Road Tips

Matty's Bar and Grille - New Berlin, WI

I was in Milwaukee recently and had some time to kill between appointments on the west side of town. It was getting close to lunch time and I was getting a little hungry.  I had read about a place called Matty's Bar and Grille and how they're supposed to have a killer burger.  The only problem is that Matty's is out in New Berlin (pronounced BER-lin, not ber-LIN like in Germany) and it was a little bit of a drive from where I was.  I put their address into my GPS and about 20 minutes later I pulled up in front of the bar on W. College Ave. (see map)

Matty's has been around since 1997 and is owned by Matt Anderson.  Anderson transformed a sleepy little bar into one of the top destinations to watch sports in the greater Milwaukee area.  While it's not as big as Major Goolsby's in downtown Milwaukee, nor does it come close to the number of televisions that Goolsby's has, it's more like a friendly little neighborhood bar that has better than average sports bar food.  Their signature burger, the Smokehouse burger - part smoked beef brisket and certified black angus - was concocted by Chef Bob Nicholson who has run the kitchen at Matty's for the past seven years.  In addition to their burgers, Matty's also has a number of delectable sandwiches and their own in-house thin-crust pizza.   

 
Matty's is situated in a building with a stone front around the entrance and it looks like the place has been added on to two or three times.  It definitely had been added on to in the back of the place with their four seasons room which, in contrast to the main part of the place, features a high ceiling, large windows and an exit to an outside beer garden off to the side of the building.  The main part of the bar area is more cozy than the open and airy four seasons room in the back.

I was greeted by a young lady who asked me if I wanted a table or to sit at the bar.  I opted for the bar and sat down just as the noon news started on the television in front of me.  On the back bar of Matty's, there was a somewhat sophisticated computer than controlled the multiple satellite receivers they had for receiving sports on their 18 televisions.  Matty's subscribes to DirecTV so they have access to every professional sports television package, as well as all the regional networks that feature college sports in the fall and winter.   

A young lady who was working behind the bar - Gabby - offered me a menu and told me that it was "chili day" at Matty's.  For $9.99 you got a sample of three different types of chili that Chef Bob Nicholson came up with for that particular day.  Chili did sound good on a day that had come on the heels of a cold front that plowed through the area overnight, but I was still in the mood for a burger.  

After getting a Capital Wisconsin Amber that they had on tap, I looked through the menu to see if anything else jumped out at me other than getting one of their burgers.  One of the interesting items was the Mama's Meatloaf sandwich, a secret meatloaf recipe that is topped with a sauce and served on ciabatta bread.  They also had a pastrami sandwich - "Matty's Style" - that featured thin slices of warm pastrami, topped with a brown mustard and served on marble rye bread.  I'm a sucker for a good pastrami sandwich and the description of the one on Matty's menu almost made me forget about a hamburger.

But, no, the Smokehouse burger was the draw for me on this visit.  (I figured that I could come back to Matty's at some point for the pastrami.)  At Matty's, you build your own burger - first choosing from one of over a dozen different cheeses that range from American to smoked cheddar to provolone to crumbled blue cheese to exotic cheeses such as black peppercorn and white cheddar, and dolcina cheese that is part cow and goat milk cheese with a sweet creamy gorgonzola taste.  Being that you're in Wisconsin, you wouldn't expect anything less for a good burger with cheese. 

After choosing your cheese, you have the option of ten different toppings including green peppers, jalapenos, fried egg, sauerkraut and sun-dried tomatoes.  Then you could get your choice of over a dozen spices or sauces such as cajun or Caribbean jerk seasonings, blue cheese butter, black bean corn relish (probably more for the grilled chicken sandwiches) and garlic aioli.  The combinations were endless and I was in a little bit of a fog trying to figure out what I wanted.

When Gabby came back to take my order, I ended up getting the Smokehouse burger topped with pepperjack cheese, bacon that is smoked in house, and mushrooms.  I had my choice of a side with the burger - sides that included homemade potato chips, cottage cheese, fruit, pasta salad and cole slaw.  I decided upon French fries to go with the burger.  

 
With the lunch rush kicking in while I was there, my burger came out less than 20 minutes after I ordered - long enough for me to down a pint of the Wisconsin Amber and time to order another.  The burger came out wrapped in a paper half-wrap that could be used to hold the burger without getting any juice or condiments on your hands.  I quickly tore it off so I could inspect the burger with the bun open.  It featured copious amounts of chopped mushrooms, two thick slices of smoked bacon and a gooey amount of pepperjack cheese.  The fries were nothing special to me, but there was a nice little treat sitting on top of the fries - a homemade chocolate chip cookie.  I'd never had a cookie as part of the overall meal before.  

The first bite of the burger elicited an "Mmmmmmmm..." from yours truly.  The 1/2 lb. Smokehouse burger was lean, but juicy.  The combination of the cheese, bacon and mushrooms only heightened the taste sensation I was having.  The bun was light and chewy, yet firm, holding together wonderfully with everything that was on the burger.  It was cooked to what I would call a perfect medium with a slight hint of pink the very middle of the burger patty.  It was simply one of the best burgers I've ever had.  

So far this year, I've had a handful of burgers that would either make my Top Ten Burger List or would be high honorable mentions.  And the Smokehouse burger at Matty's Bar and Grille was one of the best I've had this year.   While I may think about getting a pastrami sandwich or to try their pizza when I make it back down the road, it's going to be tough to pass up having another Smokehouse burger with some other combination of toppings.  I immediately liked Matty's and was jealous of the people who were regulars of the place.  It was one of those places that I could see going to time and time again to watch sports and grab a bite to eat if I lived nearby. 

Epic Burger - Chicago

About a year ago, I had stopped into the Old Orchard Mall in north suburban Skokie to check in with the Apple retail store than was displaying some of our Focal multimedia loudspeakers.  I saw a burger joint with a rather bold name - Epic Burger - that I wasn't familiar with.  It was around the lunch hour and I thought about stopping in, but the place was packed.  I kept Epic Burger in the back of my mind and actually drove by a couple more in downtown Chicago during the course of the next year.  I had some time to kill between appointments in Chicago on a recent trip and I was doing a little beer hunting at the Binny's on the southwest edge of the Lincoln Park neighborhood.  After leaving there, I looked over at a strip mall next door and saw that there was an Epic Burger location.  (see map)  I decided to stop in for lunch. 

Actually, the Epic Burger in Lincoln Park has been around since June of 2010 and since I usually hit that Binny's on the occasions when I'm in the immediate area, I'm sort of surprised that I hadn't noticed it before.  (That's no surprise to my wife who says I'm not very observant...)  The first Epic Burger opened in the South Loop area of Chicago near Robert Morris University and the Harold Washington Library in May of 2008.  They now have seven locations in the Chicagoland area with plans to open more in 2013.  

The man behind Epic Burger is David Friedman (pictured right), a 25-year-plus veteran of the restaurant industry.  Friedman was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and has held positions as a restaurant and nightclub owner, an executive chef, a corporate chef, as well as a culinary consultant to restaurants and food manufacturers.  Friedman envisioned Epic Burger has a simple burger joint where "less is more", in that having a focused menu will result in better food. 

The beef Epic Burger uses is described as all-natural and "humanely raised" using no anti-biotics or hormones in the growing process.  All the food at Epic Burger is never frozen and never processed.  The buns for the burgers are hand-tossed and baked fresh daily.  The eggs they use on some of the burgers are from range-free chickens and the bacon is all nitrate-free.   The cheese they use is all from Wisconsin and naturally made and aged.  In a world where upscale burger joints are beginning to saturate the market, Epic Burger strives to give their customers a "better burger experience".  

Most of the Epic Burger locations are in downtown Chicago near the loop, but the one just north of North Ave. has ample parking in front.  That is probably more true during the week than the weekend when the lot can get packed with shoppers.  Going into the place and not knowing the drill, I quickly figured out that it was a place that where you order at the counter, then they bring your food to you.  The menu is located just above the ordering station.  As I said, it's pretty basic.  The Epic Burger, alone, is $5.99.  From there you can add a second patty for $2 bucks, as well as your choice of lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickle and "Epic sauce" for free.  For a small upcharge each, you can get bacon, an egg, and cheese added.  For people who are more health conscious, Epic Burger also has turkey burgers, all-natural grilled chicken sandwiches, and a portabella mushroom burger.  They don't serve beer at Epic Burger, but they do have real fruit smoothies, as well as malts or shakes made from all-natural ice cream, or non-fat yogurt along with organic whole, skim or soy milk.  I almost felt guilty ordering a burger.

I ordered up a burger - a single - and had them top it with some bacon, aged cheddar cheese, and a fried egg, hard.  The counter guy was sort of surprised that I didn't want anything else on the burger - no onions or pickles.  He asked if I wanted any fries and even though they did look good, I declined.  He gave me a table stand with a number at the top and I took a seat at a table in the middle of the restaurant.  

The restaurant, itself, had sort of a contemporary industrial feel to the place.  It had high exposed ceiling with a row of booths along the far wall.  The table and chairs were heavy and sturdy, and were comfortable to sit in.  It was past the lunch rush and the place was a little less than half full.  With the concrete floor, big windows looking out to the parking lot and the metal-trussed ceiling, it was sort of loud in the place.  But I understand that the new chic restaurants are the ones that are loud.  

About 15 minutes after I ordered, the same guy who took my order brought my burger to the table. It had a very good looking bun crown to the burger, crisp on the outside, but flaky inside.  The burger patty was smashed on the grill - not my preferred way of making a burger, but it's growing on me.  A hard fried egg, cheddar cheese and thick cut bacon adorned the top of the burger.  The bun had been toasted to a golden brown and looks like they may have used butter on it before the grilling process.   

The first bite yielded a crisp, yet salty taste to the burger.   I didn't immediately know if I liked it that way.  If you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you probably know by now that I don't salt much of anything.  The salt they use at Epic Burger is sea salt - the only kind of salt I'll use when I use salt.  But the burger had a bit of a salty taste that sort of detracted from the taste of the burger patty.  

However, the bun was excellent, as where the combination of egg, bacon and cheese.  I could have easily eaten a double as the Epic Burger patty was smashed down pretty thin sticking out from all sides of the delectable bun.  Other than the salty taste of the burger patty, it was a very good burger.  

For my first experience at Epic Burger, I was impressed by the burger.  Saltiness aside, the burger had good flavor, was lean, yet still juicy from the smashing technique they use to seal in the juices.  The bun - which is a key to any good burger - was outstanding.  And the extra toppings - egg, bacon and cheese - were great compliments to the overall taste of the burger.  I'm not certain that it was a true "epic" in the sense of the meaning of the word, but it was well above average.   I can see myself going back to an Epic Burger at some point, but with so many other burger places to try in the Chicagoland area in the meantime, it may be awhile before I do get back in. 

Short's Burger and Shine - Iowa City

I've had a number of people who have been bugging me about getting over to Short's Burger and Shine in Iowa City, a burger joint just across from the University of Iowa quadrangle (and the Old Capitol). (see map)  I had some time off around Christmas and met my old friend, Jim Kellogg, there for lunch.  I was really looking forward to trying one of the Short's burgers out because so many people had spoken so highly of the place.  

Short's Burger and Shine has been open since 2008 in a building that used to house Short's Shoe Shine - a business that was a fixture in downtown Iowa City for about 50 years before closing in the early 70's.  Three partners - Kevin Perez, who opened the One Twenty Six bistro in Iowa City with his brother in 1999, and who also owns Mama Deli's and Catering in Iowa City; Dan Ouverson who helped resurrect the venerable Mill Restaurant along with his brother-in-law; and Iowa City native and Miami Dolphins placekicker, Nate Kaeding - own Short's Burger and Shine.  In 2010, the trio, along with Perez's wife, Lisa, opened Stella, an American-style cafe near Kinnick Stadium in what was the old Melrose Market.   

Even though it was the Christmas break at the U of Iowa, I found Short's to be packed when I walked in just after 1 p.m.  I found Jim, who is the Director of Student Health at the University of Iowa, sitting at a table near the front.  The building is long and very narrow.  Booths line the walls on the north side of the building back to the bar area, with three-seater tables along the opposite brick wall.  Lattice covers the ceiling and above the brick walls on both sides.  When the place is packed - like it normally is during lunch - it's a little tight in Short's.  

The bar area is situated about halfway back in the building.  Ornate lattice arches hang above the bar with a number of bottles on shelves hung on the brick wall.  If I was in there by myself, I'd probably sit at the bar as it was pretty nice.  

Jim knows his burgers - he was the one who turned me on to the very good Green Gables, one of my Top Ten burgers places.  (Click here to see my entry on Green Gables.)  A food menu was on the table waiting for me and I took a look at the beer menu to figure out what to get to drink.   Short's features a number of Iowa micro-brews on tap and I decided upon the Peace Tree Red Rambler out of Knoxville.  

The burgers at Short's are made with locally-sourced corn-fed Black Angus beef.  They get their beef from a farm near Columbus Junction and the meat is processed at a butcher shop in nearby Riverside.  Their produce they buy from local farmers markets and growers.  The buns for the burgers at Short's are all made fresh daily at a local Iowa City bakery.

They have about 20 burgers on the menu - many of them named after small towns across the state of Iowa.  I grew up near Baxter in Central Iowa, and the "Baxter" burger consists of blackened burger topped with bacon, provolone cheese and a chipotle mayo sauce.  The "Larchwood" burger, named after a small town in extreme Northwest Iowa, features grilled onions, peppers and mushrooms, with Swiss cheese and a red pepper mayo sauce.  Some of the towns we had to look up on my smartphone.  Eldorado, IA is a small unincorporated town just north of West Union and its namesake burger at Short's had a Mexican theme - a burger topped with pepper jack cheese, then garnished with guacamole, salsa and sour cream.  The "Arion" burger, named after a small town I passed many times on Highway 30 on my way from Omaha to Carroll a number of years ago but I certainly don't remember, had a Greek slant to it with a burger topped with feta cheese, cucumber, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce.  

For the health conscious, Short's also has a dozen different variations of chicken sandwiches - all named after Iowa counties; and vegetarian black bean burgers named after various towns with "Junction" in their name.  I sort of liked the nod Short's gave to the rural areas of state on their menu.   

It just so happened that Jim had eaten at Short's recently and had tried the "Colo" - American and Swiss cheeses with grilled onions that was placed on marble rye bread.  This time he ordered the "Essex" burger - a burger patty topped with brie cheese, then finished with grilled peppers and mushrooms with the roasted red pepper mayo.  He got his without the bun and the red pepper may on the side. Fries come with each burger order.

Although the "Baxter" burger sounded pretty good, I found the "Dundee" burger.  It featured a slice of American cheese on the burger, then topped with garlic aioli, sauteed mushrooms and a fried egg.  I said to Jim, "I don't know if I've ever heard of Dundee, Iowa."  

He laughed.  "Dundee is about 8 miles south of Strawberry Point," he said.  Jim should know - he grew up in Strawberry Point.  "It's on the south end of Backbone State Park."   I ended up ordering a "Dundee" with fries.   

Our server brought out burgers out to us a number of minutes later.  Jim's "Essex" burger (below left) was piled high with a mixture of brie, green peppers and mushrooms sitting on shredded lettuce, pickles and a tomato slice.  He told me that one of the reasons he likes the roasted red pepper sauce on the side so he can dip his French fries in it.

 

My "Dundee" burger (above right and at right) was a majestic looking burger with a thick beef patty sitting on veggies, with the ingredients oozing off the top of the burger.  The bun crown had a thick peak in the middle with a crunchy outer shell.  The burger looks damn good, doesn't it?

I had to cut the burger in half just to be able to handle it.  From the first bite, I knew there was a lot of busy tastes in my mouth.  The crisp bacon was very good.  The fried egg - over hard - was superb with the burger, as well.  I could hardly taste the mushrooms with everything else going on, but I did pull one off and eat it plain.  It, too, was very good.  I'm not certain I liked the burger with the tomato and the lettuce - they don't seem to go well with an egg and bacon.  And even though the mushrooms were a stretch with the egg and bacon, it still seemed to work.

The only problem was the burger.  They severely over-cooked it.  Looking back, when I placed my order the server didn't ask how I'd like mine cooked.  I usually get my burgers medium when asked.  But she never asked.  There was no juiciness to the burger as it was pretty lean to begin with.  I know some people like their burgers well-done, but this would have probably been too cooked for those people as well.  What I could taste of the burger meat was all right, but I was very disappointed that it was cooked as badly as it was.  The life was cooked out of what could have been a superb burger.  

Not to be deterred, I went back to Short's for another burger not long ago.  This time - sitting at the bar - I had a "Tingley" burger (named for a small town near the Missouri border in Southwest Iowa).  It was topped with green chiles, guacamole, pepper jack cheese and chipotle mayo.  I asked the server to put the guacamole on the side and have the cook pull it off about three minutes sooner than he normally would. He said, "Do you want it medium rare?"  Knowing how overcooked the first burger I got at Short's was, I thought their idea of medium rare would be a little pink in the middle.  

Not so.  This was all pink in the middle.  I couldn't tell them to send it back because the pepper jack cheese was melted over the top, so I just ate it as is.  Because the beef is so lean, there was still a lack of juiciness to the burger patty. The burger, as presented, looked great.  The green chiles were more of a sauce than roasted chiles like I thought they may be, but that was fine.  I need to have them deep-six the lettuce and tomato the next time I get a burger.  My stomach was a little upset for a time after eating the burger because it was so undercooked, but I felt better toward the evening.  I will say the taste was much better than the burger I had on my first visit.  I guess I need to specify medium on the next visit.  The "Baxter" will be the next one I get when I make my next visit to Short's.  

I understand there's now a Short's Burger and Shine on the east side of Iowa City.  That could take some of the pressure off the downtown Short's.  

After two visits, I'm somewhat mixed about Short's Burger and Shine.  The first burger was severely overcooked.  The second burger was undercooked.  Maybe I went in with too high of expectations on my visits.  On my next trip, I'm getting the "Baxter" and making sure to order it "medium".  And without the shredded lettuce and tomato slices.  I know they're trying and have quality beef and toppings for their burgers.  But I haven't been entirely impressed with the taste of the burgers on my visits.  I'm going to give them another shot and hopefully I'll get over the psychological hump that I'm having with Short's.      

The Spot - Kenosha, WI

A slice of Midwestern Americana can be found in a small drive-in restaurant in Kenosha, WI, simply known as The Spot.  For over 65 years, this small hamburger joint has been turning out thousands and thousands of flat grilled burgers annually.  I have a dealer in the Kenosha area who was telling me about The Spot awhile back.  On a recent visit to Kenosha, I decided to stop by the place for a burger.

