Powers Hamburgers: the slider house on Harrison Street

1940 — present

Twenty seats, one recipe: The Powers brothers — Leo, Clell, Harold and Dale — opened their first hamburger restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1935, and built it by hand. Leo, who had grown up in northeast Indiana, came home and opened the Fort Wayne Powers on South Harrison Street in 1940; the house's own history gives the day as 30 April 1940. The little white Art Deco building at 1402 South Harrison, across from the federal courthouse, seats about twenty at a wrap-around counter. The slider is Leo's method and has not changed: a thin patty grilled under a pile of sliced onions, the bun steamed in the onion vapor, with Leo's handwritten chili and coney-sauce recipes still in use. Leo opened a second Fort Wayne store in an industrial district in 1947; his son Rolin bought the business in 1980 and opened a third location in 1983. Rolin died in 1990. The family sold the business in 1999 to Mike and Gloria Hall; the second location closed in 2004, leaving the Harrison Street original as the only Powers Hamburgers anywhere — the last restaurant of the brothers' enterprise still carrying the name.

The recognition came late and in writing. In 2022 the hamburger historian George Motz, author of Hamburger America, named Powers one of his five favorite places in the country for a classic hamburger made as they were a century ago. The Salvatori's restaurant group acquired the diner in 2024. In July 2025 the house celebrated its eighty-fifth year with Powers Fest: Governor Mike Braun's proclamation conferred the title "Slider Capital of the World," Mayor Sharon Tucker proclaimed 16 July 2025 Powers Hamburgers Slider Capital of the World Day, the second annual slider-eating contest was won at 26 sliders in ten minutes, and on the record day the diner sold 5,090 sliders — past its own 3,000 target — as reported by WANE and Whatzup. The proclamation is a conferred title, not a measured world record; the 5,090 is the house's count, carried by the local press. Both are printed here as exactly that.

Sources:

1. ACGSI Allen INGenWeb, Powers Hamburgers page — the brothers, Dearborn 1935, Fort Wayne 1940, the 1947 and 1983 stores, Rolin, the 1999 sale and 2004 closing (copying the Serious Eats history of 2008 and the Visit Fort Wayne blog of 2012).
2. Visit Fort Wayne, "Powers Hamburgers Looks to Make Fort Wayne the Slider Capital of the World" (24 June 2025) — the handwritten recipes, the Hall years, the Salvatori's acquisition of 2024.
3. Society for Commercial Archeology weekly news review (17 July 2022), citing Indiana Landmarks — the George Motz top-five naming.
4. EIN Presswire release (9 July 2025) and Whatzup (July 2025) — the Braun proclamation, the Tucker proclamation, Powers Fest, the 5,090-slider day and the 26-slider contest mark, as reported.