The slinger is a late-night diner pile-up: two eggs over hash browns and a hamburger patty, smothered in chili and cheese and topped with raw onion. It is breakfast, dinner and a hangover cure in one.
The slinger emerged from St. Louis's all-night diners in the mid-20th century, with the now-closed Eat-Rite Diner among the spots that claimed it. There is no single inventor; it grew out of the griddle-cook habit of combining whatever was on hand into one plate for late-shift workers and bar crowds. Diners across the south side still serve it around the clock, and Fleur STL now plates an elevated version in the old Eat-Rite building.