The beginning of The Spot dates back to the twilight of World War II when Germany had been defeated and Japan would soon surrender.  Harold DuBois had gotten an honorable medical discharge from the Army two years prior and had married his sweetheart, Janet, the year before.  DuBois always wanted to run a drive-in, but he couldn't have picked a worse time to open a new restaurant.   Beef was in short supply, as were items such as paper, napkins and buns.  Even the cooking equipment the DuBois' procured was old and, according to Harold, "a bunch of old junk."   But they carried on and on July 4, 1945, they served their first burger at The Spot Drive-In.  

The original Spot Drive-In was at the corner of 75th St. and 22nd Ave. in Kenosha.  (see map).  The original building was a small brick structure.  DuBois worked the grill, Janet worked the window and they had a single car hop.  Sometimes when they ran out of food for the day, they simply had to close early.  And because they had no wax paper to wrap the burgers in, they used newspapers.  

The original Spot was a seasonal business, and to help make ends meet in the winter time Harold DuBois sold Christmas trees.  DuBois was the first person to sell Norway and Scotch pines in the area. As the popularity of The Spot grew, they eventually expanded the building and added more car hops.  In later years, The Spot became a year-round restaurant.

Janet semi-retired from the business in 1955, and when their son, Chuck, reached the sixth grade, they hired him to work at the place for 50 cents an hour.  Harold eventually retired, and Chuck and his wife, Nancy, run the business today.  (Truly partners to the end, Harold and Janet DuBois passed away a week apart in 2006.)  

Hundreds of teens and college-aged kids worked as car hops at The Spot over the years.  It was a coveted job that could pay well in the summertime.  Probably the most famous carhop is 2012 Miss America Laura Kaeppeler.  Miss Kaeppeler, a Kenosha native, worked at The Spot for six years throughout her high school and college years.  

It was during the early afternoon on a clear and cold day when I pulled up in front of The Spot.  I then made a rookie mistake - I got out of the car.  A carhop yelled to me, "Sir, we can come take your order."  I sheepishly jumped back in the car, glancing to my left and right at the regulars who were shaking their head at the "newbie".  

The menu at The Spot is pretty basic.  It features most of the items that you'd find at similar burger joint/drive-ins - burgers (including steakburgers), chicken and fish sandwiches, hot dogs (as well as chili dogs), plus fries, onion rings and deep-fried breaded vegetables.  The Spot also features ice cream cones, sundaes, banana splits, shakes and malts.  The menu is posted on the sides of the building under the soffit.  

The carhop came over to take my order and I apologized for getting out of the car.  She said, "Oh, don't worry.  When it's busy, a lot of people will go up to the window.  It's just that it's cold out and I didn't want you to have to stand at the window."  Oh, that was nice of her!

I ended up ordering a double cheeseburger with everything (ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles).  I had a bottle of water with me, so I didn't get anything else.  It was a good 15 minutes before she came out with my burger in a white sack with The Spot's logo on the side.  I gave her a couple extra bucks for enduring the cold conditions that day.  

The burger was wrapped in wax paper with the logo on top.  When I unwrapped it, the juice from the burger, along with melted cheese, stuck to the wrapper.  I always carry a "smeg towel" in the car with me to quickly clean up spills or to use as a napkin if needed.  I put that on my lap because I could tell this was going to be a messy burger.  

The first bite of the burger simply explained to me why generations of Kenoshans have flocked to The Spot for nearly 70 years.  The burger was misshapen as it appears that it was started in a ball and flattened by a spatula on the grill.  It wasn't pressed too much that the juice was completely squeezed out of the patty, however.  But the outer shell of the patty was crisp and very flavorful.  

The burger featured a copious amounts of veggies and condiments, but not too much to detract from the overall great taste of the burger meat.  The bun was pretty average, but still went well with the burger.  And the patties weren't too large, so I was able to easily finish the double cheeseburger.  It was, probably, a 1/3 of a pound total.  

And it was messy.  I generally rate how good a burger is by the amount of napkins that you use when you eat it.  Five napkins came in the sack and I used them all.  It was a very, very good burger.

The Spot doesn't take credit cards (but they do have an ATM on the grounds) and they are open Sunday thru Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 a.m., 3:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.  The burger was outstanding and you could tell the flat grill was seasoned by years and years of cooking burgers on it.  I would have no problem wholly recommending The Spot Drive-In for a good burger and a slice of Americana if you visit the Kenosha area.   (Picture courtesy Paul Evagnoni)

Moon-Glo - Danville, IL

In doing some research for Gross' Burgers in Danville, IL (see my entry on Gross' Burgers here), I found out about another place in the Danville area that is high on the list of many of the locals for having a good burger, the Moon-Glo.  On a trip by Danville this past fall, I stopped in at the Moon-Glo to try one of their burgers.

The Moon-Glo is one of those old time supper clubs that you found on the outskirts of Midwestern towns in the 50's and 60's.  They feature cook-you-own steaks on the weekends, but they're famous around Danville for their big Moonburgers.   

Getting off Interstate 74 just after getting into Illinois from Indiana, I took a series of backroads south and east of Danville before I pulled up to the Moon-Glo at the corner of Perrysville Road and Markley Road complete with their distinctive blue crescent moon on top of the place. (see map)  It looked exactly like an old time supper club should - stone-base exterior, awnings over the windows and a big stone fireplace on the side of the building.

Inside the Moon-Glo, you'll find a bar to the left, some open grills (for the cook-your-own steaks) on the right and a number of tables with chairs in an L-shaped dining room.  A handful of men were situated around the dining area when I got in.  No one was seated at the bar, so I took a seat there.  There was a menu sitting on the bar, so I picked it up and took a quick glance at it.  Even though I was there for one of their burgers, I saw they had other sandwiches and appetizers through the day.  I understand their deep fried pickles are pretty good at the Moon-Glo.  

The server behind the bar came over to greet me.  She was also working as a server in the dining area, running back and forth with another younger girl between the kitchen and dining room.  She asked me what I wanted and I told her that I'd take a Moon-cheeseburger with a beer.  She asked if I wanted everything on it and I asked what everything was.  She said, "Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mustard, ketchup.  You know, pretty much everything."  After I told her I'd go with that she cheerfully replied,  "Comin' right up!" 

The kitchen at the Moon-Glo isn't all that large and there was a man back there helping out with the noon time orders.  It turned out the guy was the owner, Phil Adams.  A group of men came in and almost as soon as they sat down Phil Adams delivered a tray of burgers to the table and sat down to talk with them while they had lunch.  It turned out they had phoned in their orders before they got there - something that I found probably comes in handy.  

The Moonburgers are pretty big - at least 3/4's of a pound, maybe larger - and it takes a little while for them to cook.  Also, the grill is only so big and if they have a lot of orders for lunch - which the Moon-Glo did that day for both to-go and eat-in - then the orders get stacked up.  It took about 20 minutes for my burger to show up.  My server sat it in front of me, wrapped in wax paper.  When I opened it up, juice from the burger was already on the sheet.  

The burger was huge.  It featured a thick and fluffy bun crown with an ample amount of green lettuce leaves on the bottom.  Thick slices of fresh onions and and a tomato formed the bed for the burger.  Pickles, ketchup and mustard were on the top.  It was so big I had to cut the burger in half.  The meat was cooked through, but the burger was still pretty juicy.  

The first bite I had of a Moon-Glo burger was - well, have you ever taken the first bite of something you've never had before and gone "Mmmmmm...."?  That was exactly what happened with me.  The taste of the burger was outstanding.  I mean, it was just excellent.  Even though it was cooked medium to medium-well, it still had a lot of juiciness to the taste of the burger.  It had that flat-grilled taste to it where the grill has probably been seasoned from thousands of burgers cooked on it over the years, but it was hand-pattied and not spatula pressed to draw out some of the moisture in the meat.  It suddenly became one of my all-time favorite burgers, it was that good.

I'm glad I didn't get any fries or fried pickles to go along with the burger.  It was a full meal in itself.  I ate the last bit of the burger even though I was fairly full after finishing half.  The bun was a wonderful complement to the burger, once again backing up my opinion that the key to a great burger is the bun.  

After finishing up and paying at the bar, I got up to take a look around at some of the items they had on the walls around the dining room and to take some pictures.  It appeared that Phil Adams is a big Indiana Hoosiers basketball fan and continues to revere former coach Bobby Knight as there were pictures of Knight on the wall along with other Indiana basketball paraphernalia.  In taking pictures of the place, Phil Adams interrupted his round-table discussion with the men seated there and asked me where I was from.  I told him I was from the Quad Cities.  He asked if I was traveling through and I said that I was.  "Shwew," he said in mock relief.  "I thought with you takin' all those pictures that you were from the health department or a tax man!"  

I asked Phil how long he'd owned the place and he said, "My daddy bought it in 1962 and I took over for him about 20 years later.  We had everyone in our family workin' in here at one time or another."

One of the guys at the table asked him how long the place had been opened before his dad bought the place.  Phil said, "I think it's been around since the 40's.  The original owner, a guy by the name of Willett, was the guy my dad bought the place from."  

Phil explained that this Willett guy was sort of a notorious person in and around the Danville area.  "First of all, he was Dick Van Dyke's father-in-law. (The actor Dick Van Dyke grew up in Danville and married Marjorie Willett in 1948. They raised four children before divorcing in the early 80's.)  But this Willett also spent time in prison for killing a guy.  When he got out, he couldn't own a bar because he couldn't get a liquor license because he was a convicted felon.  So, he put everything into the name of the gal he was livin' with.  So, technically, my dad bought the place from her.  But he was the guy runnin' the place and callin' the shots."

Phil Adams turned to me and said, "Hey, have you gone in the bathroom yet?"  

I sort of quizzically looked at him and stammered out, "Uh, no..."

"Before you leave, you've got to go in there and look at our urinal.  Urinals.com called out urinal a Top Ten urinal.  You can look it up!  Go ahead, take a look at the urinal!"  He seemed so proud of the urinal that I had to go in and take a look at it.  

It was basically an old Kohler wash-down urinal with about three pounds of crushed ice in the bottom.  I guess I didn't see what was so special about the urinal, even wondering how it could be a Top Ten urinal.  After I got home, I was wondering if what Phil Adams was telling me was B.S., so I looked up Urinals.com.  It turns out that there is actually a site - Urinal.net - that showcases urinals of all sizes and styles from all over the world.  (Ya gotta love the Internet!)  They did have a Top Ten list of urinals, but the one at the Moon-Glo was not on the list.  That's not saying that it may have been at some point, but it wasn't on the Top Ten list when I looked it up.  But digging a little deeper on the website, sure enough, there was an entry on the urinal at the Moon-Glo.  (Click here if you want to see it.)  Phil Adams was telling me the he got the idea of putting crushed ice in the bottom of a urinal from some place out in Las Vegas - I believe it was at the TPC Las Vegas golf course, if I remember what he was telling me - a number of years ago.  "Since then, I put ice in the urinal three to five times a day," he told me.  I had to chuckle as Phil was certainly proud of that urinal.

The urinal aside, I have to say- barring two or three other burgers tasting better - that the Moon-Glo burger will easily make my Top Ten Burger List when I update it later this year.  The taste of the burger was outstanding and, if you go, make sure that you bring an appetite.  It was a huge burger and very filling.  But I found myself unable to stop eating as it was so good.  Phil Adams is a true character and while the Moon-Glo is showing some age, it's a fun place to go.  I may have to try the deep fried pickles at some point in the future.  

Double Dogs - Bowling Green, KY

Finishing up in Bowling Green one morning when I was there late last year, I thought I'd grab some lunch before a long trip up to Indianapolis.  Wanting to just grab a burger, I had seen a place not far from the hotel called Rafferty's.  But I found out that Rafferty's is a regional chain of 19 restaurants in five states that was actually based out of Bowling Green.  There was another place closer to my hotel, literally around the corner, a sports bar called Double Dogs.  It appeared to be getting a good rating on Urbanspoon, so I stopped in there for lunch.

When I walked in, a small sign on the wall said that it was part of the same corporate structure that runs Rafferty's and Montana Grille - a mountain-themed steak house across the road from Double Dogs.  I almost turned to walk out, but then I decided to give it a try.  

The man behind Rafferty's, Double Dogs and Montana Grille is Bowling Green resident Dan Davis.  Davis started the first Rafferty's in Bowling Green in 1981 and grew the chain to over 20 locations in six states before closing a handful due to the economic downturn.  In 2008, Davis opened the first of two Double Dogs (the other location is in Knoxville, TN where Davis went to school at the University of Tennessee) in a building that housed the former Tumbleweed restaurant, a Louisville-based chain of Tex-Mex restaurants.  Davis turned the restaurant into a somewhat upscale sports bar with flat-screen televisions and a number of eclectic beers to choose from.

Of course, there's also a dog-theme to the restaurant.  Paintings and pictures of dogs are on the walls at Double Dogs inside and out.  They have a "Fetch and Go" window where you can drive up to pick up call ahead orders.  Their web site also has a pretty insipid story of Bo and Chancey, the two dogs that supposedly helped start Double Dogs.  I like dogs, but it seemed a little far-fetched for me.  (I made a joke!  Did you catch it?)

The inside of Double Dogs is sort of L-shaped with a large dining area to the left as you come in the door in the Southeast corner.  The bar area is to the right.  The bar has well over a dozen beers on tap and also had small built-in coolers holding bottles of other beers.  Tons of television sets adorned the walls including a cluster of six just above the open kitchen area.  

It was at the bar where I decided to sit.  My server/bartender for the day came over to greet me and I asked her for a menu.   From the very start, she was about as neutral and as limp of a personality that I've encountered in a person working in a restaurant.  She wasn't friendly, nor was she mean.  She wasn't happy or sad.  My server was, well, sort of void of any temperament or charisma. 

I looked through the menu and it is pretty extensive at Double Dogs.  Even thought I was looking for a burger, they also had a number of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, and even pizza.  You could also order up to 100 pieces of either chicken wings or chicken tenders and the type of sauces they would put on them went from Bow Wow Hot, to Smokin' Hot, to Double Dog Hot, to Double Dog Dare You Hot.  And, of course, they had hot dogs and chili dogs, made with Hebrew National all-beef wieners.  

The burger part of the menu was also pretty extensive.  They had about ten different burgers to choose from including the California Buffalo Burger - a patty of ground buffalo meat topped with fresh spinach, tomatoes, red onion, dijon mustard, a homemade lime sour cream and provolone cheese.  They also had the Betty Burger - a Black Angus beef patty topped with a homemade special sauce, grilled onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles and American cheese.  Compared to some of the others, the Betty Burger was pretty low key.

I had my eyes on the Jalapeno Burger - jalapenos with pepperjack cheese; or the Bleu Cheese Burger topped with bleu cheese crumbles; or the Breakfast Burger that was topped with a fried egg, American cheese, and bacon and served on an egg bun; or the Mushroom Swiss Burger.  They also had something called the "Big John" that featured two beef patties and two split hot dogs, then topped with chili, two different types of cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, mayo and mustard.  Uh, no.  I'm not going to get that.

Actually, it got down to the Breakfast Burger and the Mushroom Swiss Burger.  I decided upon the Mushroom Swiss Burger with a side of fries and I asked my server/bartender if I could get some bacon on that, as well.  "Well, yeah, sure," she shrugged.  "I guess so."  Maybe people are a little more laid back in Bowling Green than what I'm used to. 

About 15 minutes later, another young lady brought my burger out to me.  It was served open faced with copious amounts of dijon mustard on the bun.  Two slices of bacon were cris-crossed on top of the burger that was covered in a generous amount of Swiss cheese.  The burger also had some grilled onions.  I like grilled onions, but they generally don't like me after I've eaten them.  

The first bite of the burger was a wonderful taste sensation.  The bun was soft and chewy, the burger patty was juicy and full of flavor.  The bacon and Swiss cheese were a nice complement to the burger, and even the dijon mustard didn't detract from the overall taste of the burger.  As I continued, I was struck by how good the burger really was.  I was pleasantly surprised by the taste of the burger.

The fries, on the other had, were - well - awful.  First of all, they had too much of a salty seasoning on them.  They were sort of lukewarm like they'd been sitting in a pan for awhile.  But the seasoning - way too much of it - made them nearly inedible.  That's OK, I was more interested in the burger.  And the burger more than made up for the craptastic fries at Double Dogs.   

So, other than the overseasoned and lukewarm fries and the lack of personality my server/bartender displayed, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with the burger I got at Double Dogs.  I quickly got over the fact that it was part of a larger corporation overseeing other restaurants.  The burger was damned good.  I liked the sports-themed atmosphere at Double Dogs and thought to myself that I wish something like that would be available back home in the Quad Cities.  If I lived in Bowling Green and wanted to catch multiple games on television, Double Dogs would be my first choice.  Granted, I don't know many - if any - other sports bars in the area, but Double Dogs was pleasant enough for me.       

Winstead's - Kansas City

Late last year on a trip to Kansas City, I found out about the Kansas City Casual Food Chowdown contest that was sponsored by the Kansas City Star in 2011.  I was somewhat surprised to see one of the finalists for the Best Burger category was a local area chain that I had known about for years by the name of Winstead's.  I had driven past a Winstead's location many, many times over the past 30+ years during all my travels to Kansas City, but I had never stopped in to have one of their burgers.  Since it finished second to the great burger that is served over at Westport Flea Market, I thought I'd better find out what Kansas Citians were talking about.   

Winstead's has a very long and interesting history behind them.  The first Winstead's opened as a root beer/hamburger stand in Springfield, IL in 1936.  Kathryn Winstead pioneered what was one of the first drive-in restaurants in the U.S. where people would back into a stall, flash their lights and a car hop would come out to take their order.  Burgers made from ground steak, flattened on a flat top grill were a favorite for many people in Central Illinois. 

Around 1938, Kathryn Winstead's brother, Jack, opened a Winstead's location in nearby Jacksonville, IL.  A sister of Kathryn and Jack's opened a location in Fort Wayne, IN, and another sister, Nelle, opened a location in Sedalia, MO.  Nelle married a local Sedalia banker by the name of Gordon Montgomery and the two began to talk to older sister Kathryn about opening a location in the Country Club Plaza development area in Kansas City, MO.

When the Winstead sisters found a location around 47th and Main in the new Country Club Plaza development, they were hesitant to open a burger joint because Kansas City was run by local political machine boss Tom Pendergast and all new development in south central Kansas City was run through the equally powerful J.C Nichols.  Although they feared Pendergast and knew that he could easily run them out of business if he wanted, the sisters forged ahead and opened their first Winstead's in Kansas City in 1940.  

