

7. (tie) Kentucky

Average gas price: $3.72

Average price one month ago: $2.64

Increase: 40.8%

At $3.77 per gallon, the Bowling Green metro area is seeing the highest prices in the state of Kentucky.

The state saw its record-high gas prices on June 11, 2022, when a gallon reached $4.80.

6. Mississippi

Average gas price: $3.58

Average price one month ago: $2.54

Increase: 41.1%

Mississippi’s highest average price was $3.63 per gallon in the South Haven-Olive Branch metro area, AAA reported.

The state recorded its highest average on June 12, 2022, when the average statewide price reached $4.53 per gallon.

5. Arizona

Average gas price: $4.68

Average price one month ago: $3.31

Increase: 41.3%

Arizona’s highest average gas price was in Phoenix, where a gallon reached $4.99.

The state’s highest recorded average price was on June 17, 2022, when a gallon hit $5.39.

3. (tie) Tennessee

Average gas price: $3.63

Average price one month ago: $2.56

Increase: 41.7%

The Memphis metro area in the state recorded the highest average price at $3.70 per gallon.

On June 12, 2022, the statewide average of $4.64 per gallon was Tennessee’s highest ever recorded.

3. (tie) Indiana

Average gas price: $3.99

Average price one month ago: $2.82

Increase: 41.7%

The Michigan City-La Porte metro area recorded a price of $4.17 per gallon, the highest county average in the state, AAA reported on March 30.

On June 9, 2022, the statewide average reached $5.23 per gallon, the highest ever recorded in Indiana’s history.

2. Idaho

Average gas price: $4.26

Average price one month ago: $2.97

Increase: 43.4%

The Twin Falls metro area recorded a price of $4.34 per gallon, the highest county average in the state.

On July 1, 2022, the statewide average reached $5.25 per gallon, the state’s highest ever.

1. Utah

Average gas price: $4.20

Average price one month ago: $2.75

Increase: 52.4%

Gas prices are rising more in Utah than in any other US state.

The St. George metro area recorded an average price of $4.28 per gallon, the highest in the state.

On July 1, 2022, the statewide average reached $5.26 per gallon, the state’s highest ever.

• Paul Sullivan is the founder of The Company of Dads and a former columnist at The New York Times.
• He took 3 paternity leaves when his daughters were born, and is what he calls a ‘lead dad.’
• Comments like Scott Galloway’s could discourage people from using parental leave, he says.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Paul Sullivan — a former New York Times columnist and founder of The Company of Dads — about his experience with paternity leave and his reaction to professor and podcaster Scott Galloway’s comments that he wasn’t sure there should be mandatory paternity leave and that dads are a “waste of time” in the first few months of a child’s life.

Galloway recently told Business Insider, “The comments on paternity leave were meant to be funny. They weren’t … Against paternity leave? No, that’s absolutely not the message I want to communicate.”

The following interview with Sullivan has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2013, after our second daughter was born, my wife, who’d been working for a large asset management company, decided to start her own firm. I told her, “You’ve got to go do it.”

When you start a business like that, you have to put 170% into getting that business going. I’d been working as a columnist with The New York Times since 2008, and we had two young kids. I decided I’d become a “lead dad.”

We used the term as kind of an inside joke, but it’s now become a mantra of my media company, The Company of Dads, a community platform and workplace educator for fathers.

I’ve come to define a “lead dad” as the go-to parent, whether he works full-time — as I was doing at the time — or part-time, or devotes all of his time to his family.

I took parental leave for each of my daughters

I got better at taking parental leave with each child. When my first daughter was born in 2009, I took about two or three weeks off, but I wrote a stockpile of columns ahead of time, so it was almost as if I weren’t gone.

When my second daughter was born in 2013, I was feeling a little more confident about my abilities, and I took two to three weeks off without bothering to write a whole bunch of things ahead of time.

By the time my third daughter was born in 2017, I had more confidence in my position; I’d been writing my column for nine years at that point, I’d written two books, and I’d run some of the special sections. I took a month off.

