[Photograph: Nick Solares]

Ken Lassen, who died of kidney failure, "is the one responsible for putting Louis' where it is today and getting it to the level where it is today," Jeff Lassen said at his home in Bethany, flanked by his older brother, Ken Jr.

"Before, we were always New Haven-known and Connecticut-known." But Louis' role in American cultural iconography spread much wider in recent years "and he had a lot to do with that."

View Lassen's obituary at Legacy.com.

Related: A Visit to Louis' Lunch, Home of the Hamburger

[via Burger Conquest]