J.C. Nichols took pity on the sisters, looking down his nose at their root beer/hamburger stand and only charged the sisters for rent on the property.  When beef became rationed during World War II, the sisters found themselves having to scramble to keep their place open.  However, after the war ended, business began to flourish.  They eventually bought the property from J.C. Nichols and grew their business as the automobile revolution hit in the 50's.  On a good day, Winstead's would serve over 5000 burgers.

Pictured at right - The first Winstead's in Kansas City. (Photo courtesy Beth Partin.) 

In 1952, Kathryn Winstead retired from the business. Amassing a nice little nest egg from the little burger stand, she turned over the reins of the business to Nelle and Gordon Montgomery.  The Montgomery's did a little internal expanding in the following years. 

French fries were introduced in 1957 along with milkshakes at Winsteads.  Many a first date was had at Winstead's and many of those first dates turned into marriages.  The married couples would eventually take their kids to Winstead's for their first restaurant burger.  Winstead's has served generations of Kansas Citians over the years. 

Two years after the death of Kathryn Winstead in 1967, the Montgomery's sold the Winstead's stand to Morris and Victor Lerner, brothers who owned King Louie International, a Kansas City-based corporation that ran bowling alleys and made bowling attire.  The Lerner's expanded by opening two new Winstead locations - one in North Kansas City and the other in Overland Park, KS.  (Nelle Winstead Montgomery died in 1990 at the age of 92.  Gordon Montgomery passed 14 months after her death.)

In 1982, the Lerner family sold King Louie International to an investment group.  The investment group was not interested in the Winstead restaurants and they looked at either closing or divesting themselves of the small chain. In stepped local restaurateur Nabil Haddad.  

Haddad had an interesting life up to that point - he was a millionaire at the age of 19 by selling American rock and roll records along with American books from authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac and John Steinbeck in a small shop in present day Palestine.  At night, Haddad would retire to a small shack and sold burgers and Coca-Cola's to a zealous group of enthusiasts.  Haddad would say later that it was the first hamburger stand in the Middle East.  

Due to political turmoil in Palastine in 1963, Haddad was sent to live with relatives in Baghdad.  However, a week after he arrived, a military coup toppled the Iraqi government and Haddad spent some time in an Iraqi prison.  After being released later that year, Haddad eventually made it to the United States where he began to work for a McDonald's franchise.  Haddad later became a franchisee and a major stockholder in the McDonalds' corporation.  He ended up buying other restaurants in and around the Kansas City area and founded the Haddad Restaurant Group in the early 90's along with his sons, David and Abraham.  Today, the Haddad Restaurant Group oversees 9 Winstead locations in the greater Kansas City area.  

The location on Metcalf at 80th St. in Overland Park (see map) is the one I have driven by dozens of times over the past few years.  In fact, one of my old dealers in Kansas City had a location just behind the Winstead's on Floyd St. (picture below left courtesy Kansas Travel.org)   Each of the Winstead locations have a distinctive tower on the front of an art deco-style building.   

The interior of the Winstead's in Overland Park is brightly lit and downright spiffy.  Comfortable chairs surround sturdy tables sitting on a carpeted floor.  There are booths next to large windows along the side.  The kitchen area is in the back corner and open so you can see them making the food from vantage points within the restaurant.    

I took a seat in one of the spacious booths along the windowed wall and a waitress called out, "I'll be with ya in a minute, hon."  It was after the lunch rush and there were, maybe, four other tables occupied while I was in there.  The menu was on the table and I took a look through what they had.  I knew I was going to get a burger, but they also had BLT's, tuna salad, grilled or crispy chicken, and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.   They also serve breakfast sandwiches - egg and sausage, egg and bacon, egg and steak, etc. - from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.  Of course, you can get a Winstead's burger at any time a Winstead's is open.  Most of them are open from 6:30 to midnight (1 a.m. on the weekends), but the original location near 47th and Main in Kansas City, MO has a 24 hour drive thru lane.  

I really didn't know what to expect from a Winstead's burger, but sort of got the idea that it was similar to a Steak 'n Shake burger - a chain that preceded Winstead's and who opened their first location up the road from Springfield, IL, in Normal, IL in 1934.  I do like a Steak 'n Shake burger, but I find them to be not a very good value.  Because of that, I haven't eaten in a Steak 'n Shake for probably 15 years.  

When the waitress showed up, I decided on getting a double Winstead burger with everything.  Everything are your four main toppings and condiments - ketchup, mustard, onions (grilled or raw) and pickles.  You can also add mayo for no charge.  For a 39 cent upcharge you can get cheese on your Winstead burger.  Bacon is an additional 95 cents, and lettuce and tomato are an extra 15 and 20 cents, respectively.  Although I do like cheese on my burger, I decided for my first Winstead's burger to just get it plain.  The waitress asked if I wanted any fries or onion rings.  I said, "Nope.  Just the burger is fine." 

"Do you want a soda or a shake," she asked.  I told her I just wanted water.  She shrugged her shoulders and said, "All right.  You're pretty easy!"   

The burger came out in less than ten minutes and was wrapped in a small piece of wax paper, the old-style way of holding onto the burger as you ate it without getting your hands greasy.  I discarded the paper before I ate the burger because I like the feel of the juices on my fingers.   

The burger featured two flattened patties of ground steak meat and had a little bit of a crust on the outer shell of the meat.  A nice fresh onion slice and copious amounts of dill pickles were on the burger along with a splash of ketchup and mustard.  

My first bite of a Winstead's burger yielded a wonderful taste in my mouth.  As I've said many times in the past, I'm not sold on the "smashed" burger concept, but I'm quickly warming up to it.  While the outer shell of the patty did have a little crunch to the bite, it seared in the juices that gave the burger a great taste.  The bun wasn't large, but it was flavorful and added to the overall superb taste of the burger.  I made quick work of the burger, left $4.50 on the table for the burger and a small tip for the waitress, and left feeling good about my first Winstead's burger.

Not really knowing about Winstead's before my first visit was, I was happily surprised at how good their burgers are.  For generations of Kansas Citians who grew up eating Winstead's burgers, it's no wonder that they made it to the finals of the Casual Food Chowdown in the burger division.  My first Winstead burger was a pleasurable experience, one that I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I wish I would have known how good the burgers were long before this.   I thought the burger at Winstead's was better than any I've had at a Steak 'n Shake and it was a MUCH better value.  While I would probably go to Westport Flea Market before I'd go anyplace else in Kansas City for a burger, I can't deny that Winstead's makes a pretty damn good burger.  One that I would easily go back to have again at some point.  

The Cafe - Ames, IA

A tip of the hat to a gentleman who calls himself "Prexcoble" who left a comment on the entry I had for Oddfellows Burger Kitchen in Ames, IA (see that entry here).  He suggested that before I do my Best Burger List for 2012 (see that entry here), I needed to try the burger at The Cafe in Ames, IA.  I didn't get there in time to do that, but I was in Ames recently working on a problem that a customer was having with one of the products we sell.  After I finished up with that, I decided to go have lunch at The Cafe.

The Cafe is located in the north part of Ames on Northridge Parkway along with a number of other businesses and restaurants in the Somer Street neighborhood. (see map)  In fact, a dealer that I called on for awhile was located just down the street from The Cafe.  But until this visit, I had never been in the place before.  

Actually, The Cafe will celebrate their 10th anniversary next month.  The original owners, Bob Cummings, Kevin Rettig and Pat Breen opened their doors in February of 2003.  In doing a little digging on the three, I found that Breen is the owner of the popular Aunt Maude's restaurant in downtown Ames, and that Cummings was the owner of O'Malley's and McGee's, a Mexican restaurant that closed down a few years ago.  I believe Cummings is the managing partner of The Cafe.  

I parked on the street in front of The Cafe (there's also parking in the rear) and went inside just before 2 p.m.  I was standing there for quite some time at the hostess stand before a young lady finally came up to me after a couple minutes and asked if I needed any help.  "I'd like to get some lunch," I replied.

She looked at her watch and said, "Well, we quit serving lunch at 2. (It was still before 2 on my clock on my phone.) Let me check."  She went away for a moment and I saw her talking to another lady and pointing in my direction.  The other lady looked at a clock in the kitchen area and she came up to me.  She cheerfully said, "Sure, we can get you in.  It's officially 1:58 on the clock."  The place was packed with diners and I thought it was rather strange to have the cut off so early, but there are restaurants that do changeovers from lunch to dinner after the noon rush.  As the young lady ushered me back to a booth, I heard the first girl who greeted me say in a not-very-nice tone to the cook staff, "We have ONE MORE for lunch!"  I half expected to hear groans and words of derision from the staff they way she said it.  But they didn't.

I was seated in a booth in one of the two dining areas at The Cafe.  There's a second dining area in the bar area in the back of the place (pictured right). There is also a small coffee shop/bakery off to the side of the front entrance.  I took a number of pictures of the place, but none of them turned out.  The lighting in the place was a mix of reduced direct lighting and natural light coming in from the large windows in the front of the restaurant.  The lighting played havoc with any type of good picture that I wanted to get.  

The hostess left off a menu with me, and even though I knew that I was just going to get a burger I wanted to see what else The Cafe had to offer.  The menu isn't that extensive so it was sort of perplexing to me why they needed a changeover between lunch and dinner.  In fact, the only thing that was different from the lunch part of the menu were five entrees that included wood-grilled salmon, a chicken entree, duck breast and couple others.  But I only eat at restaurants and don't run one, so I don't fully understand how they work behind the scenes.    

The menu items at The Cafe are locally sourced and some items are made in house.  They encase their own fennel sausage for their pizza at The Cafe and they use locally grown beef for their burger and New York strip steak.  Nearly all of the meats that are made for entrees, sandwiches or salads are cooked over an oak wood-fire grill.  The wonderful smell of smoldering oak wood was prevalent throughout the restaurant.  

Because it was still busy, it took some time for a server to come over.  Finally, after sitting for about five minutes, a tall, personable young lady by the name of Paula came by to greet me.  She said, "I'm sorry I haven't been over sooner.  Can I get you something to drink?"

I told her, "Sure, and I pretty much know what I'm going to have for lunch, too."

Surprised, Paula said, "Oh!  OK!  Do you want to hear the specials we have?"  I told her I did not.  "Go ahead," she exclaimed.  I ordered the Cafe Burger - a half-pound wood grilled burger topped with white cheddar cheese and Russian dressing, with lettuce, tomato and pickled onions served on a kaiser/rosemary bun that, I'm guessing, is made in their bakery.  For a buck more, I asked Paula to put some bacon on the burger.  Homemade potato chips came with the burger.

It took about 15 minutes for the burger to come out to me after I ordered.   The lettuce, tomato slice and pickled onions were set off to the side.  I tried one of the pickled onions before I put them on the burger and they tasted excellent.  Two thick pieces of bacon laid on top of the thick burger patty. 

The bun had enough rosemary on it that you could smell the herb from two feet away.  I was worried that it may overpower the overall taste of the burger, but from my first bite into the burger, my fears went away.  

The burger was cooked with a little hint of pink in the middle - a tad more overdone than I like, but it was still good.  I wasn't certain that I cared for the Russian dressing on the burger, but I do like Russian dressing on salads.  I should have gotten the dressing on the side. But, the wood-grilled taste of the burger was wonderful, and the burger patty, itself, was moist, but not really juicy.  

The highlight was the kaiser/rosemary bun.  It had a somewhat crunchy crown, but it yielded a moist and chewy inner core.  It was spongy and it could easily be mashed to be able to take a full bite of the burger.  The great thing about it - the rosemary didn't fall off when I mashed it down.  The rosemary was a great additional taste to what was already a pretty fine burger.  

And the burger was a belt buster, too.  I was able to finish the burger, but I was satiably full afterward.  Not to the point that I felt that I overate, but more to the point that I knew that I wouldn't need a big dinner that evening.

Where would I put the Cafe Burger from The Cafe on my best burger list?  It's probably more of a gourmet burger than one you'd find in a greasy old burger joint.  I would probably put it on my honorable mention list, but I think the burger over at Oddfellows was more pleasing to me.  That's not to say the burger at The Cafe wasn't good - far from it.  It is a very good burger and one that I wouldn't have any problem having again.  I'll just have to make sure that I'm REALLY hungry and that it's well before 2 p.m. if I get back there for lunch.  

Scotty's Lakehouse - Fishers, IN

With business picking up in Indianapolis, I've found myself heading east along I-74 more often over the past few months.  After a day that included a couple stops to visit dealers along the way, I pulled into my hotel in Fishers around 8:30 p.m., tired and hungry. I was looking for something new to try in the area and with the help of both Yelp and Urbanspoon, I found a place called Scotty's Lakehouse about a 10 minute drive away from the hotel.

Scotty's Lakehouse is sort of a misnomer because it's located in a strip mall at the corner of Fall Creek Road and Brooks School Road in Fishers. (see map)  It is, however near the Geist Reservoir, a large lake that supplies the city of Indianapolis and surrounding communities their drinking water.  Scotty's Lakehouse is part of the Scotty's Brewhouse empire, a small local chain of brewpubs and burger joints scattered throughout Indiana.

The guy behind Scotty's is Scott Wise (pictured right), a Muncie native who didn't really want to follow in his father's footsteps of running the family's construction and development business.  Wise left Muncie to go to DePauw University for a year, then returned to Muncie to finish his schooling at Ball State.  During his time in college, Wise worked at restaurants as a waiter and found that he really liked the food service industry.  After graduating from Ball State in 1995, Wise struck out for Houston working as a copywriter for a large sporting goods chain.  But he soon found himself back home in Muncie working for his father's business. 

In 1996, Wise saw that a run-down campus-area bar was for sale and he went to his father with a business plan to help him finance the purchase.  He was able to buy the bar for $65,000 and with hard work on his end he transformed the old place into the first Scotty's Brewhouse.  He wanted to have a brewing operation on the premises, but didn't have th finances to do so at the time.  Instead, he focused on serving eclectic beers brewed elsewhere.   

Focusing on locations in college towns, Wise opened the second Scotty's Brewhouse in Bloomington, home of Indiana University, in 2001.  Three years later, he opened his third Scotty's in West Lafayette near Purdue University.  In 2006, he ventured into the Indianapolis market and opened his fourth Scotty's Brewhouse on East 96th Street in the north part of town.  He opened a downtown Indy location in 2009, and just last year opened his sixth Scotty's location on the south side of the city on Southport Road.  Wise also owns Scotty's Burger Joint in Columbus, IN, a restaurant that focuses on locally sourced and organic foods; and finally was able to open his own brewpub, Thr3e Wise Men, in Indianapolis' Broad Ripple neighborhood in 2011.  Sometimes, you'll even see Wise getting back to his roots at one of his restaurants helping out behind the bar or delivering food to your table.  

One of my problems traveling to Indianapolis from the west is that I lose an hour going into the Eastern Time Zone.  So, my body clock is telling me that it's 7:30, but the clocks everywhere else are telling me that it's 8:30.  It's difficult to find a restaurant that will serve past 9 p.m. through the week and I always worry about pissing off the staff if I walk into a place 10 minutes before closing because they're wanting to get out of there sooner than later.  Scotty's Lakehouse stays open until 11 p.m. through the week (1 p.m. on the weekends and 10 p.m. on Sunday) so I wasn't worried about having to hurry up and eat. 

Scotty's Lakehouse is more like a sports bar with a couple dining areas and a number of televisions hung throughout the place.  I took a seat at the bar of Scotty's Lakehouse and a young bartender handed me a menu and took my drink order.  The beer menu wasn't as large as I thought it would be and they only had a handful of craft brews available.  I ended up ordering one of the Thr3e Wise Men Centennial Martyr Double IPA.  I like forward and hoppy tasting beers, but even for me it was a little too much.  It was definitely a sipping beer.  

Like it's cousin restaurant, Scotty's Burger Joint, Scotty's Lakehouse sources the items found on their menu from local growers with a focus on organic ingredients.  The ground beef, ground turkey, sausage and bacon items on the menu come from Moody's Meats at Lone Pine Farms, a Ladoga, IN-based butcher who specializes in free-range and organically raised poultry, beef, lamb and pork.   

Scotty's Lakehouse features a number of gourmet burgers on the menu.  In addition to burgers, they also have a number of "Not Burgers" sandwiches, salads, appetizers and three different types of gourmet "mac and cheese" items including one with rotini pasta, chicken, peas, applewood smoked bacon, fresh mozzarella, parmesan, fresh garlic and basil.  Quite actually, that was pretty tempting to me to try as a main entree that evening.

But I decided that a burger would be fine with me.  Of the nearly dozen and a half burgers, I only found a couple three that were appealing to me.  They had a bison burger with chunky blue cheese dressing, as well as a burger with Vermont white cheddar cheese and garlic mayo.  I stayed away from the burger with peanut butter, jalapenos, mild cheddar and applewood smoked bacon (although I did contemplate ordering it without the peanut butter) and ended up ordering the #3 burger - a burger topped with a fried egg, smoked gouda cheese, applewood bacon and finished with a dollop of homemade chipotle ketchup.  

I had my choice of sides and at Scotty's Lakehouse they feature three different variations of French fries.  The house fries are seasoned with sea salt, black pepper, parmesan cheese, garlic and parsley.  They also have the Thr3e Wise Men fries with a secret seasoning and vanilla sweet potato fries that are served with ketchup, a marshmellow creme sauce and a caramel sauce.  Caramel sauce?  On sweet potato fries?  Uh, no.  I'll pass on that.  I just ended up ordering the house fries.  

The bartender gave me my silverware wrapped up in what appeared to be a ratty old hand towel.  That was my napkin for the evening.  It was sort of tattered on the edges and looked to be much older than the two plus years Scotty's Lakehouse has been open.  I didn't know if it was intentionally tacky or if they just needed to get a slew of new towels.  It was about the only thing out of character for Scotty's Lakehouse that I found.

Good gourmet burgers take a bit to cook, so about 20 minutes after I ordered another person brought my burger out to me.  I had finished the Double IPA and the bartender asked me if I wanted another one.  I took a look through the beer menu again and was having trouble finding one to my liking.  I ended up just ordering an IPA from Flat 12 Bierwerks, a local microbrew in the Indy area.  It was not quite as hoppy as the Thr3e Wise Men Double IPA and more smooth to drink.  Still, I wasn't overly enamored with the taste.  

The burger was thick and juicy, covered with the smoked gouda and topped with a hard fried egg (I ordered it that way to keep the messiness at bay) and criss-crossed with the applewood smoked bacon.  The taste of the burger was good, well above average for your typical burger, but down the scale on what I would call a good to great gourmet burge.  I couldn't discern much chipotle spiciness in the ketchup, but it wasn't overpowering in the least.  The bun had a hard, but thin crunchy outer shell and was chewy and flavorful, as well.  It was a good complement to the burger.