While on parental leave, I was doing a combination of bonding with my daughters, supporting my wife, and handling the logistics of our other children. When our second daughter was born, she was such a horrible sleeper. I’d take the night shift so my wife could work. I remember writing a chapter of my second book in my head while walking around the island in our kitchen at 2 a.m. because our daughter wouldn’t sleep.

I worried my column would be taken away — the horror that I think any parent, man or woman, fears when they take leave: What if I’m gone and I lose my job?

Fortunately, I had a lot of great support from a colleague, a single dad of three whose wife had died, who said, “Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your parental leave.”

I was able to come back and have another four great years writing my column before I left to start my company.

Those first few months formed the foundation of my relationship with my daughters now

Scott Galloway recently said that dads aren’t really needed for the first part of the baby’s life. But the reason I can sit on my 16-year-old’s bed at night, and the reason she can tell me something really difficult, is because I’ve been sitting on her bed since she was a baby. We built that bond year after year.

If you’re not there, you’re missing out. You can’t just swoop in 15 years later and think it’s going to work.

And that’s the key to what Galloway ultimately wants to do: raise responsible adults. In his crude, joking way, Galloway has talked about how he wants people to get off video games, get off the couch, and go be more involved human beings.

He wants people to be more engaged and present in the lives of their children, and I do agree with that.

It goes beyond taking parental leave — ongoing support builds trust between a company and its workers

Parental leave was just the foundation of what it would mean for my wife and me to both be working parents and how we’d have to make trade-offs.

Each generation of fathers has gotten more involved, but we still haven’t reached parity with moms. There’s still a long way for dads to go. Research also shows that giving paternity leave is a retention benefit for companies, because it retains those fathers much longer than if they didn’t offer them paternity leave.

Well-meaning companies create parental leave policies, institute them, and brag about them — but it only takes one manager saying something like what Scott Galloway said to discourage people from using parental leave. If somebody joined a company because they believed that the policies and the values of that company align, suddenly, that implicit contract, that bond, is broken.

At The Company of Dads, we also talk about care days and care shifts. They’re not PTO, vacation days, personal days, or bereavement days; they’re days that you’re using for care emergencies — whether it’s because your child has the flu, or she’s getting bullied in school and you need to be there for her.

It’s not just for parents. It could be for people caring for a spouse, a parent, or a sibling. They’re going to need time off.

Giving people the ability to take a care day and not be juggling their responsibilities is super important. Because, guess what? People are doing it anyway, but now you have somebody who’s wildly distracted and becoming resentful.

A manager or a company that understands that and allows people to take three days off when they need to do something with their 13-year-old is critical to maintaining that bond between the worker and the company.

Editor’s note: After learning of this story, Scott Galloway told Business Insider, “Nobody has spent more time and energy than me highlighting the importance of engaged fathers.” He said there’s no data to support the idea that workers could hear comments like his and become less likely to take leave, adding, “This discussion is sequestered to the 1 in 5 Americans (like Paul) who have access to paid parental leave. 90% of workers are legally entitled to unpaid leave, which means we should be more focused on how to put more money in the pockets on new parents (Child Tax Credit, Universal Pre-K, Single Payer Health coverage), versus manufactured tiffs amongst the privileged 20% that are eligible, such that more families have the economic ability to do what’s best for their family.”

• I was able to do a lot less planning and had more room for spontaneity on our kids-free Disney trip.
• Our priority was food, and our plans revolved around delicious bites and sips.
• GEO-82: Lounge and dinner at EPCOT’s Takumi-Tei were kid-free experiences we would happily repeat.

I love visiting Disney World with my kids — seeing that first Mickey hug, the hysterical photos from Tower of Terror, their amazement at the castle lit up by sparkling fireworks.

But, I also love visiting kid-free — trips for work, solo trips, with friends, and as a multi-day date with my best friend.

My husband and I bundled up for a late January visit and four days of experiences geared toward adults.

The Swan Reserve was the perfect resort for cocktails, late nights, and strolls to the parks

One of the newest hotels at Walt Disney World, the Swan Reserve is bright, airy, and very kid-friendly.

Though run by Marriott, it has a lot of Disney perks, including bus and boat transportation, early entry, and an on-site Cast Member to help with all things Disney Parks. There’s even complimentary childcare when dining at specific restaurants.

