VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: You Can Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk in Summer

One of the most persistent Las Vegas myths is that cracking an egg onto a sidewalk can produce breakfast. While none of the dozens of restaurants closed each year by the Southern Nevada Health Department has ever been cited for this particular violation, that may only be because it’s not physically possible.

Despite decades of tourists repeating the myth, the egg-fry-on-the-sidewalk claim gets scrambled quickly once you crack it open.

First of all, the temperature required to fully cook a whole egg — not just the whites — is 158 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the American Egg Board. The highest temperature of solar-heated concrete ever recorded was two degrees short of that mark in Phoenix (as documented in “Thermal Contact Burns from Streets and Highways,” a December 1970 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.)

That’s because common concrete is a poor conductor of heat. Light in color, it reflects most of the sun’s rays upward into the atmosphere. In addition, once a cold or room-temperature egg is cracked onto a hot sidewalk, it cools the spot where it lands and creates a localized sunshade blocking the cooking surface’s only source of heat.

Egg-zhibit A

The Las Vegas Review-Journal attempted precisely this experiment in July 2010, on a scorching day featuring a 2 p.m. high of 113 degrees.

The temperature of the sidewalk measured by the newspaper’s infrared thermometer was 147. That’s hot, but 11 degrees short of egg-frying territory. The sad result was still-raw yolks swimming in slightly thickened and dried but mostly transparent egg whites after several hours.

That’s exactly why the winners of Oatman, Arizona’s famous Solar Egg Frying Contest — held every year on the Fourth of July since 1991 — must always resort to artificial help such as metal pans, which are extremely efficient heat conductors, mirrors and magnifying glasses.

Some social-media tricksters also cheat by successfully frying eggs on asphalt blacktop, whose dark color allows it to absorb substantially more solar energy than concrete, easily reaching temperatures of up to 166 degrees. But a sidewalk is the only true mythical Las Vegas egg-frying surface.

The viral TikTok below shows a Las Vegas woman using a cast-iron pan, whose metallic construction and black color combine for 50%-130% more solar energy absorption than a light-colored sidewalk, to nearly flash-fry an egg.

However, there’s no telling whether she preheated the pan, and the 167-degree sidewalk temperature supposedly taken by the video’s infrared thermometer is physically impossible unless the sidewalk is not made of common concrete.

This stubborn legend remains alive because almost any terrible scenario feels possible on days when touching your steering wheel produces third-degree burns.

Look for a new “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Visit VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.