The fries were served in a small container with wax paper that was designed to look like newsprint.  The thick cut fries were a little too salty to my taste and the parmesan cheese made them even more rich. Three different dipping sauces came with the fries - the chipotle ketchup that, once again, wasn't all that spicy, a garlic mayo sauce, and a spicy brown mustard sauce made with Wee Mac Scottish Ale from the Sun King microbrewery in Indianapolis.  None of the dipping sauces were spectacular, but the garlic mayo had a hint of the spicy brown mustard in it along with an essence of lime and lemon juices.  

While I can't say the burger I had at Scotty's Lakehouse was spectacular, it was still a pretty good burger. I couldn't put it on par with some other gourmet burgers that I've had in the past and I would possibly give it an honorable mention if I stacked it up against other burgers that I've had in the past.  Still, the burger at Scotty's was good enough, but probably nothing that I'd seek out again if I was in the area.  I'm definitely going to try out a Scotty's Brewhouse at some point as I was disappointed in the beer selection at Scotty's Lakehouse.  But all in all, it was a good burger and one that I'd recommend trying at least once.  (Picture courtesy Yelp.com)

House of Coates - Coates, MN

Traveling along Highway 52 between Rochester, MN and the Twin Cities, I've seen a small roadside place near the small town of Coates by the name of House of Coates.  A large sign near the establishment along a four-lane stretch of the road touts their burgers.  On a trip to the Twin Cities recently, I decided to stop in and try one of their burgers.  (Picture courtesy Bill Roehl.)

House of Coates is a little roadside bar/restaurant on a frontage road outside of Coates, which is an small town just south and east of Rosemount.  (see map)  There are a couple ways to get to the place when you're heading north on Highway 52.  You can get off on the highway at the Minnesota Highway 46 exit and take the east side frontage road to the place.  Or if you pass it, there's an entrance to the frontage road that you can take about a quarter mile north of the place that allows you to double back.  (If you're heading south on Highway 52, take the Highway 46 exit, take a left to go across the bridge to a left turn on the east frontage road and there you are.)

The House of Coates started in 1962 when Ed Bohn bought a little roadside gas station and opened a bar/restaurant next door.  His kids, Mike, Kathy and Patty, all helped out running the place.  When Ed decided to slow down about 25 years ago, he ended up selling the place to Mike and his wife, Kim.  Kathy and Patty, along with their husbands, as well as a slew of other Bohn relatives and descendants work in the place.  

Pictured right - Mike and Kim Bohn.  (Picture courtesy apple valley-rosemount patch.com) 

House of Coates has been on my radar since first reading about the place in Minnesota Monthly magazine about four years ago when they were named one of the top burger places in the state.  Their Swanee Burger - a half-pound hand-pattied burger topped with grilled onions, American cheese and bacon with an option of blue cheese dressing - is House of Coates signature burger.  But they also offer noon-time specials, grilled chicken and pork tenderloin sandwiches and a series of appetizers including their homemade onion rings.  

From the outside, House of Coates doesn't look like much.  The weathered boards on the top of the place give it a rustic, yet somewhat rundown look to the exterior.  However, walking in the door reveals a clean and cozy, pine-wood paneled dining room with subdued lighting. The dining area features two levels with booths on top and a series of larger tables on the lower part.    

The bar is to the left as you walk in.  I decided to take a seat at the bar and I was greeted by Kim Bohn who gave me a menu and told me of the lunch special that day.  Suddenly, someone called out from the kitchen area behind the bar to let her know that the lunch special was gone for that day, which I believe was a pork loin dinner.  Kim was sort of surprised when she heard that, then shrugged her shoulders and said, "OK, well, disregard what I just said.  The special went pretty quickly today!"

That's alright, I was there for the burger.  I almost went for their mushroom-Swiss cheese burger, but I decided to try the signature Swanee burger.  When Kim came back to take my order, that's exactly what I told her I wanted.  She asked me if I wanted blue cheese dressing on the burger and I asked if I could get it on the side.  No problem with that.  She tried to tempt me into a half-order of their French fries, but I declined.  The burger would be enough.  

The burger took about 15 to 20 minutes to come out to me.  It came on a small plate with a dill pickle spear.  The bun was thick, but it was very light and airy, almost spongy to the touch.  The burger had an ample amount of grilled onions on it underneath a couple slices of American cheese and three small pieces of crispy bacon.    

It was slightly overcooked from the medium I had ordered. I think of medium as having some pink in the middle, but there was just a small bit of pink in the beef.  But it was still juicy and flavorful.  The bun was a nice compliment to the burger, once again furthering my belief that a good bun is the key to a good burger.  

I tried a little bit of the blue cheese dressing on a couple bites of the burger.  The chunks of blue cheese in the creamy dressing were large and zesty in taste.  While I wouldn't have wanted blue cheese in every bite of the Swanee burger, it was a nice compliment to the taste.  

Kim Bohn came back and asked me how the burger was and I gave her a thumbs up.  Overall, the burger was good, but not one of the best I've ever had.  It would have probably gotten an honorable mention in my recent Best Burger List, but probably wouldn't have gotten a higher ranking.  Maybe I would have liked the Swiss/mushroom burger better.  

The Swanee Burger was certainly a good value, though.  It was $6.99 for the burger and it was filling.  I'm glad I didn't get the fries, but the onion rings that a guy a couple seats over had ordered looked pretty good.  I usually don't go to the Twin Cities along Highway 52 all that often, as in - maybe - three or four times in the past 10 years.  But I would like to stop back into House of Coates and try the Swiss/mushroom burger at some point.  I may have to take that way home from the Twin Cities sometime in the future.  It was a pretty cool place to visit.  

Best Burger List - 2012

It's the end of 2012, but never too late for updating Road Tips' Best Burger List for the year.  I've done some things a little different.  I still have the Top Ten Burger List, as well as the High Honorable Mention and Honorable Mention selections.  There's now a "Gourmet Burger" list, as well as a list of "Best Chains" combining the best local, regional and national chain burger places.  There's also a listing of "Americana Burgers" - places that have been around for years and adored by locals.  And I now have a list of those burger places that I wish were still around.  By clicking on the highlighted link, you can go directly to the Road Tips entry on each place.

Top Ten Burgers -

1 - Duffy's Cherry Cricket - Denver. (Pictured left) Still the best.  Period.  

2 - Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger - Ann Arbor, MI.  It's been 8 years since I've been to Krazy Jim's and I would love to go back again at some point.  But from what I remember of how great the burger was on my initial visit, I'm almost certain it is still the same.   

3 - Westport Flea Market - Kansas City.  After my visit earlier this year, I've been back one more time to make double damn sure the first burger I had wasn't an anomaly.  The second one was just as good as the first one I had.  It's the type of burger where you go, "Mmmmm..." during the first bite.  

4 -  Monk's Bar and Grill - Wisconsin Rapids, WI.  They dropped in the poll because I had a mushroom/Swiss cheese burger there earlier this year that didn't taste all that good.  But their regular cheese burgers are still outstanding.    

5 - Thurman Cafe - Columbus, OH.  Even with just one visit, the Thurman Cafe was still one of the best burgers I've ever had.  Thick and juicy, the Thurman burger is full flavored and served with a fresh-baked bun.  One of these days I'll make it back for the "Red 'shroom" burger.

6 - Booches - Columbia, MO.  A long time institution near the University of Missouri campus, Booches has been open since 1884 and was once a "men's only" establishment until the 1970's.  Their flat-grilled burgers are to die for.

7 - B&B Grocery - Des Moines, IA.  Appearing the Top 10 for the first time last year, a couple more visits to B&B to try their burger has solidified their standing.  The burgers are large, meaty and juicy.  And don't forget that their sandwiches are "killer", too!  (Pictured at right, a B&B Grocery double cheeseburger.)

8 - Bulldogs Grill - Wauconda, IL.  A newcomer to the Top 10 list.  Bulldogs Grill is a small cafe in a small town north and west of Chicago.  It's definitely a destination and sort of out of the way, but the trip is well worth it.  

9 - Burger Barge - East Peoria, IL.  Consistency problems have plagued Burger Barge in the past, but the past few times I've stopped in has yielded the great tasting burger that I first found a number of years ago.  The Illinois burger - topped with a fried egg and a slice of ham - is my favorite.

10 - Green Gables - Hudson, IL - My trip earlier this fall moved them back into the Top Ten.  Green Gables also had consistency issues (thanks to an overzealous worker) a few years ago that they've since overcome.  The flat grill taste of the burgers is one of the best in Midwest.  

High Honorable Mention - (in no particular order) - 

Sobleman's - Milwaukee, WI.  Formerly a Top 10 burger, if there was an 11th place, this would probably be it.  Located in a historic old tavern building just west of Milwaukee's downtown area, Sobleman's has a great burger and cold beer to go along with it.  

Louie M's Burger Lust - Omaha, NE.  One of my favorite burgers from the place with my favorite name for a burger joint.  Lou Marcuzzo's funky little place south of the downtown area of Omaha has been cooking up great specialty burgers for years.  

Tom & Eddie's - Chicago Suburbs.  (Pictured left) A newcomer on the scene of hamburger joints, Tom & Eddie's is the brainchild of two retired McDonald's execs who wanted to take their knowledge of making burgers a couple steps further.  Their "fast casual" concept has garnered a following in the short time they've been open.  It also doesn't hurt that their burgers are damn good, too.  

Lion's Tap - Eden Prairie, MN.  It may be the best burger in the Twin Cities.  Flat grilled and tantalizingly juicy, it's tough to beat a Lion's Tap burger.   

Moonshine Store - Moonshine, IL.  See below in the Americana section. 

The Ritz - Arnolds Park, IA.  The runner-up in the 2012 "Best Burger in Iowa" contest.  After having the burger at The Ritz earlier this summer, I wondered how in the hell they could get beat out by 2/10ths of a point.  Great burger, great bun, fun atmosphere.  They also have excellent pizza at The Ritz.  

Dinkers Bar - Omaha, NE.  I was sort of embarrassed that I hadn't heard about Dinker's before this year.  This cash only establishment makes a great burger and their sign out front says, "Omaha's Best Burger".  I don't know about that, but they're definitely in the top 3 when it comes to best burger in Omaha and one of the top places I've found in the Midwest.

Solly's - Glendale, WI.  Also a former Top 10 burger, Solly's "Butter Burger" is an artery-hardening burger of goodness. I haven't been in Solly's for a couple years and I really need to do a better blog entry than the original one I have.  I think there's a couple other places in Milwaukee that have a better burger, but Solly's is a longtime favorite of Milwaukeans.   

Smoking Harry's - Creston, IL.  If you can get past the fact that this little bar in the small town of Creston, south of Rockford, is not very fancy and only features a long bar in what was probably the living room of an old farm house, then you can enjoy one helluva burger.  Smoking Harry still sneaks smokes in the bar when patrons aren't there, so you may smell cigarette smoke in the establishment.  But don't let that deter you from enjoying a great burger served on a wonderful bun. 

Creekside Bar and Grill - Davenport, IA.  I still think their mushroom/bacon/Swiss cheese burger (pictured at right) is one of the better ones I've had in my travels.  I wish they would have a flat grill instead of a flame grill, but the burgers are still top notch.  It's still one of the biggest secrets in the Quad Cities.  

Rusty Duck - Dexter, IA.  The winner of the "Best Burger in Iowa" contest in 2011, this small steakhouse west of Des Moines makes their burgers by grinding up excess cuts of steak meat.  The Ultimate Cheeseburger is huge, so you need to bring a healthy appetite - or another person with you!

Blue Door Pub - St. Paul, MN.  The cheese-stuffed "Juicy Lucy" is the signature burger of many Twin City burger joints.  There are places that are more famous for their cheese-stuffed burgers, but - in my opinion - none are better than the Blue Door Pub.

Stella's - Bellevue, NE.  An old favorite in the Omaha area.  Stella's has been in business since 1930 making great burgers.  It's a small place that caters to blue collar workers, company executives and some of the top brass at the nearby Offutt Air Force Base.  

Starlite Room - Cedar Rapids, IA.  (Pictured left) The oval shaped burgers at the Starlite Room have been satisfying the hunger of Cedar Rapidians for years.  The half-pound, flat-grilled "Super Cheeseburger" could be the best burger between Interstate 35 and the Mississippi River in Iowa. 

Zombie Burger - Des Moines, IA.  George Formaro's fun and hip burger joint features a number of funky and eclectic burgers made from smashed patties - sorry, BASHED patties - and South Union Bakery homemade buns.  A double burger is my norm, but a triple is do-able.  

AJ Bombers - Milwaukee, WI.  Right up there with Sobleman's for the best burger in Milwaukee, AJ Bombers has a char-grilled burger that isn't overpowering in smoky taste.  The juicy burger is definitely helped by a great tasting bun - one the of hidden characteristics of a great burger.  Prepare to use at least six napkins when eating an AJ Bombers burger.

Town Hall Tap - Minneapolis, MN.  A surprising find of a great burger joint on the south side of Minneapolis.   Town Hall Tap is the offshoot of the Town Hall Brewpub.  With it's open windows, large bar and outside seating, Town Hall Tap is a great summertime place to have a burger and a cold beer.  The burger is just excellent.

Honorable Mention - (also in no particular order) - 

Serious Burger - Appleton, WI.  The owner's legal troubles now behind him, Serious Burger is still going strong in the Fox Valley region.  I just had a burger there earlier this fall and it was still as good as the first visit I had.

Top Notch Beefburgers - Chicago. A legendary Chicagoland burger joint for the past 70 years.  The ground round steak they use is a different taste and one that thousands have enjoyed for years.

Cafe Bolero - Chicago.  A Cuban restaurant with a great burger?  Yep!  The burger with mixed up chunks of jalapenos, onions and cheese is very good.  (Pictured at right)

The Nook - St. Paul, MN.  The owners suffered a devasting fire two years ago, but they've rebuilt and reopened serving an excellent "Juicy Lucy" burger.  It's only second to the Blue Door Pub in the Twin Cities.

Grinnell Steakhouse - Grinnell, IA.  This "grill-your-own" steakhouse just off of Interstate 80 south of Grinnell has a mighty fine char-broiled burger that they cook up in the kitchen.  It's meaty, juicy and flavorful.   

Jack's Locust Street Tap - Davenport, IA.  One of my all-time favorite dive-bar hangouts has a great burger.  But you have to go during the day, Tuesday thru Friday because that's when Karen works and no one else can make them as good as she does at Jack's.  I need to do a better blog entry on Jack's than the one I have now.

Burger Jones - Minneapolis.  Owned by the same people who run the world-famous Manny's Steak House, Burger Jones is an upscale burger joint that features good burgers, a great beer selection and good service.  Why anyone in the Twin Cities want to go to a Red Robin when they can get a much better seasoned burger at Burger Jones?

Dotty Dumpling's Dowry - Madison, WI.  While I don't think they're as good as they were in their old location, Dotty's still makes the best burger in Madison.  They have a great beer selection and their jambalaya is actually pretty good, as well.  

Major Goolsby's - Milwaukee, WI.  (Pictured at left) One of the top sports bars in Milwaukee, their flame-broiled burgers are big and juicy.  A long-time mainstay at Summerfest, a Goolsby cheeseburger just melts in your mouth.  

Two Mits - Elkader, IA.  See American section below.

Charlie Beinlich's - Northbrook, IL.  This little longtime burger joint/tavern almost looks out of place with all the upscale stores that are around the immediate area.  Their burger is very good - the best in the northern shore suburbs of Chicago.  

Alfie's Inn - Glen Ellyn, IL.  And old time supper club-style place, Alfie's ground sirloin burger is one of the best in the western suburbs of Chicago.   

Duffy's Tavern - Utica, IL.  An long time, old style tavern in Central Illinois that serves a great burger along with a good selection of cold beer.  It's a destination point for many motorcyclists and you may have to wait for a table on a warm day.  

Newt's - Rochester, MN.  Minnesota Monthly magazine called Newt's the 17th best burger in Minnesota a few years ago.  They need a recount.  This is a damn fine burger.

Hackney's - Glenview, IL.  The original Hackney's on Harms features their excellent "Hackney Burger" served on dark rye bread.  I'm partial to the original, but actually all the Hackney locations make a very good burger.   

Oddfellow's Burger Kitchen - Ames, IA.  A newcomer to the restaurant scene in Ames.  Their green chile/cheeseburger (pictured right) I had on my first visit was outstanding.  I'm hoping they're able to make a go of it.  

O'Connell's Pub - St. Louis.  Still the best of the best in St. Louis, a town that really isn't known for burgers.  This old style tavern/eatery serves up an excellent burger in a place that probably hasn't been updated since the 30's.  

Paradise Pup - Des Plaines, IL.  A little place near O'Hare in suburban Des Plaines, I think they use a little too much cheese on their burgers.  But it's a gourmet cheese that helps the overall taste of what is already a very good burger. 

Blue Moon - Madison, WI.  Locals in the Madison area will debate what is better - Dotty's or the Blue Moon.  I'm still sort of partial to Dotty's, but I don't think you can go wrong with a Blue Moon burger.

Gourmet Burgers -

Atwood Cafe - Chicago. (Pictured left) I've tried a number of gourmet burgers over the years, but I was just floored by the taste and quality of the burger at the Atwood Cafe in downtown Chicago.  It's not cheap, but the taste of the burger was one of the best I've ever had.  If I included gourmet burgers in my Top Ten burger list, Atwood Cafe would probably be in the top three.  

Merriman's Market Cafe - Waikoloa Beach, HI.  If the burger at Atwood Cafe is the No. 1 gourmet burger on my list, Merriman's burger would be 1A.  The thing that still sticks out in my mind is how fresh the tomatoes were that were on the burger.  I've never had tomatoes that tasted as good as the ones I had in Hawaii.

DMK Burger Bar - Lombard, IL.  DMK burgers are outstanding.  I've only eaten at the western suburban location, but I'm certain the other location is just as good.  

I ♥ Burgers - Las Vegas.  This was a great find by one of my colleagues.  Nestled into a corner of the shopping area at the Venetian, the Standard burger with a fried egg, pepper jack cheese and roasted green chilies that I got was just outstanding.  I ♥ Burgers is on my "must eat at" list when I get back out to Vegas next month.  

Blanc Burgers + Bottles - Kansas City.  Blanc Burgers is branching out into Omaha and their burgers are just outstanding.  They also have an outstanding selection of beers to choose from.  Expensive, but damn well worth the price.  

Bru Burger Bar - Indianapolis.  (Pictured right) A newcomer to the restaurant scene in Indy, Bru Burger Bar combines great gourmet burgers made from a mix of natural-raised sirloin, chuck and brisket, and a list of great craft brews.  The burger and the service was just outstanding.    