It’s a beautiful walk to EPCOT or Hollywood Studios. The rooms are huge, flooded with natural light, and pretty much Disney-theme free.

The best part is the lobby lounge, Stir. Anyone who has tried to find food or a relaxing cocktail after braving the post-fireworks crowd at Magic Kingdom knows how hard it can be to find late-night food at Disney.

Almost every night, we visited Stir for a snack and cocktails like the fruity and delicious Garden Party cocktail for me, and the whimsical Banana Hands for my husband.

Our top priority was the Disney magic we love, the food

In just four days, we ate at 10 different spots — artsy bites and sips at EPCOT International Festival of the Arts Food Studios, brunch at Art Smith Homecomin’, dinner with stunning firework views at California Grill, and cocktails with pirates at The Beak and Barrel.

There is finally a lounge at Magic Kingdom. I felt like I needed an eyepatch, a parrot, and the lyrics to “Yo Ho” memorized when stepping into the immersive world of The Beak and Barrel.

We had prime seating in front of the fireplace with battling ships-in-a-bottle above us. The Beak and Barrel is not a spot for lounging — there are special effects, a two-drink limit, and a maximum of 45 minutes.

Dinner at EPCOT’s Takumi-Tei was elegant, and for guests ages 8 and up

The complete opposite of the noise and rushed feeling of The Beak and Barrel was the tranquil, soothing Takumi-Tei at EPCOT.

Takumi-Tei is tucked away in the Japan pavilion with subtle signs leading to the heavy wooden doors. Once inside, we were transported down a tranquil hallway, away from the hustle and bustle of EPCOT.

There are five different dining rooms, and we were in the washi paper room. Pink cherry blossoms, softly lit from behind, lined the walls.

Takumi-Tei is omakase — or “leave it up to the chef” — style. There’s no kids’ menu.

Every dish was beautifully plated, and each course was creatively and carefully prepared. Our elegant and knowledgeable server, Sakura, was soft-spoken, adding to the tranquil, exquisite ambiance.

A visit to the adults-only GEO-82 lounge was magical

Disney World is adding more experiences for grown-ups, like the adult-exclusive EPCOT lounge GEO-82.

There are no strollers, no kids’ menu, and no lack-of-a-nap meltdowns. What it does have is sophisticated homages to Spaceship Earth, stunning views, a stellar cocktail menu, and delicious bites.

There was no time limit at GEO-82. We relaxed and took in the details like the Spaceship Earth on the ice cube in the Brown Butter Old Fashioned. I took my time sipping my Peach Shrub Whisky Smash, savoring the accompanying cookie. The only cocktail that comes with a cookie!

We were out late every night

With just the two of us, there was no one dragging behind and sighing. No one was falling apart because they were over-tired.

We did late-night dinners, raced onto rides right before the park closed, and saw the 10 p.m. Disney Starlight nighttime parade. Cast Members directed us to one of the best spots to watch the parade — in Liberty Square near Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe.

I had the time to find magical Disney details I usually miss

We walked right onto Star Tours and meandered slowly through the queue to warm up from the frigid mid-30s temps. Finding Disney easter eggs in the baggage screening area — like Genie’s lamp and a Buzz Lightyear toy — were a bonus of taking our time, finding details we’re usually rushing past.

With no one to amuse while waiting in line, we made spontaneous attraction decisions. A pre-dinner journey on “It’s a Small World” was perfectly timed, and we were under the clock when it struck 7 p.m. — a new experience for us both.

It was finally a Disney vacation, so I didn’t make a ton of plans, book Lightning Lanes, or have a specific schedule for each day. We weren’t rushing from one reservation to another or stalking the My Disney Experience App wait times. We lingered over meals, had new experiences, and enjoyed the magic our way.

• I built a strong support system while pregnant with my first child.
• After my daughter was born with disabilities, that support disappeared.
• I eventually found a new community with parents who understood my experience.

Before my daughter was born, I carefully laid the groundwork for the support system everyone told me I would need as a new Mom, especially one living far from family.