Jack Fry's - Louisville.  Still sort of a pretentious and somewhat snooty place, they have a great burger at Jack Fry's.  I've been there a couple times to order the burger and both times I sort of got looked down the nose by the server when I ordered the burger.  Getting past that, it's tough to beat the taste.

Stack'd - Milwaukee.  Although it is somewhat expensive, the Stack'd grass-fed beef burgers are very good.  This trendy place also has a great beer selection and their onion rings are pretty damn good, as well.

Best Americana Burgers -

Hinkle's - Madison, IN.  Located in a small historic town along the Ohio River, Hinkle's has been serving White Castle-style burgers for nearly 80 years.  It's popular with the late night crowd as they stay open 24 hours a day on Friday and Saturday.  The history and quaint nature of the place is worth at least one trip. 

Canteen Lunch - Ottumwa, IA.  (Pictured left) People from Ottumwa are fiercely loyal to their little 12-seater diner that features loose-meat beefburgers.  The secret to a Canteen burger?  Order them "moist".  

Powers Hamburgers - Fort Wayne, IN.  Another White Castle-clone that dates back to the 1930's, Powers Hamburgers is an institution in Fort Wayne.  They're small and have a pretty good taste.  

Maid-Rite (Mr. Dan's Sandwich Shoppe) - Newton, IA.  Of all the Maid-Rite-style sandwich shops out there, I'm partial to the one in my hometown of Newton, IA.  This is the longest continuous Maid-Rite in existence, even if they're not technically a Maid-Rite any longer.  

Nick's Hamburgers - Brookings, SD.  Students at South Dakota State University have known for years that Nick's makes the best burgers in town.  And they keep coming back even years after they graduated from college to have a burger at Nick's.  They've recently remodled and upgraded their little place, but they didn't take the charm out of the place.  

Taylor's Maid-Rite - Marshalltown, IA.  Debates about who has the best Maid-Rites have raged for years.  Taylor's was the third Maid-Rite in existence (behind the original in Muscatine, IA - now closed, and the one in Newton,IA) and many still think it's the best.  

Moonshine Store - Moonshine, IL.  (Pictured right) Not only is the Moonshine Store a big slice of Americana, their Moonshine burger is worthy of a High Honorable Mention.  These flat-grilled, thick and juicy burgers are excellent.  But you have to get there before 12:30 because the grill turns off at precisely then.   

Gross' Burgers - Danville, IL.  A few people may be turned off by the outward display of patriotism - and don't let the name of the place fool you.  The smashed burgers cooked on a flat grill have a unique taste and are pretty damn good.   

Frank's - Zeeland, MI.  Frank's has been serving delicious burgers since 1940.  Once a popular teen hangout in the 50's and 60's, Frank's now caters to the baby-boomers now in their 60's and 70's.  We were, by far, the youngest people in the place when we were in there.   

2 Mit Burgers - Elkader, IA.   Much better than the original Pete's Hamburgers in nearby Prairie du Chien, WI, these flat top, boiled burgers are moist, juicy and flavorful.  It's a completely unique burger.  

George's Buffet - Iowa City, IA.  George's is a unique type of tavern near the University of Iowa campus.  Starting out as a speakeasy in the 30's, then starting to sell beer after Prohibition, they called themselves a "buffet" to ward off the temperance crowd that picketed beer joints.  The burgers are actually nothing special, but it's worth the trip for just the old time dive ambiance.  

Triple XXX - West Lafayette, IN.  Named after brand of root beer and not a porno movie house, Triple XXX has been serving burgers since 1929.  Their "chop steak" burger is actually ground sirloin grilled on a flat grill that has been seasoned with years and years of cooking burgers for students at nearby Purdue University.   

Best of the Chains -

Schoops -  (Pictured left) The Northwest Indiana-based chain of hamburger joints have been serving up their flat-grilled style of burgers since 1948.  

Five Guys Burgers - Huge juicy burgers and a sack full of thick cut French fries, it's no wonder Five Guys is one of the fastest growing burger chains in the nation.

Whataburger - It's been years since I've been to a Whataburger, but it remains one of my favorite of the "made-to-order" fast food places.  A Doublemeat with cheese continues to call my name. 

Fuddruckers - Although they've gone through some hard financial times over the past few years, and they've closed a number of locations, Fuddruckers is still tough to beat.  Big juicy burgers with a great "fixin's" bar.

In 'n' Out - The West Coast icon.  I try to hit an In 'n' Out when I make it out to Las Vegas for trade shows.  It's probably my favorite of them all.

Smashburger - This Denver-based chain of burger joints where they smash the burger patty to give it a nice crusty outer shell will top over 200 locations in the U.S., Canada and Costa Rica in 2013.  While I'm still not big on smashed burger patties, Smashburger is very good.   

Meatheads - Based out of Bloomington, IL and now with 10 locations (and soon to be 11) in Central Illinois and the Chicagoland area, these guys are in direct competition with Five Guys.  The burgers at Meatheads are pretty good, not as good as Five Guys, but a very good alternative.

Runza - I loved the old Kings Food Host burgers and the closest place I've found to their burgers are the ones at Runza.  Runza's burgers are one of the best kept secrets in the Midwest, but you can only find them in Nebraska.   

Don and Millie's - Found in Omaha and Lincoln, Don and Millie's also has a burger that is similar to the old Kings Food Host burgers.  I like to stop at Don and Millie's from time to time to get one of their juicy, made-to-order burgers.

Rest in Peace -

Newstead Tower - St. Louis, MO.  While this place is now closed, I understand that the burger they served at Newstead Tower is now available at its sister restaurant, Five Bistro.  The burger featured locally sourced hormone-free beef and was an outstanding burger.  

The Kitchen - Stillwater, MN.  I had the chance to get a burger at The Kitchen in the Twin Cities suburb of Stillwater before they closed up.  It was just fabulous.  Unfortunately, I had the chance to go back and found that they had closed down.   

Cardinal Lunch - Newton, IA.  Growing up in Newton, IA, the Cardinal Lunch was attached to the Stockton's grocery store and it was a treat to get one of their flat-grilled burgers where they basted the face of the bun with a butter sauce and grilled it next to the burger.  There was no taste like it.   

The Overrated Burgers -

Nitty Gritty - Madison, WI.  I've been there twice.  The first time, they overcooked the burgers so bad that it was inedible. (Pictured right)  And that's not to mention the large hair I found dangling from a piece of one the burgers I was served.  The second time was not much better.  I can't see what the deal is about the Nitty Gritty. 

5-8 Club - Minneapolis, MN.  Cheese-stuffed "Juicy Lucy's" are the rage in the Twin Cities and the debate rages as to who has the better of the two who claim they have the original - 5-8 Club or Matt's Bar.  The two times I've tried 5-8 club, the cheese cooked right out of the burger.  Matt's would have made this list, as well, as they are just so inconsistent on the visits I've had.  But the last time I went in there a couple years ago, I had a great burger.  So, I guess it's hit or miss.   

BLT Burger - Las Vegas, NV.  I've probably eaten at BLT Burger at the Mirage five or six times, and only because of convenience.  The first two times I had their burger, I thought it was good, but not the best.  After subsequent visits, I wondered why anyone would be willing to spend that kind of money on this average of a burger.  Chef Laurent Tourondel needs to focus on his specialty - French bistro food - and not worry about putting his name on an overpriced and very average burger.

Cheeseburger in Paradise - Middleton, WI.  A chain of about two dozen restaurants owned by singer Jimmy Buffett, Cheeseburger in Paradise is nothing more than a money grab for unsuspecting tourists.  Usually found in locations near malls or area attractions, the burgers are far from paradise.     

Cozy Inn - Salina, KS.  "Where's the beef?!"  You need to check out my entry on the Cozy Inn and see the puny amounts of misshapen beef patties they tried to pawn off as a historic piece of Americana.    

Green Gables - Hudson/Lake Bloomington, IL

I'm in the midst of updating my Best Burgers List for 2012 and one place that has been on and off the list since its inception about five years ago has been the Green Gables at Lake Bloomington, north of Bloomington, IL, near Hudson.  I've talked about Green Gables in the past, but had really never done an in-depth look at the place.  While driving between St. Louis and Chicago recently, I was in the area around lunch time.  I got off I-55 and drove north to the Green Gables. 

Located at the corner of E. 2500 North Road and N. 1750 East Road about 15 miles from Bloomington and 6 miles from Hudson (see map), the original building that houses Green Gables was built as a gas station back in 1929 by John Hinthorn.  That was the same year that the city of Bloomington built Lake Bloomington, a 635-acre reservoir to supply water to the city and surrounding communities.  Over the years and through three other owners, the Green Gables expanded to include a country general store.

In 1952, Ross and Marilyn Elvidge bought the establishment and added a bar to the place.  Green Gables continued to pump gas until the Elvidges took out the gas pumps in the late 70's.  In the late 80's, Ross Elvidge retired and his daughter, Julie MacPherson, and her husband ran it for seven years.  Another Elvidge daughter, Sandy Holder, and her husband, Mike, bought the business from her sister.  They continue to run Green Gables today.  

I was first turned on to the Green Gables by my buddy, Jim Kellogg, who used to live in nearby Hudson.  We had gone down to Hudson to see him and his wife, Lori, one day and they took us out to Green Gables.  At that time - about 13 years ago - it was one of the finest burgers I'd ever had.  Subsequent visits to the place reconfirmed my belief that the burgers were still some of the best.  

However, on a trip to Green Gables in 2007, there was something decidedly different about the taste of the Green Gables burger.  It wasn't as good as it had been in the past.  When I reported back to Kellogg that I thought the quality of the burgers had gone downhill.  Thinking I was full of crap, but admitting that he hadn't been out to Green Gables for awhile, he went out there with some friends and they, too, said that the burgers weren't that good.  So, here's the story of the magic grill at Green Gables.

When Ross Elvidge decided to put in a bar, he bought a small flat top grill that was used to cook hamburgers.  Only cleaning off the residue meat and juice, the flat top grill got a build-up of seasoning over the years giving the Green Gables burgers a signature taste.  In 1988 when Ross Elvidge was getting ready to retire, he decided he would just close up Green Gables.  He had a number of offers on the grill and he ended up selling it to someone who wanted it for the years and years of seasoning it had built up on it.  When his daughter, Julie, later decided to buy the business from her father and reopen Green Gables, she had to buy the grill back!

Then a number of years ago, an over-zealous worker decided to clean up around the restaurant.  He cleaned the flat top grill right down to the metal taking the years and years of seasoning of the plate.  After that, the burgers were pretty pedestrian - and I got one of those burgers.  It took months and months for the seasoning to build back up on the flat grill.  I went back in to Green Gables in 2008 and while the burger was better than the time before, it still wasn't as good as I remember it to be on my first few visits.  It had been that long since I was last in Green Gables until earlier this fall and I was hoping that the burger would be back to "normal". 

I was told one time that the secret to the grill was that they used to pour ketchup on the flat top and that's what seasoned the burgers.  But Sandy Holder says that nothing is done to either the grill or to their burgers enhance the taste.  They use no seasonings on their burgers during the cooking process - not even salt and pepper.     

The interior of Green Gables is nothing fancy.  The grocery store is still in operation behind the bar area with a number of tables and chair set up in there for larger parties of people.  (Believe it or not, there was a marriage rehearsal lunch going on with about 16 people seated around a large table in the grocery store.)  In addition to regular grocery items, Green Gables also sells beer and liquor, as well as lures and bait for fishing at nearby Lake Bloomington.  

The bar area features about nine or ten stools at the bar, and little booths back in the corner.  There's a pool table next to the bar.  With a white ceiling and a gray/white checked tiled floor, the place is bright in the daytime.  

I took a seat at the bar in front of the grill and a lady took my order for a double cheeseburger.  She took a couple of small balls of ground beef - an 80/20 mix - and put them on the grill.  Letting them sit for a moment, she smashed them down with a large metal spatula, spraying the juice of the meat onto the grill.  This gets the burgers thin and a double burger is usually about right for most guys and some gals.  As the burgers were taken off the grill, the lady cooking the burger would use the spatula to scrape excess beef bits and juice down into a metal trough on the front of the grill.  And that's it - no wire brush, no cleaning cloth.  They turn the grill off at night and start it up again the next morning.   

The burgers come wrapped up in wax paper.  Ordering "everything" gets you lettuce, tomato, onions and pickle.  Ketchup is available on the counter and mustard is available upon request.   

The burger patties were thin and had that wonderful sort-of-burnt-meat crust on the outside.  My first bite into the first Green Gables burger I'd had in a long time told me that the grill was magical once again.  The taste of the burger was exquisite.  It had that nice flat top grilled taste with the meat cooking in its own juices.  There was still some juiciness to the burger as each bite yielded drips down onto the wax paper.  The bun was soft and added a nice overall flavor to the burger.   But the meat, on its own, was the star of the burger.  The Green Gables burger solidified it's lofty ranking on my Best Burgers list.

And it's a pretty good bargain, too.  A double cheese burger is $3.29 and it's better than many burgers I've had at fancier places where the burgers cost three times as much as the ones at Green Gables.  

Look for my Best Burger list for 2012 to come out shortly, and one burger you'll be sure to see high on the list is the one at Green Gables.  The magic grill is back and hopefully will continue to get better and better as time goes on.  Green Gables is definitely a destination, but damn well worth the trip.  

Gross' Burgers - Danville, IL

I regularly read a handful of blog sites similar to Road Tips for fun and to get ideas of places to visit that I may have not known about before.  I like to look through the blog sites of Iowa Foodie, Slackingfool, An Herbalist Eats, Des Loines, Chicago Barbecue King (a.k.a. "Smokin', Chokin' and Chowin' with the King"), Food Dude, and the irreverent Suits in Strange Places, a blog written by a group of traveling salesmen who search out the unusual and out of the way places to eat when they're on the road.  One blog that I look into from time to time is a site run by a young couple from the Quad Cities - Greasy Joints.  One place they visited earlier this year was a hamburger joint in Danville, IL - Gross' Burgers. (Click here to see their post.)  I was sort of taken by their description of the place and decided to stop in on my way to Indianapolis for the annual CEDIA Expo in early September.  However, it was Labor Day and Gross' was closed.  I had to wait to return another day.  On a trip out to Indianapolis recently, I made the stop at Gross' Burgers and this time they were open. 

Gross' Burgers has been around since 1982 when it opened as a place called Grunts.  A local young man who was in the United States Marine Corps, Brad Gross, was looking to do something when he got out of the service. He was brought up in the restaurant industry as Gross' father ran one of the first pizzerias in the area.  The opportunity to buy Grunts came up while Gross was still serving our country and he did just that.  When he got out of the Marines over 25 years ago, Gross changed the name to the not-too-enticing Gross' Burgers.  But Gross remembered how good the burgers were at Grunts and he would continue to carry on the tradition.  

Gross' Burgers is found off of Interstate 74 on Illinois Highway 1 (Georgetown Road) at Henderson Street in south Danville. (see map)  There's a parking lot in the back that holds a number of cars.  But make sure you don't park in the drive-thru lane that is on the north side of the building.  I was able to park up close to the building on the south side.  

Going into Gross' Burgers, you can immediately tell from the decor that Brad Gross continues to support America's military men and women.  American flags, military posters, military gear including old rifles and even a bazooka hung from the bright white walls.  A 24-hour military clock hung next to the menu.  Historical articles on military figures were framed on the wall along with pictures of local servicemen.  The tables had a metal top and the metal chairs were high-backed and had a padded seat.  It was like a spic and span military grade mess hall inside the place.  

The menu at Gross' Burgers is located above the front counter and they feature burgers, both with American cheese and without, as well as pizza burgers and mozzarella cheese burgers.  You can double down on the burgers with two patties.  Or if you want something different than burgers, Gross' Burgers also features a fish sandwich.  The only side they offer are their special garlic-seasoned Gross fries. (Small containers of garlic seasoning as well as a cajun seasoning are available on the tables.)  They also offer a handful of milkshakes along with the regular offerings of soft drinks.  Their special menu item is the American Special - a triple cheeseburger, an order of Gross fries and a 32 oz. drink for $7.00

The kitchen area is located just behind the front counter and it is just as clean as the dining room.  The flat grill is back in the corner with fryers toward the front.  The prep area for the burgers is directly behind the grill.  

I ordered a double cheeseburger with everything - which is onions, pickle and mustard.  I got a bottle of water with the burger.  I declined when asked about getting some Gross fries to go along with the burger. The price of the burger and water was under $5.00

The beef at Gross' Burgers is ground fresh everyday and fashioned into little balls that are probably 3 oz. each.  The burger balls are placed on the grill and immediately smashed down flat.  They're cooked in their juices giving them a crisp outer edge on the meat.  I still have a problem with how some places smash their burgers, but I'm starting to slowly come around to the taste.  I will say that the smashed burgers are usually crispy on the outer side, but keep the juices inside the meat.  

My number was called out and I got the burger at the counter.  The burger was placed in a styrofoam container and put into a plain white bag.  The burger meat was thin and crispy - it almost looked like it was burnt - and it splayed out from under the bun in all directions.  It reminded me somewhat of a Steak 'n' Shake burger.  

The bun was your regular run-of-the-mill commercial baked variety.  But it was light and somewhat fluffy.  A slice of American cheese was melted on the top of both patties of beef.  

Since ketchup is not included on the burgers after they're grilled, large bottles of ketchup are placed on the tables for the burgers and fries.  They are pretty generous with the ketchup, as well.  At left is a picture of the ketchup squeeze-bottle next to a 16 oz. bottle of water.  It was the largest squeeze-bottle of ketchup that I'd ever seen.  There had to be a quart of ketchup in the bottle.  

The burger, itself, was good.  I wasn't initially sure that I liked it all that much, but as I got into the core of the burger the taste got significantly better. The crispy outside of the burger patty yielded a juicy inner core.  Two patties equaled about one regular sized hamburger that you'd get most other places.  But because they were so flattened, there was a lot of meat that hung out over the bun masking how much meat was in each patty.  

The burger at Gross' Burgers was good - certainly above average.  I'd give it a B+ in taste and quality.  I'm still not sold on the thin, flat-pressed burgers.  But I can see where people in and around the Danville area have thought that Gross' Burgers are some of the best they've had.  It's certainly an acquired taste and one I wouldn't mind trying again at some point.  But in order to get more of that juicy, meaty taste, I may have to get a triple.