I took to heart the advice that I would need a village to make it through the early years of navigating motherhood, and I wanted my child to be surrounded by love.

Yet, when my daughter was born with disabilities and complex medical needs, my village vanished, and I had to create a new one entirely.

I worked hard to meet other first-time moms

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I joined online groups for women who were due around the same time as me. I signed up for prenatal yoga classes because I enjoyed the gentle stretches that eased my aches and pains. However, I kept going back because I enjoyed the company of other women who, like me, were pregnant for the first time. In my natural birth class, I constantly arranged (decaf) coffee dates and offered rides to other moms-to-be who wanted to look at cribs and bouncers at suburban big-box stores.

I loved navigating pregnancy with my newly found group of expecting mothers. Together, we navigated prenatal woes like the dreaded glucose test and celebrated joys, like settling on the perfect baby name.

I grew close to several of these women. We vowed to support each other by cooking meals for one another after delivery. We vowed to get together at least a couple of times a week during maternity leave. Someone suggested creating a babysitting co-op once our newborns were a few months old, and I was all in.

My daughter was born with disabilities and complex medical needs

After a picture-perfect pregnancy, everything changed. My daughter was born disabled and with complex medical needs. She spent weeks in the NICU while I pumped milk for her round-the-clock and slept on uncomfortable hospital fold-out chairs made out of vinyl that stuck to my skin.

Most days, I forgot to eat. I didn’t know whether my daughter would live or die, or what kind of life she would live if she ever saw the world outside her hospital room. When it came time to give my daughter a Hebrew name, I chose “Chaya,” meaning “life” or “to be strong.” I was willing her to pull through, but I seemed to be alone.

My daughter survived, but my village disappeared

My daughter survived those fraught few weeks. Eventually, she went home, albeit with monitors and oxygen tanks instead of teddy bears and soft blankets.

I reached out to the moms I had thought would be my support system, knowing I would be there for any one of them if they needed me. I discovered that the moms in the group that formed when we were pregnant had indeed been getting together as planned. They didn’t want to bother me, they said, so they hadn’t reached out. They assumed I needed my space, they told me, when what I really needed was their friendship and support.

I often wondered if I was their worst nightmare, a Mom with a sick and disabled baby who made problems with sleep regression seem like child’s play. Their reaction made sense. Throughout our pregnancies, all we ever heard was that if our babies were born healthy, everything else would be OK. Now that one of us had a baby that had not been born healthy, there was no road map for how to react or for what came next.

Eventually, I found my group. Without meaning for it to happen, all of my close friends have a child with a disability or complex medical needs. I am incredibly grateful that I was able to create a village, even if it’s not the one I originally planned.

• I tried the biggest burgers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, In-N-Out, and Shake Shack.
• I thought Shake Shack’s burger was a little overwhelming.
• Burger King’s Triple Whopper impressed me with its flame-grilled patties and fresh toppings.

When it comes to fast food’s biggest burgers, the prices are sometimes stacked just as high as the patties.

As some chains see sales decline, brands are thinking beyond limited-time promotions and more about how they can deliver the best value for customers — and sometimes, that means supersizing their menus.

McDonald’s recently launched its new Big Arch burger, its biggest burger ever, with two quarter-pound patties and a new sauce and bun. It’s the chain’s attempt to create a more “premium” burger without a significant price increase compared to the other burgers on the McDonald’s menu.

To determine which chain offered the best value on its larger-ticket items, I compared six of the largest burgers sold at fast-food chains.

I tested burgers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, In-N-Out, and Shake Shack to see how they stacked up in terms of taste and overall value.

Here’s how the biggest burgers at five fast-food chains ranked, from worst to best.

Shake Shack’s double cheeseburger, my least favorite, was particularly large.

It cost me $13.89, not including tax, making it the most expensive burger I tried.

I chose pickles, onions, and Shack sauce as my toppings.

The burger patties were perfectly crispy on the outside and covered in gooey melted cheese.

The pickles were large and crunchy, and the amount of other toppings was generous. The chain’s signature Shack sauce also added a lot of flavor, and the cheese was perfectly melted.

However, the burger was almost too heavy to pick up.

I know I purposefully ordered the largest burger on the menu, but the Shake Shack burger was a little overwhelming.

This burger was massive. I saw it as a hindrance rather than an asset, and I struggled to get through more than a few bites.

The burger patties were much thicker than quite a few of the other burgers I tried, and the toppings definitely enhanced the flavor. However, for me, it was simply too big, to the point where it tasted like a giant meat-and-cheese grease bomb.

The 4×4 is the largest burger available at In-N-Out. I ranked it fifth.

The burger, which is on In-N-Out’s “not-so-secret” menu, is also referred to as the “Quad Quad” or simply “Quad,” and comes with four beef patties, four cheese slices, lettuce, tomato, spread, and the option to add onions.

It cost $10.99, excluding tax and fees.

The giant burger was difficult to hold in one hand, let alone bite into.

The burger was far too large for me to eat in one sitting, though the flavor made me want to.

The burger was delicious in every way, from the juicy beef patties to the layers of cheese and fresh lettuce and tomato.

However, I thought the additional burger patties ended up detracting from the burger’s overall ranking instead of enhancing it. The burger was overwhelmingly heavy, with the tomato and lettuce failing to offset the excessive amount of meat and cheese.

The buns couldn’t contain the juicy beef patties, and they started disintegrating as I ate the burger. Truthfully, I wouldn’t order this again. Although it was tasty, the amount of meat was just too much for me.

I also tried the McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with cheese.

Looking at the burger in the box, I immediately noticed that the meat was clearly the star of the show. The other toppings were barely visible beneath the patties and bun.

The burger cost me $10.49, excluding tax.

The Double Quarter-Pounder with cheese comes with a whopping half-pound of meat, pickles, onions, ketchup, and mustard.

I found this burger to be pretty flavorful, especially thanks to the condiments and the large, crunchy pickles.

However, I wasn’t crazy about the bun — while I normally love a sesame-seed bun, I found this one to be pretty bland, airy, and artificial-tasting.

I would order this burger again.

Despite having a lot of meat, the burger didn’t feel too overwhelming to eat.

I thought it was a filling yet completely manageable sandwich, especially compared to the gigantic burgers from Shake Shack and In-N-Out.

The third-best burger I tried was Wendy’s Dave’s Triple.

The Dave’s Triple burger cost $11.49, excluding tax.

Wendy’s Dave’s Triple burger comes with nearly a pound of beef, American cheese, crisp lettuce, tomato, pickle, ketchup, mayo, and onion.

The sandwich was difficult to pick up, but the ingredients seemed well-balanced.

There was a large serving of tomatoes, pickles, and cheese, so it didn’t look like the beef patties would be overpowered.

This burger was so flavorful. The cheese was perfectly melted, and the patties were super juicy.

While I couldn’t finish the entire thing, I definitely thought the flavors were there, and it was a good value for the price.

If I were to change one thing, I would remove the mayonnaise. It ended up mixing with the tomato juice in an unappetizing way, creating a tomato-mayo sauce that I thought diluted the other flavors.

My second-favorite burger was the new Big Arch burger from McDonald’s.

The Big Arch comes topped with two quarter-pound patties, three slices of white cheddar, crispy and raw onions, lettuce, pickles, and a new, tangy Big Arch sauce.

At my local McDonald’s in Brooklyn, New York, the Big Arch costs $11.59, excluding tax and fees.

The burger was heavy to lift, with toppings spilling out from under the bun.

It was super filling, and the white cheddar gave it a rich, steakhouse-style feel.

That said, with the fried onions, cheese, and sauce, it leaned heavily savory — I found myself wishing for something fresher, like more lettuce or tomato, to balance it out.

This burger felt intentional — they didn’t add a second patty simply for the sake of it.

It didn’t feel like McDonald’s threw on another patty and called it a day.

The proportions actually worked, and every layer of the burger — from the tangy white cheddar cheese to the new sauce and the crunchy pickles — felt like it was added to create a more “premium” burger experience.

The best burger I tried was the Triple Whopper with cheese from Burger King.