The Ritz - Arnolds Park, IA

On our last night on vacation in the Lake Okoboji area of Northwest Iowa this past summer, our friends, Craig and Kathy Evert, came and picked us up at the Pioneer Beach Resort where we stayed.  They took us around to a couple bars in the area - the Softail Saloon in Superior, IA, a large biker-friendly bar in a small town just to the east of Spirit Lake, then to The Gardens in Arnolds Park.  For dinner, we ended up at a place called The Ritz in Arnolds Park.  I had inquired about The Ritz earlier in the week and I heard they had both great pizza and a top-notch cheeseburger.  The dilemma - can I have both for dinner?   (Photo courtesy Sioux City Journal)

The Ritz is a long time institution in the Iowa Great Lakes area. For over 30 years, the bar/restaurant has sat on the south side of East Lake Okoboji, next to the bridge that connects the north side and the south side of the little bay where East Lake Okoboji meets West Lake Okoboji. (see map) Prior to becoming The Ritz over 20 years ago, it was known as the The Hunter's Inn.  Taylor and Rich (aka "Coyote") Genrich are the owners of The Ritz (below left).  (Photo courtesy Sioux City Journal) 

The Ritz is popular in the summertime because of its large outdoor patio that overlooks the lake.  It can easily accommodate over a hundred diners and is well-lit at night.  The indoor bar area of The Ritz features a long bar, a number of tables and chairs, and a pool table area on the far end.  The sliding doors allow for easy access to the patio, or, when they're closed during colder weather, a nice view of the lake.  The place ain't too fancy, so don't expect fine dining at The Ritz.  

It was just before 9 p.m. when we sat down at a table on the patio.  The sun's dwindling light was casting a dark red hue across the sky over the lake.  It was a beautiful evening to sit outside and have dinner.  

Our server for the evening, Kara, came over to greet us and drop off some menus.  She took our drinks order and we took a look at what they had to offer at The Ritz.  The menu features your usual bar-type food - appetizers, salads and sandwiches - but they're also famous for their homemade pizzas and their famous "Lue's Cheeseburger".  The cheeseburger is what caught my attention as it was a finalist for the Iowa Beef Industry Council's  3rd Annual Best Burger in Iowa contest held earlier this year.  The burger is named after Rich Genrich's mother, Lue Bradshaw, who used to run a place called Lue's Driftwood Inn in Okoboji for a number of years.  

Lue Bradshaw's burgers were famous for years around the lakes area.  She used fresh ground beef for her hamburger patties with toasted buns, two differenty types of cheese and ran it through the garden with the usual veggies.  She served thousands of them during the time her establishment was open.  

When Rich and Taylor Genrich introduced Lue's Cheeseburger to the menu at The Ritz, it was clear it was not the same as what his mom served at her little place.  A couple years ago, the Genrich's changed the way they made the burger going from a pre-formed patty to using fresh ground beef like Lue Bradshaw used to do.  Suddenly, what was a good burger became a great burger, so much so that it was nominated by customers of The Ritz to be one of the top burgers in Iowa.  A couple of judges came into the place in March and had a burger.  They must have liked it as it turned out that the Lue's Cheeseburger missed being the Best Burger in Iowa by only 2/10ths of a point!  (The winner this year was the burger at the Coon Bowl III in Coon Rapids, IA)

While we were deciding what to get, I looked over at a table of middle-aged ladies who were having a good time.  On the table was this huge bowl of margaritas that served as a community drinking vessel with long plastic straws.  I went over to the table and asked the ladies what it was.  One of them said, "Oh, this is the fish bowl!  The is the margarita and the other one over there has Long Island Iced Tea in it!"  The fish bowl is a 64 oz. size and The Ritz estimates they sell between 800 to 1000 fish bowls each summer.  I have to say, the ladies at the table were feeling no pain.

When it came time to order, we each decided to get a burger, but Craig said we needed to also order one of The Ritz's "Garbage" pizzas - it has a little bit of everything on it.  That was a great compromise for me as I was really wavering between the burger and the pizza and I wasn't certain I could wait to come back and try one or the other.  

While the others got the regular Lue's Cheeseburger, I got a Lue's cheeseburger with Swiss cheese, sauteed mushrooms and bacon.  When Kara brought out the burgers and the pizza, we were ready to eat.  The burgers came with a boatload of fries that I knew I wasn't going to eat.  A festive toothpick held the top bun to the burger and it was loaded with mushrooms, ample amounts of cheese and couple pieces of bacon.  

The burger, itself, was very, very good.  It was good and juicy with a great flavor.  The bun was soft and chewy, while the mushrooms, cheese and bacon all helped excite the taste buds.  It was very worthy of its lofty standing as a finalist in the Best Burger in Iowa competition.

The pizza at The Ritz is a thin crust, party cut, caramelized plate of lusciousness.  Looking at the pizza, I thought they possibly left it in the oven too long, but it wasn't burnt on the bottom at all.  The toppings were all fresh, the sausage they use had the big chunks with a ton of flavor, the pepperoni was salty and had a nice spicy bite to it, and the sauce was a sweet and tangy mixture that tasted great with a beer.  I had a couple three pieces of the pizza and it was just fabulous.  

It was a fun night hanging out at The Ritz with our friends.  It was a great close to a wonderful vacation.  We've already talked about going back up to Lake Okoboji in late August again next year and we know that we may have to go to The Ritz a couple times, once to get another burger, then again for a pizza.  Both were top-notch and superb.  The Ritz is truly a bar (emphasis on the "bar") and restaurant.  It's not fine dining, but it's certainly fun dining.  (Photo courtesy Iowa ABD.com)

BRU Burger Bar - Indianapolis

While in Indianapolis for the annual CEDIA Expo in early September, we had a company meeting one day that took us deep into the middle of the afternoon before we broke for lunch.  We had dinner reservations at 7:30 p.m. at El Sol de Tala, one of my all-time favorite Mexican places, but after having lunch at 3:30, when 7:00 p.m. rolled around none of us were much hungry.  But about 8:00 p.m., a few of us began to get a little rumble in the stomach.  Suddenly, I had to find a place that could accommodate 10 of us - and quick.  I remembered hearing about a new gourmet burger place near the downtown area - BRU Burger Bar.  I called over there to see if we could get in right away and the young woman on the other end of the line said, "Sure!  We can get you in!"  I told her we'd be there in less than 20 minutes.

BRU Burger Bar is the newest restaurant concept for the Cunningham Restaurant Group (CRG), headed by Cincinnati native Mike Cunningham.  Since 1997, CRG has developed Indianapolis-area restaurants such as Boulder Creek Dining Company, Charbonos, Mesh, and Stone Creek Dining Company with six locations in the greater Indy area.  CRG opened BRU in December of 2011 in the Mass Avenue arts and entertainment area on Massachusetts Avenue just north and east of the downtown Indy area, not far from its sister restaurant, Mesh.  

It was a 15 minute walk from our hotel to BRU Burger Bar located at the corner of Mass Avenue and Alabama.    (see map)  We entered the stylish and contemporary restaurant and was greeted by a hostess.  When I told her that we had just called for a table for 10, she pointed to a long table that was along the wall near the stand.  Banquette seating was along the wall with chairs on the other side.  It was perfect for our group.  

BRU has an outdoor seating area, but they couldn't accommodate a larger group outside.  There was a nice bar area and a smaller dining room (right) that was off the bar and going out to the patio.  The restaurant had a very appealing and festive vibe to the place.  

The concept behind BRU Burger Bar is simple - gourmet burgers and craft beers.  The menu consists of a number of classic and eclectic burgers made with hormone-free natural beef from Creekstone Farms in Kansas.  The beef is a house-made mix of sirloin, chuck and brisket ground fresh by BRU each day.  In fact, everything is made in house at BRU, from the ground beef, to the buns, to the ketchup, and even the mayonnaise.    They also feature a number of appetizers and salads on the menu.  And for those who aren't looking for beef, BRU features Amish-raised chicken sandwiches, pulled pork sandwiches, a mahi mahi sandwich, as well as a veggie burger, a turkey burger and an ahi tuna burger.  

Their beer menu is very eclectic featuring a number of Midwestern-based breweries such as Boulevard, Bell's, and Founders.  They also featured a handful of local microbrews with a number of Belgian beers on the menu, as well as the usual domestics and imported beer.  Beer was welcome at our table, as it normally is when our company gets together.  

Our server for the evening, Jackson, was a lively girl who grew up in Oregon, but made her way to Indianapolis to follow a boy.  "Surprise, huh," she playfully asked us after we asked her what brought her from the Oregon coast to Indy.  She was fun and did a great job with us all night.  

Jackson told us the signature burger on the menu was the BRU Burger - a half-pound patty topped with Taleggio cheese, bacon, homemade tomato jam, caramelized onions, lettuce and tomato.   But they had some other interesting burgers such as the Garlic Three Cheese burger topped with roasted garlic and truffle aioli, and Swiss, American and mozzarella cheese.  The one that caught my eye was the Bourbon Burger that had a peppercorn-bourbon glaze on the burger, then topped with bacon and horseradish/Havarti cheese.  Mmmm...  Then this one popped out - the Blazing Saddles consisting of toppings such as mozzarella cheese, roasted jalapenos, chipotle remoulade, and lettuce and tomatoes.  BRU's Classic Burgers featured a Swiss and mushroom burger; a classic bacon cheeseburger; or just the plain old "Beginning" burger with American cheese, with homemade ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, onions, lettuce and tomatoes.  

Most of the people at the table ordered the signature BRU burger, while a couple ordered the Blazing Saddles.  My colleague, Todd, whose tastes for burgers are usually out of kilter with most of us, had the Mexicali Barbecue burger - a burger topped with white queso cheese, roasted chiles, guacamole, fried onions, lettuce and tomato, and finished with BRU's homemade barbecue sauce.  I looked at him when he ordered it and said, "Really?  I saw that on the menu, but I just thought there'd be too much on it and it would be too 'busy'."  

Todd said, "That's what what it interesting to me!"   

I ordered up the Bourbon burger and asked Jackson if I could get green chiles added to it to go along with the bacon and horseradish/Havarti cheese.  "Absolutely," she cheerfully exclaimed.  For my side, I got an order of their homemade onion rings.  Jackson warned us that since the burgers are made from scratch, it takes a little longer than normal burgers.  We didn't care, we were having fun.  

About 20 minutes or so later, Jackson and a couple other servers brought our burgers out to the table.  The presentation was very nice with the burgers and sides on rectangular China plates.   Homemade pickles were stuck to the top of the homemade buns with a toothpick.  Below left is Todd's Mexicali burger.  He said, "Uh, I think I'm gonna need a few more napkins to eat this thing."  Toppings were just oozing off the top of the burger onto the plate.

Above right is the signature BRU burger.  As I said, most of the guys ordered the BRU Burger and from the grunts of approval, they all seemed to like what they were eating.  A couple of my colleagues at the far end of the table got the Blazing Saddles burger with the roasted jalapenos.  I asked one of them how it was - since it was a close second in my choice that evening - and he said, "Excellent.  Great burger."    

This is my Bourbon burger with the horseradish/Havarti cheese, green chiles, and bacon.  It was a big burger so I needed to cut it in half just to be able to manage it.  

The burger was cooked to a perfect medium for me with a little bit of pink in the middle.  The meat was flavorful, juicy and had a great consistency with the combination of brisket, sirloin and chuck beef.  I couldn't taste much of the bourbon or peppercorns on the burger, but that was all right.  The bun was light, fluffy and full of air holes - it was a great complement to the burger.  As were the toppings - the horseradish/Havarti cheese wasn't too forward in taste, but offered a little bit of that "zip" that you get with the taste of horseradish.  The bacon was delicious and the green chiles gave the burger a little more overall flavor that I was looking for.  It was simply an outstanding burger. 

But like most gourmet burgers, the ones at BRU Burger Bar aren't cheap. But compared to other gourmet burgers I've had, the price is actually a pretty good value.  Most of the burgers run 8 to 11 bucks and adding a side of fries is $2 extra, while adding onion rings, like I did, was a $3 up charge.  (But my onion rings were very good - it was worth the extra 3 bucks.)  I believe everyone in our group thought BRU was pretty damn good.  The burgers were great, Jackson did a good job of taking care of a big group who were constantly running her toward the bar for more beer, and we really enjoyed the fun and casual atmosphere at BRU Burger Bar.  BRU was a hit!

Bulldogs Grill - Wauconda, IL

I have a small dealer in the far northwest suburbs of Chicago who I see from time to time.  We had a meeting one evening recently and afterward I asked him if he wanted to go grab a bite to eat at Smokin' T's, a nearby very good barbecue joint that he turned me on to a couple three years ago.  (Click here to see my entry on Smokin' T's.) He begged off citing family plans, but he said, "Hey, if you're looking for a fun place to eat, there's this place up the road in Wauconda that has these outrageously great cheeseburgers and duck fat fries."  That piqued my interest and asked him to tell me more about a place called Bulldogs Grill.  He said, "It's like a 50's diner, but they have a chef and all these wild cheeseburger concoctions.  It's about a 10 minute drive from here."  Even though it was in the opposite direction of my hotel that particular evening, on my way out of his place I decided to take his enthusiastic advice and hang a left instead of going right at the stop sign down the road to go up to Bulldogs Grill. 

From what I can determine, Bulldogs opened around 2009 in Wauconda.  The small Lake County town was undergoing a transformation from a sleepy lakeside community to a restaurant destination for the people in the area as well as vacationers.  Aaron Aagerwal had been a chef for a number of years and his friend, Joe Kafka, had once been a bartender before he entered the corporate world of banking.  After Kafka was laid off after the banking crisis in 2008, he decided to partner with Aagerwal to open Bulldogs Grill in an old restored building on Wauconda's Main Street.  Today, Bulldogs sits smack dab in the middle of a number of cafes, pubs and other restaurants in downtown Wauconda.  

I drove in front of Bulldogs Grill just around 7:30 p.m. on a weeknight evening (see map).  There was a parking spot just down the street and I was able to pull in easily.  Because Bulldogs also sells ice cream by the scoop, there were a number of people that were milling about in front of the place enjoying their cones.  I walked in behind a family of five people and had time to take a look around the place before I ordered at the front counter.

The main area as you come into Bulldogs is set up like you'd find a 50's style diner.  The area was heavy on the black and white tile, bright fluorescent lighting, a counter with old style stools, and art-deco style tables and chairs on the opposite wall from the counter.  Bulldogs also had a number of pictures and articles on the wall touting the awards they've won in the short while they've been in business.  

Bulldogs Grill features a "Man Cave" in the back part of the restaurant that has somewhat softer lighting, a couple of flat screen televisions that were turned on to baseball games, some posters and a smattering of tables.  It was more spacious than the front area, but it was still cozy enough.  I figured that I'd just sit back there after I ordered.

I went back up to the counter as the family was just finishing up with their order.  Looking over the menu board, in addition to the burgers, Bulldogs also has a number of hot dogs on the menu including the "Baconator" - a bacon-wrapped hot dog, deep-fried, then placed on a bun before being topped with chili and cheese.  Oh ho ho!  My arteries hardened up after reading that!  They also have Philly cheese steak sandwiches, pulled pork and chicken sandwiches, as well as a handful of Mexican entrees including tacos, enchiladas, and deep-fried fish tacos that are marinated in a chile lime sauce, and a number of wraps and flatbread sandwiches.  And Bulldogs Grill is famous for their award winning wings made in a homemade Buffalo sauce.  For the health conscious, they also have soups, salads and a kids menu.  Kafka's and Aagarwal's philosophy is to buy their food fresh and local, and to provide a great value for what they serve.  

But I wanted a burger.  And with 36 different burgers on the menu, Bulldogs Grill has a wide array of toppings and combinations to choose from.  I was interested in about four or five of them - The Area 51 burger (named after the secret testing military base in Nevada) had green chiles, pepper jack cheese, guacamole and a spicy mayo on it.  The Shroomer had mushrooms and provolone cheese on it.  The California BLT burger had avocado, bacon, cheddar cheese and chipotle mayo on top of the 9 oz. burger.  And just the regular bacon cheeseburger looked interesting to me.   

The menu also features a "challenge burger" - the Bluto Burger.  If someone can eat the four 1/2 burger patties, grilled onions and pepper jack cheese with Bulldogs apple barbecue sauce, with each burger topped with 3 pieces of applewood smoked bacon, jalapeno cream cheese and then finished off with a stack of onion rings - along with a pound of french fries - in 30 minutes or less, you get a t-shirt and your name on the Bluto Burger Hall of Fame.  While I was standing in line to order, a waiter brought out this Bluto Burger to two young guys, both of whom were going to share the plate (above right).  But as you can see by look and posture of the one guy, they were beginning to have second thoughts about what they ordered.  

By the time I got around to order, I had found out that the duck fat fries were only available on Friday nights.  Sort of a bummer, but, oh well, that was fine with me.  But I saw something else that got my attention - garlic parmesan fries.  And they were only something like $2.50 for a small side of them.  I decided on getting the hangover burger - the 9 oz. never-frozen patty topped with a fried egg, bacon and American cheese to go along with the fries.  And to drink, I got a couple bottles of ice cold Capital Supper Club beer.  I was given a number and went to find a seat back in the "Man Cave".  

It takes a while to get your food at Bulldogs Grill.  Good burgers take time to cook.  Plus the kitchen area isn't all that large and when they get a good sized crowd in there they can get backed up.  The food orders are picked up at the counter next to the kitchen and brought out to the table.  The wait staff yells out the number and the more they have to yell the number to get the attention of the person whose order they have, the louder they get.

I'm glad I got in when I did.  Even though they closed at 8 p.m., they had a large group of motorcycle riders - mainly older gentlemen - who came in and ordered food just before they closed.  About 20 of them came back and took over the remaining tables in the back room.  It suddenly became a little loud and crowded back there.  

After about a 20 minute wait after I ordered, a waitress came back with my burger and fries.  For a small order, I knew the fries would be too much.  Just looking at the size of the burger, I knew this was going to be a lot of food for me to try to finish. In fact, the burger was so big that I had to cut it in half before I could even handle picking it up.  

The taste of the burger was very, very good.   Even though the egg slid off the burger when I made my first bite, I could get enough the taste of it to know that it went well with the taste of the fresh burger meat.  The crown of the gourmet bun had a crispy outer shell with a light and chewy inner core.  Two large pieced of bacon criss-crossed the burger and the American cheese was thickly melted on to the burger, itself.  The flat grill taste of the burger was delicious.  It was a very outstanding burger.  And a great value for $6.50!  I've had burgers like this for nearly twice the price that didn't taste as good as the one at Bulldogs Grill.   

The parmesan and garlic fries were as good as advertised.   They were covered in parmesan cheese that had crusted onto the fries.  I couldn't find any hint of fresh garlic on the fries, but I was guessing that it was there because they had a wonderful forward garlic taste.  I was glad that I didn't have to talk to anyone else that particular evening because my breath would have warded off vampires for a two-mile radius.  If this was a small order, I'd hate to see what a large order would be.  A small order would easily satiate two people, if not as many as four, mainly because they were so rich.  I could only finish about a quarter of what they brought to me. 

They brought out a double cheeseburger to one of the guys who were in the motorcycle club.  He sort of looked at the two 9 oz. burgers piled on top of one another in wonderment.  The size of one burger is huge at Bulldogs Grill - you can almost imagine what two look like.   

This is the second time my small dealer in the far NW suburbs has turned me on to a great place to eat.  Maybe I need to go see him more often, especially in the late afternoon.  The burgers at Bulldogs Grill have been voted the best in Lake County for the past couple of years.  And it's no wonder.  The burger I had was simply one of the best burgers I've ever had.  I don't know how they could get topped, unless they open a second location - just like they recently did in nearby Grayslake.   Bulldogs Grill is a long way from most places in the Chicagoland area, but if you're ever around the far north suburbs you need to seek the place out.  You won't be disappointed.

Three Lyons Pub - West Fargo, ND

I did a less than favorable review for the burgers at JL Beers in Fargo last year (see that entry here) and I heard from a couple people who suggested that I try a place called Three Lyons Pub, an English Pub on the West side of Fargo.  (Actually, I don't know where Fargo ends and West Fargo begins.)  I had been out in Western North Dakota for a couple days and took a direct hit to my windshield from a rock that was kicked up by a truck in front of me.  A major crack developed in my windshield, so I made an appointment at a Safelite Glass location in Fargo to get it repaired.  I had some time to kill before I could get my car in and since it wasn't far away from Safelite Glass, I decided to go to Three Lyons to get a burger for lunch.

Three Lyons Pub is located in a strip mall on the south side of 13th Ave. E. in West Fargo (see map).  The owner, Blair Thoreson, opened the doors of the place in 2005.  Thoreson wears many hats - not only is he the owner of the Three Lyons Pub, he is also a medical program writer for Microsoft in Fargo (the largest Microsoft campus outside of the Seattle area is located in Fargo), and he has also served the Fargo area as a North Dakota state representative since 1998. Because he is so busy with other endeavors, Kent Larsen runs the day-to-day operation for Three Lyons Pub.  He's helped out by Michael Anderson who runs the kitchen, and Liz Swanson and Ryan Ellingson who co-manage the bar area.  

Blair Thoreson - pictured right  

I was a little apprehensive when I saw the exterior of Three Lyons Pub.  As my old neighbor, George, used to say about some Irish pubs, "They put up a couple Irish flags in a strip mall building and call it an Irish Pub."  I was afraid that Three Lyons may fall under that description, only as an English Pub in this case.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I entered to find a spacious dining area with high wooden tables with sturdy metal high back chairs, a long wooden bar to the left and a homey, pub style decor down to the pictures of Winston Churchill on the walls.  Ornate antique style lamps hung from the ceiling over the bar area. The back wall was made of brick and featured three flat screen televisions.  In fact, there were flat screen televisions located throughout the place.  

 

I had my pick of seats in the place as it was after the lunch rush, so I just decided to sit up at the bar.  One of the young ladies working the bar came over with a food menu and asked if I wanted anything to drink.  Since really all I had left that particular day was to get my windshield fixed, I ordered a pint of Smithwick's, one of nearly 20 beers Three Lyons has on tap.  Their beer menu is extensive with a number of domestic, import, craft brews, and cider beers available.  I've never been a big fan of the cider style beers, but they had six different ones to choose from at Three Lyons.  

Although I was told to try the burger at Three Lyons, they had a very interesting menu that included a dozen appetizers, three soups - including a corned beef and cabbage soup that sounded interesting to me, salads, sandwiches and a bevy of main entrees called "Her Majesty's Finest" which included Wellington Sliders - three small beef Wellington pastry puffs served with garlic mashed potatoes and Guinness beer gravy; Pasties - two puff pastry shells filled with ground beef with rutabagas and onions; Bangers and Mash - two pork sausages served with the Guinness gravy and garlic mashed potatoes; and a Shepherd's Pie - ground beef, carrots, onions and celery topped with garlic mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese.  The beef Wellington pastry puffs sounded very interesting to me.  

They also had a hot beef or hot turkey sandwich that was paired with garlic mashed potatoes and topped off with the Guinness gravy.  That actually sounded good to me - after a week of travel and eating all different types of food, some comfort food would have been welcome at that point.  They also had a London Broil sandwich featuring thin slices of steak on a French bread bun with your choice of two toppings that included sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions and peppers, horseradish sauce, and jalapenos.  One other interesting sandwich was the Messy Jessy - pulled pieces of turkey topped with a homemade barbecue sauce, cheddar cheese and your choice of either pickles or jalapenos.  But, nope, I was there for a burger.

And their burger menu was rather interesting, as well.  You can get a regular hamburger or a turkey burger and build your own by adding cheese, veggies, bacon, etc.  But they also had a number of "signature" burgers including the "Klaus" - a burger with sauteed onions, jalapenos, bacon and cheddar cheese (jalapenos were very prevalent on many items on Three Lyons menu); the "Helle" - topped with, once again, jalapenos, bacon, pepperjack cheese and then sprinkled with the hot Chinese Sriracha sauce; the "Reu-burger" which wasn't a burger at all, but featured grilled corned beef and sauerkraut with Swiss cheese and 1000 Island dressing.  They had a blue cheese/bacon burger, a burger with American cheese and barbecue sauce, and a patty melt burger.

But the burger that caught my eye was the Mushroom Swiss cheese burger.  When the bartender asked me what I wanted to order, that's what I told her I wanted.  Except I also asked if I could get some bacon on the burger, as well.  For a dollar upcharge, she said it would be no problem.  Kettle potato chips come with the sandwich, but she told me for a small upcharge I could get a side of fries with a side of the Guinness gravy.  I quickly signed up for that.

It wasn't that long of a wait for the burger and fries to come out.  The burger patty was covered with Swiss cheese and an ample amount of mushrooms - canned, not fresh - and sat on the bacon.  The bun was big and fluffy, but it was a little dry and didn't really add much to the overall taste of the burger.  While the burger was good, I couldn't call it outstanding.  The bacon, cheese and mushrooms helped zip up the taste of the beef which was average, at best.  

The fries were also average, but the Guinness gravy was worth the price of admission.  Thick, savory and flavorful, it was better than dipping the fries in ketchup.  I even dipped the burger in the gravy for a couple bites.  The Guinness gravy was outstanding.  

While the burger at Three Lyons was all right, I don't know if it was better than the one I had last year just down the street at JL Beers.  It seemed to be a bit more flavorful, but still not one that I'd deem as excellent.  But for pub fare, the burger was fine.  As was the service from my bartender.  Three Lyons Pub is a nice little place with a pretty good - but not outstanding - burger.  If I were to make it back at some point, I'd want to try some of their more traditional English fare.   

Tom & Eddie's - Lombard, IL

Let's say, for a moment, that you're a retired executive from a large corporation.  And for funsies, let's call that corporation McDonald's.  What do you do after climbing the corporate ladder starting out as a grill cook and working your way up to be the C.E.O.?  Do you become a NASCAR owner?  Do you contemplate becoming a Smashburger franchisee?  Do you have a passion to find the perfect burger and have a place that is comfortable and affordable to have such a burger?  If your name is Ed Rensi, that's exactly what happened after he retired in 1998 from McDonald's.  And along with his long-time friend, Tom Dentice - also a former executive with McDonald's - they opened their first fast casual gourmet burger place Tom & Eddie's in August of 2010.  I don't quite remember how I heard about Tom & Eddie's, but I had it bookmarked as a place I wanted to try.  On a recent trip into Chicago for business, I had a chance to try one of their burgers.  

Ed Rensi was going to school at Ohio State, working three jobs and had no car when he saw an ad for a "grill man" at a new drive-up restaurant by the name of McDonald's.  It was 1966 and Rensi's wife, Anne, was pregnant with their first child.  In order to make ends meet, Resni ended up working 100 hours a week - at .85 cents an hour - his first year at McDonald's.  However, his dogged determination paid off and within a year he was promoted to manager of the McDonald's store in Columbus.  He ended up becoming a regional manager in Philadelphia, eventually getting promoted to regional Vice-President.  In Philadelphia, Ed was instrumental for the development of the first Ronald McDonald House, a temporary home for families who children are suffering from serious illnesses.  Rensi was eventually promoted to the Oak Brook, IL headquarters of McDonald's as Vice-President of Training and Operations.  Ed was responsible for product development and in 1983 oversaw the project that eventually became Chicken McNuggets.  He was elevated to the Chief Executive Officer position the following year.

At right, Tom Dentice and Ed Rensi (Picture courtesy Northwest Quarterly)

Tom Dentice's rise through the ranks at McDonald's is similar to the journey his good friend Ed Rensi encountered.  It was 1965 and Dentice had just finished an 8-year stint in the Air Force.  He needed a job to help pay the bills as he had a wife and a baby at home.  He saw an ad in a local newspaper for a "manager/trainee" for a McDonald's franchise in Columbus, OH.  He got the job and within the next year he hired a young college student by the name of Ed Rensi.  As Rensi rose through the managerial and executive ranks at McDonald's, he never forgot his first manager.  Dentice eventually became the V-P for Training and Operations, retiring as the Senior Executive V-P for Franchising in 1998.  

Hamburgers never left the blood of both Rensi and Dentice and both had been thinking about a gourmet burger that was affordable and served in a place that was fun for the family.  After initially looking at becoming Smashburger franchisees, the two traveled the world - together and separately - eating burgers of all kinds (Rensi said he gained 21 pounds during his travels) gaining knowledge of the upscale burger business and trying to figure out exactly what they wanted to do for their concept.   

Rensi and Dentice began a partnership program with the College of DuPage's culinary and hospitality program, working with school chefs and students to develop a unique menu that featured burgers, chicken sandwiches, salads, sides and gourmet milkshakes.  Over an eight week period in late 2009, Tom & Eddie's hosted a test restaurant that served over 1000 meals to students, friends and community organizations in return for feedback about the food and concept.  Tweaking the plan along the way, the two were confident that their fast casual concept would be ready for the public.

From the beginning, they wanted to make sure that people knew that Tom & Eddie's would not be another McDonald's with cheap burgers.  They visited test kitchens, looking for the very best beef to make their hamburgers from.  They settled upon a 100% fresh Angus chuck natural beef with no hormones or antibiotics introduced into cattle who also only ate a vegetarian diet on the farm.  For the animal-rights people, the beef Tom & Eddie's uses is "certified humane" by a national non-profit organization that inspects and certifies farms and facilities that raise beef in a humane way.   

Rensi and Dentice also worked with Chef Charlie Baggs, a food industry veteran who heads his own consulting firm in the Chicago area.  They hired Baggs' corporate chef Lance Avery to help give their foods a signature taste.  Finally, they decided up on getting their fresh baked buns from the Turano Bakery in Berwyn, IL.  Turano hamburger buns are some of the best around.  

Finding a facility was the next thing and they settled on a former Boudin Bakery location in the Yorktown Center mall in west suburban Lombard, not far from the McDonald's corporate offices in Oakbrook.  They ordered in two 3-foot long flat top grills - one for the burgers, and the other for the other foods that cook at different temperatures than the burgers - and opened their doors toward the end of August 2010.  The first location was a hit and they soon opened a second Tom & Eddie's location in far west suburban Geneva, then a third one in north suburban Deerfield, then a fourth one in far north suburban Vernon Hills.  They are working to open a fifth T&E location in Naperville in the coming weeks.

The Lombard location is located on the southwest corner of the Yorktown Center mall just off Highland Avenue in what they call The Shops on Butterfield, across from Rock Bottom Brewery and caddy-cornered from Brio Tuscan Grille (see map).  Tom & Eddie's is a fitting restaurant for the mall which has a number of upscale restaurants in the immediate area including The Capital Grille, D.O.C American Bistro, and the Claim Jumper.  (There's a Cajun restaurant at Yorktown Center called French Quarter that I'd like to try at some point.)  Parking is plentiful in front of Tom & Eddie's.  

The inside of Tom & Eddie's could sort be described as contemporary art deco.  There are a number of two seater tables and a set of higher four seat tables along the large windows that allow an abundant amount of light to shine into the restaurant.  Three-sided booths are along a half wall and bench seats are along the back wall with tables.  The kitchen area is open to the left of the main counter and there is a soda pop dispenser along with shelves of hot sauces in the center of the restaurant.   An outdoor patio was available for al fresco dining.  

The front counter is where you order your food and drinks.  The menu for the restaurant is located on the wall behind the counter (or you can get a printed menu to take with you).  Burgers are the draw at Tom & Eddie's, but they also feature a "Lean and Green" part of their menu that features salads, chicken sandwiches, veggie burgers and burgers that are made out of ground turkey and ahi tuna.  And the prices are more than reasonable.  Most of the burgers, depending upon the toppings you add, are under $10 bucks.

Tom & Eddie's feature seven signature burgers including the Ampersand that is topped with gouda cheese, applewood smoked bacon, barbecue sauce and Tom & Eddie's in-house made haystack onion straws, then topped with a fried egg.  The Blue Chip features a burger topped with a sliced avocado, Tom & Eddie’s roasted garlic aioli, a tomato slice and crumbled blue cheese topped with homemade potato chips.  The Love Me Dew has Tom & Eddie’s homemade spicy mayonnaise, topped with pepperjack and peppadew sweet piquanté peppers.  And the most interesting of them all is the Bushel and a Peck - they start off with Granny Smith apple slices, then add homemade walnut butter, melted Brie cheese and finish with caramelized onions.  Although that doesn't sound appealing to me in the least, I have a feeling my wife would love something like that.

Or, you can "build your own" burger at Tom & Eddie's.  And that's exactly what I did.  You have your choice between a 1/2 pound or 1/3 pound burger and then you choose from three fresh baked gourmet buns - sesame seed, ciabatta or multi-grain.   If you want cheese on your burger, they have everything from American, Swiss, pepperjack, gouda, brie and blue cheese.  Then you get your choice of 10 different condiments that include organic ketchup, garlic aoili, Jamaica sweet relish, basil pesto and an eggplant spread.  And then you have a choice of 10 veggie or fruit toppings that include lettuce, sliced red or caramelized onions, sport peppers (for the hot dogs they have on the menu, no doubt), hot giardiniera (it IS Chicago), and something they call puckered pickles.  

From there, you can order "premium toppings" including sauteed crimini mushrooms, a fried egg, extra cheese, applewood smoked bacon and fire roasted tomatoes.  It seems like a lot of choices, but I sort of knew what I was going to get once I saw the combinations they had.  I ordered up a 1/2 pound burger cooked medium with Swiss cheese on a sesame seed bun.  I had them put the organic ketchup and yellow mustard on it (but I found that when I got to the table that there were bottles of yellow mustard and Heinz organic ketchup already there), as well as a sliced red onion.  I also had them put the crimini mushrooms and some Applewood smoked bacon on it, as well.  The girl behind the counter asked me if I wanted any sides - they have hand-cut fries, sweet potato fries, the haystack onion rings, or fresh made potato chips.  I figured that the burger would just be fine for me.  

For something to drink, I ordered a glass of the Two Brothers pale ale.  The girl who took my order was too young to pour and serve the beer, so she asked another lady, to do the honors.  As the other lady poured my beer, the girl gave me a number on a plastic strip shaped like a paddle.  She said, "This is your key and you put this in your holder on the table and we'll bring your food to you."  

The other lady, who poured my beer - Tammi - asked me if I'd ever been to Tom & Eddie's before.  Since I hadn't, she sort of showed me the ropes.  She said, "Well, you get your pick of tables, then you put this little paddle in the holder.  If you need anything like another drink or more food or whatever, you just hit this button on the base and we'll be right there!"  The contraption is called the "Key Call Table Locator System" and it is part of a system that allows for monitoring of orders and sends a signal back to the food pick-up area to show where the customer is seated in the restaurant.  It also allows  Tom & Eddie's to monitor, record and average times that it takes for a customer to receive their food after they've ordered.  

Tammi told me, "Our concept is similar to the fast casual concept like Panera Bread has where the food is made quickly after you've ordered.  Only we bring the food to the table rather than having the customer wait for it.  It just gives us a little more of a personal touch with our customers."  

About 15 minutes after I ordered my burger, Tammi brought it to the table.  The presentation was very nice - the burger was served on a concave, sculptured plate.  It had a load of sauteed crimini mushrooms on top of the bacon with all sitting on a thick slice of Swiss cheese.  Three large red onion rings were with the burger - any more and I would have taken some off.  The gourmet sesame seed bun had rack marks across the top.  It was light and fluffy, and felt substantial.  

The first bite told me this was an excellent burger.  The Black Angus beef had that wonderful flat-grilled juicy taste to it.   The burger was cooked to a perfect medium with a little pink in the middle. The crimini mushrooms were absolutely fabulous. I'm guessing the sauteed them in butter and Worcestershire sauce.  The bacon was flavorful and the red onions weren't overpowering.  The bun was also perfect - not too chewy, but substantial enough that it stayed together with all the great juicy toppings.    

Tammi came over to me to see how I liked my burger.  I couldn't lie to her, "This is simply an outstanding burger."  

She said, "Great!  Glad you liked it.  You'll have to come back and try another type of burger sometime.  That's what I like to do, experiment with different toppings."  

Tom & Eddie's is a winner.  The burger was just excellent, one of the finest gourmet burgers I've ever had.  I liked the fast casual "made-to-order" concept and the sort of laid back atmosphere in the place.  I'm hoping they don't grow too big, too quickly.  Five locations in about two years is just about enough for this place.  But I can't say enough good things about Tom & Eddie's.  For a great gourmet burger, it was about 50% cheaper than what you'd find for a burger at a fine dining restaurant.  It was a great burger at a great value. 

Frank's - Zeeland, MI

During our trip to Western Michigan earlier this year, we checked out a number of the small towns in and around the Holland, MI area where we were staying.  One of the small towns was Zeeland, MI, located about 10 miles from Holland.  It was early when we arrived so many of the small shops in the town were closed.  We decided to have breakfast at the only restaurant in downtown Zeeland that was open that day - Frank's.  Frank's, as we found out, is an institution in Zeeland and has been open for over 85 years.  

In 1924, Italian immigrants Frank and Mary Dionise set up shop in Zeeland selling fruits and vegetables.  The Dionise's lived above their store with their five children and when business slowed down during the Great Depression, Frank added ice cream, candy, roasted peanuts and cigars.  During the Depression, Frank opened on Sunday's - something that was not tolerated in the Dutch community.  But Frank reasoned that a number of bachelors and/or widowers in town had no place to eat on Sunday's.  And in order to be open in Zeeland on Sunday's, Frank had to sell food.  At first Mary made sandwiches for the patrons, but in 1940 Frank installed a flat top grill to serve burgers.  He quickly garnered the reputation for having some of best burgers around.  