Similar to the Dave’s Triple, the Triple Whopper also comes with three quarter-pound beef patties, although the ones at Burger King are flame-grilled.

The burger cost me $10.99, excluding tax.

Unlike the other burgers, the Triple Whopper only comes with one slice of cheese.

However, I felt that this allowed the other flavors to really come through, leading to a less gut-filling, more appetizing eating experience.

The lettuce, tomatoes, and onions tasted fresh and added a delicious crunch to the burger.

I also liked the beef patties on this burger the most out of the ones I tried.

The burger patties had a smoky, savory flavor that made the sandwich taste like it was fresh off the grill. I also thought the patties’ shape, which were larger in circumference but flatter than some of the other burgers, made the sandwich easier to eat.

Overall, I really enjoyed this burger and would definitely order it again, if I have the appetite.

While I’m not sure I’m happy to pay more than $10 for any fast-food burger, it was a very generous serving and the most flavorful out of the bunch, without being overwhelmingly huge.

• Joshua Dat invested his life savings to open Datz Deli in Queens with his father.
• The business struggled at first until Dat created the Mac Patty — a burger with mac and cheese.
• Dat’s family now runs two successful Datz Deli locations, and he’s looking to open a third.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joshua Dat, 33, owner of Datz Deli and creator of the Mac Patty in New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My dad is an amazing chef. He’d been working in kitchens his whole life, and I felt like people never valued him the way they should have.

When I turned 29, I took all the money I’d saved from age 17 and invested it in opening a store in Hollis, Queens, with him. We named it Datz Deli — now home of the famous Mac Patty.

It was a struggle in the beginning. I discovered the place was infested with rodents when I came in one morning and found half of my food supply eaten.

During those first few months, we were making about $200 to $300 a day — not enough to sustain the business. I thought I had messed up, and that all the money I had saved my whole life was gone.

Today, we have two shops — the original in Queens and another in Manhattan. Each brings in between $1,000 to $4,000 a day.

I started Datz because I wanted to support my family

Growing up, we didn’t have much. After my parents divorced when I was young, it was mostly my mom supporting us four kids.

I would go around the house and about town collecting loose change I could find, so I could give it to my mom when she’d cry about the water bill or the electricity bill.

Some days, we struggled to have meals. Growing up like that is something you never want to go back to.

As I got older, I promised myself no one in my family would ever have to live like that again. Because of the business, they won’t.

The Mac Patty changed everything in the summer of 2023

By early 2023, we’d been open for a few months, and nothing was going right. I tried attracting customers with new creations like chopped cheeses on butter bread and roti burritos, but nothing clicked.

Then, one night, I was hungry for a beef patty with cheese, but we didn’t have any cheese left because my dad had used it all for the mac and cheese.

So, I put the mac and cheese in the patty, cut it in half, looked at it, and just had a feeling this was it. This was going to go viral.

My little sister posted a pic of it on Instagram. The next morning, people came into the store asking for it. Soon, we had lines out the door.

The Mac Patty wasn’t like anything else we had tried before. That gave me the confidence to keep building around it.

At first, I was paying influencers to visit the store and promote it. Now, I don’t have to pay anyone; the store has gained its own reputation, and I was able to open the second shop in Manhattan from our success.

I couldn’t have done it without my family

My mom quit her full-time job in bill collecting to come help with the business. She, my father, and my older brother run the shop in Manhattan.

My little sister and uncle run the shop in Queens, and I help out with online content and whatever else they need me for. I remember walking my little sis to school, and now to watch her help run this business — it’s crazy.

Working every day with your family is like what you might expect — terrible. We can fight like it’s World War III, but we know that no matter what is said or what happens, we’re all showing back up at the gate tomorrow to open the shops because we’re all so proud of what it’s become.

My mother taught us growing up that you need people who’ll never give up on you, no matter how hard it gets. And that’s what we are for each other. Nothing breaks us apart.

I like to say that I started this business, but it’s my family that keeps it going. Once we started seeing success, they really showed up for me at times when I didn’t even want to show up for myself. And I’m so grateful for that.

Next, we’re looking to open a location in Orlando — and my older sister will run it.