Frank's became a teen hangout soon thereafter.  In 1960, Frank and Mary retired and sold the business to their son, Frank, Jr., and his wife, Pat.  Frank, Jr. installed pinball machines and other arcade games and Frank's became the hot place to be in Zeeland.  Things changed over the years as Frank's isn't the teen hangout any longer, they're no longer open on Sunday's and they open at 4:30 a.m. Monday thru Saturday for breakfast.  

Frank Dionise, Jr. was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the mid-80's and his son, Dan, came in to run the business.  Dan met an untimely end to his life in 2008 and his mother Pat and her grandson, Shane Hammer, run the business today.   

We got into Zeeland just after 9 a.m. and found a place to park just down the street from Frank's.  It was a cool and blustery morning and we soon found that we were woefully under-dressed in shorts and short-sleeved shirts with no jackets . We entered Frank's, found a table in the brightly lit little restaurant and we noticed right away that we were, by far, the youngest people in the busy restaurant.  Two large tables of older men were filled in the back.  A couple three of booths near the men were also filled with older men having coffee.  We sat at a table in between two tables of older ladies having morning coffee.  Our young waitress, Jess, came over to greet us.  Actually, SHE was the youngest person in the place, but we were certainly the youngest customers in the restaurant.

There were a number of old pictures on the wall along with a number of Coca-Cola signs and memorabilia.  The lunch counter looked like it was something directly out of the 40's and 50's with an art deco decor and stools with Frank's logo on top.  In fact, the tables all had Frank's logo on the top of them, as well.  

We looked over the menu at Frank's and, of course, they tout their burgers as being the "best around".   But they also had regular breakfast items such as eggs and omelets, French toast and pancakes, as well as regular sandwiches like BLT's, chicken sandwiches, and grilled ham and cheese.  But it was just after 9 a.m. and I wanted to try a burger.  They have a number of burgers on the menu at Frank's and some of them were rather intriguing.  One burger is called the Olive burger as they put an olive spread on the burger.  They also have a sauerkraut burger where they put kraut, Swiss cheese and 1000 Island dressing on the burger.  Frank's features a Philly burger with sauteed onions, green peppers, mushrooms and Swiss cheese.  And they also have something called the Ranch burger with American cheese, ranch dressing and tomato on top.  But they also had a mushroom/Swiss cheese burger and I immediately got hungry for one of those.   

When she came back around to take our order, I asked Jess if it was too early to get a burger and she said she had to go check with the cook.  She came back and said, "Yep!  That's fine!"  I ordered the mushroom/Swiss cheese burger and I still wanted to get an egg with some bacon to go along with it on the side.  Cindy ordered a light breakfast of an egg sandwich with a side of hash browns.  

About a minute after we'd ordered, Jess came back and suggested that I get the breakfast brunch burger - something that was not on the menu.  She said, "We put a fried egg and bacon on top of the burger patty."  Although it was tempting, but I stuck with the mushroom/Swiss burger with an egg and bacon on the side.

Not long after we ordered, our food made it to the table.  The burger was wrapped in some wax paper and was heaving with Swiss cheese and mushrooms. I couldn't pull the top bun off the burger because it was literally fused to the top of the burger by the cheese.  The burger, itself, was hand-pattied and it smelled really good.  There's just something about the smell and taste of a burger on an old flat griddle.  

And the burger wasn't bad in the least.  It wasn't the best I've had, but it was good.  There was almost too much Swiss cheese on the burger, but it was still pretty damn good.  It's easy to see why people in the area have been flocking to Frank's for their burgers for over 70 years.  

Cindy's egg sandwich was pretty non-descript, but they did give her an ample amount of hash browns which she told me were very good.  I made pretty quick work of my fried egg and munched on the somewhat crisp bacon, putting a piece of bacon on the burger to give it an even better taste.  The burger was definitely above average, that's for sure.  

With drinks for Cindy and I, the bill came to just over $15 bucks at Frank's.  By this time, a number of "coffee-klatchers" were trying to pay their bill.  I didn't want to wait in line, so I got out a $20 bill and handed it to Jess with our bill and thanked her.  She did a good job waiting on us, even joking that we were probably the quietest people in the place.  "It can get pretty wild in here sometimes," she said as she looked back at one of the large tables of men.  "Those guys can get pretty darn loud."  Frank's was a good little find in Zeeland.  The burger, even at 9 a.m., was good and there was a great Americana/small town atmosphere to the place.  We'd go back to Frank's if we had the chance. 

Powers Hamburgers - Fort Wayne, IN

An icon of Fort Wayne eateries sits in a little art deco building built previous to World War II just across from the U.S. Northern Indiana District Federal Courthouse - Powers Hamburgers (see map).  This little hamburger shop was once part of a small regional empire of hamburger joints that rivaled White Castle in their style, size and taste.  I was told by a sales person at Sweetwater Sound that I had to try Powers Hamburgers at least once.  On a recent visit earlier this summer to Fort Wayne, I stopped in for a burger (or two) for lunch. 

Back in the years before World War II, White Castle out of Kansas led the charge of small hamburger shops that popped up over the nation's landscape featuring small burgers cooked - or steamed - on flat grills.  This phenomenon also gave rise to the White Manna (or Mana) burger shops on the East coast.  In Dearborn, MI, four brothers who grew up in Northeastern Indiana - Leo, Clell, Harold (aka Jim) and Dale Powers - built a hamburger shop from the ground up on their own.  Their little stand - Powers Hamburgers - was a hit for the workers and their families at nearby auto plants.  In 1938 - three years after the opening of the first Powers Hamburgers stand - Dale Powers had moved to Port Huron to open a second location.  Soon thereafter, Dale opened locations in Grand Rapids.  

Leo Powers had decided to move back to Northeast Indiana and he opened the Powers Hamburger location near the downtown area of Fort Wayne in 1940.  A second location was opened in an industrial area in 1947.  At the height of their popularity, between 15 to 20 Powers Hamburgers stands were in business in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.  

In 1980, Leo Powers passed the business along to his son, Rolin.  Rolin opened a third Fort Wayne location in 1983, but it didn't prove to be as successful as the other two and it closed in 1989.  Along about that time, Rolin Powers was diagnosed with cancer and he died about a year later.  His sister, Marilyn Penick, took of the two remaining Powers Hamburgers in Fort Wayne and ran them until she sold them to 28-year-old Michael Hall in 1999.  Hall had been the accountant for Penick and Powers Hamburgers and wanted to learn the business from the inside out.  Penick liked him so much that she encouraged him to buy the business from her - the only non-Powers family member to own a Powers location.  

After Hall took over, he closed the second location in Fort Wayne in 2004, but continues to keep the tradition alive in the original Fort Wayne location.  Other than some structural improvements and new signage for the building, some tweaks to the menu (pictured right), and the hours (they used to be open every day, 24 hours - now they're open through the week at 5 a.m., 6 a.m. on Saturdays; and close at 10 p.m. Monday thru Wednesday, and at midnight Thursday thru Saturday), Hall has kept everything pretty much the same.  

Powers Hamburgers weathered a small storm about four years ago when plans to build a complex of mixed-use buildings comprised of a new baseball stadium, condos and hotels, as well as a convention center threatened the building.  Initial plans had the block on which Powers sits to be an open lot to be used for future development.  But a campaign by local Fort Wayne residents made city planners back off on their idea saving the last and only Powers Hamburgers stand in existence.  

There's a parking lot next to Powers Hamburgers that is probably too large for the number of seats they have in the place.  The small counter wraps around and seats about a dozen people.  There's a small booth in the back next to a back kitchen/prep area.  The grill is located on the north side of the building that looks out onto the corner of W. Brackenridge and S. Harrison streets.

Knowing that it is usually busy during the lunch rush hour, I waited until the middle of the afternoon before I stopped into Powers Hamburgers to try a burger.  I took a seat at the south end of the counter, getting a good glimpse of what goes on behind the counter.  The menu is located on the wall above and behind the counter.  In addition to their "slider" burgers, Powers also serves breakfast until 10:30 including eggs, omelette's, egg sandwiches and something called the "garbage plate" that has eggs, hash browns, meat and cheese added to it.  They also have coney dogs, chili, and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches on the menu.  But most of the people are going for the burgers.

I ordered two with grilled onions.  The burgers are hand-pattied and made to order - at least mine was. It could be when they get into a rush they just make a bunch of them up as a lot of people buy them by the sackful - just as they do at White Castle. (And, good God, don't ever mention White Castle in Powers Hamburgers!)  In fact, while I was there a couple people came in and bought eight or ten at a time to go.  

The burgers are smashed into the grill with a spatula and they cook very fast.  They serve the burgers on Aunt Millie's buns - actually they're more like dinner rolls.  Aunt Millie's main bakery and corporate offices are not far from Powers Hamburgers.  And they do make damn fine rolls and buns.  

The burgers were topped with copious amounts of grilled onions which kind of had a chargrilled-burnt taste to them.  I wasn't certain that I liked them with the grilled onions as even with a little bit of mustard on the top of them I couldn't really taste the burger meat.  I mean, it tasted all right - the burger was a little small and thin, but it wasn't misshapen or skimpy like the ones I encountered at the Cozy Inn in Salina, KS. (Click here to see my entry on that place.)  Yeah, I could see how a person could eat 6 to 8 at a time.  

I made short work of my burger and I asked the counter guy/grill cook to make me one more without the onions. I wanted to see if I could get a better taste of the meat.  On hindsight, I should have gotten a double because this one was also pretty thin and with not a lot of meat.  The great tasting Aunt Millie's bun overpowered the overall taste of the burger meat.  Next time - double burgers.  

I can't say that Powers Hamburgers were outstanding, but they were far from being "just average".  I'm sure it's one of those tastes that the locals grew up with and crave when a Powers hamburger calls their name.  But for the history of the place, the way that you literally go back in time when you enter that building, and the tradition of making the burgers the same way they have for over 70 years, Powers Hamburgers is a must stop if you're ever in Fort Wayne.   

Sandy's Tavern - Richfield, MN

I can't quite remember how I found out about Sandy's Tavern, an old time neighborhood tavern in the south Twin Cities suburb of Richfield.  But I've had it on my list of "Restaurants to Visit" that I have bookmarked on my computer for quite sometime.  I had to go to the Twin Cities for a trade show and some dealer visits.  It turned out that Sandy's was about a five minute drive from the hotel I was staying at in nearby Bloomington.  I decided to head there as soon as I pulled into the Twin Cities that particular evening.

Sandy's has been around since 1933.  There was a guy by the name of Sandy who did run it (I couldn't find Sandy's last name), and he opened the business in a self-built farm house outside of Minneapolis.  Actually, during Prohibition, Sandy had planned to open a speakeasy disguised as an old farm house.  But Prohibition was repealed not long after he opened and he turned the former illegal watering hole into a legitimate business.  As the Twin Cities grew, more of the rural land surrounding Sandy's was gobbled up and it is now located just south of the intersection of W. 66th St. and Penn Ave in Richfield (see map).  

In 1980, Eric and Deb Ericson bought Sandy's, installed a flat grill and a fryer and began to make burgers, appetizers and other sandwiches.  Sandy's signature burger is their Olive Burger - a burger topped with green olives and sour cream.  They also have the "Sizzler" with jalapeno slices, chipotle mayo and pepper jack cheese.  But their regular burger is what they're known for.  Sandy's has won numerous "Best of" awards over the years for their basic burger.  

I pulled into the parking lot on the south side of Sandy's just after 8 p.m.  It's a small building that does look like it probably was an old farm house that had been added on to at some point.  They had a large Grain Belt Premium sign over the back door to the restaurant.  I immediately liked the place.  

I went in and first sat in one of the booths along the south wall of the place which looked like it hadn't been renovated since the 60's.  Then I discovered that they had a flat screen television on a wall near the bar that had a ball game on.  As Kevin, the long-time bartender at Sandy's, came over to check on me, I got up and asked if I could move over to the bar.  "Sure," he exclaimed.  "It will save me from walking all the way over here to take care of you."  Kevin turned out to be quite a character.

After I got situated at the bar, Kevin asked me what I wanted to drink.  I asked if he had any Summit or Surly products available.  "Nope," he said curtly.  "Nothin' like that."  Sandy's is truly a tavern - Blue Moon and Killian's are about as exotic as they get when it comes to beer selection.  But since both are owned and brewed by Coors, they aren't all that exotic.   I looked over at the tapper and saw that they did, indeed, have Grain Belt Premium available.  I had one of those.  I used to drink a lot of Grain Belt Premium years and years ago.  It's not bad beer, but there are many others that I've grown to like more over the years.  

I took a look through the menu after I sat at the bar.  In addition to their Olive Burger and the Sizzler, Sandy's Tavern also has an Egg and Bacon burger, but they scramble the egg rather than fry it (I guess I could have asked if they could fry the egg instead of scramble it).  They also have a Mushroom Swiss burger.  For those with a hearty appetite, you can order any burger as a double.  

I decided on getting the Mushroom Swiss cheese burger and asked Kevin if I could get bacon with that.  He asked if I wanted any fries with the burger - Sandy's is evidently known for their French fries - but I passed and said that the burger alone would do me fine.  He put the order in with Cassie who was cooking that evening.  Cassie could be described as being nerd/chic with a tall body and thick-rimmed glasses.  Since it wasn't busy in there that evening, it was about 15 minutes between the time I ordered and when Cassie brought out the burger in a basket.

Sandy's Tavern gets their ground beef from Swanson Meats, the largest beef family-owned beef processor in Minnesota.  They use a good mixture of beef and fat to give their burgers a signature juicy taste.  They used canned mushrooms instead of fresh ones - a minor quibble in my book, but certainly not a deal breaker.  Two pieces of bacon were criss-crossed on top of the burger which had a thick slice of melted Swiss cheese covering it.  A couple three hamburger dill pickle slices were beside the burger in the basket when it was presented to me.  

The burger did have a good taste to it.  I'm not certain it was award winning in my book, but very good, nonetheless.  The bun was very good on its own and helped with the overall taste of the burger.  Sandy's has no food utensils - you use your fingers for everything - so napkins are readily available within an arms reach anywhere in the bar.  Between the gooey cheese, the mushrooms falling off the burger, and the juicy nature of the burger, it was easily a five napkin burger for me.  

I soon found out that Sandy's doesn't take credit cards, but that was fine with me.  The beers were cheap and the burger with the bacon added came to $6.50.  I handed Kevin a $20 and asked for a receipt.  He sort of laughed and said, "I can give you a receipt on a napkin!"  I told him not to worry.  He was a good guy.  

Sandy's Tavern is one of those old time places that isn't pretentious, they're pretty straight-forward for what they are, and have good bar food at a good price.  The burger was good, not great, but good.  Definitely above average, that's for sure.  But the atmosphere of Sandy's is a nod to a simpler time when people gathered for beer and burgers, things that people continue to do today.  Sandy's is close to where I like to stay in the Twin Cities and I know I'll be back at some point to get another burger and to relax with a glass or two (or three!) of Grain Belt Premium. 

Christy Creme - Council Bluffs, IA

Midwest Living magazine listed their favorite burger places across the region earlier this year (click here to see the article).  One of the places was in Council Bluffs, IA, just across the river from Omaha - a little ice cream parlor called Christy Creme.  After a morning meeting with one of my dealers in Omaha, I was heading back east and decided to find Christy Creme to try one of their burgers. 

Christy Creme is an institution in the Council Bluffs area - it's been in business since 1954.  Generations of families have come here for years for ice cream, burgers and other snacks.  And do not mistake Christy Creme as the same as the Krispy Kreme donut shops - they don't serve donuts.  

The "Christy" behind the name belongs to founder Art Christiansen and his wife, Jeanne.  They decided to build a little ice cream place in the front yard of their home on N. Broadway, what was then the Lincoln Highway, one of the main routes in and out of Council Bluffs at the time.  The original Christy Creme was nothing more than a small building with walk-up service.  The Christiansen's would open sometime in February each year and would stay open until sometime in mid-November, closing only for the Independence Day holiday.   

The original Christy Creme location (right).  The picture looks like it was taken in the 60's.

The Christiansen's were helped out by their four children in the summertime.  The shop was so small that they had to store the supplies for the business in their house.   

In 1972, Art and Jeanne Christiansen decided to retire and they sold the business.  The business went through a handful of owners over the next four years with no one being able to duplicate the magic the Christiansen's started with the business 20 years before.  The Christiansen's son, Dave, and his wife, Sue, moved back to Council Bluffs from Texas to buy the business and make it a family-owned business again.  Today, Dave Christiansen's son-in-law and daughter manage the day-to-day operation.  And now Dave Christiansen's grandkids now work in the business.  Since his grandmother helped out his parents in the 50's, there are now five generations of the Christiansen family who have worked at Christy Creme since it opened nearly 60 years ago.  

In 1995, the Christiansen's tore down the original roadside stand and replaced it with a new modern facility that allowed for sit down dining inside.  Due to flood restrictions, they had to build it up higher and back from a road a little bit. 

The Christiansen's are also promoters withing the community.  For two days during August, they have a "Dog Days" promotion that allows customers with their dogs to get a free ice cream cone for their pooches when they buy an ice cream cone for themselves.  Also, Christy Creme sponsors an annual bike ride - One Lap of the Bluffs - that takes participants on a 20 mile-plus ride on the bike paths around the Council Bluffs area in early October.  Money that is raised for the event is earmarked for the American Cancer Society in memory of Sue Christiansen, who tragically died of cancer a few years ago. 

I punched in the address for Christy Creme on my GPS and it took me along Broadway until it veered north.  I found it on the right side of the road with a nice parking lot just off of Broadway (see map).  It was before the noon hour so there was only one other customer in the building when I went in.  However, before I left there was a tour bus that pulled up in the parking lot that was full of people.  I'm glad I got in there when I did. 

The inside of the Christy Creme is bright and well lit with a handful of booths along the wall.  Green and white tiled floors keep the color scheme the same as the outside of the building.  Articles on Christy Creme are framed along the wall above the booths.  Along the upper part of the wall in the kitchen/serving area are a number of knick-knacks including a number of coffee cups with advertising on them.  I never really figured out what the coffee cups were all about.  

The menu board is located on a wall in the front part of the kitchen area.  It's angled above three soft-serve ice cream machines - triple the number of machines the Christiansen's used in the original Christy Creme building.  In addition to ice cream and burgers, Christy Creme also a pork tenderloin sandwich, a chicken sandwich, a chicken club sandwich, and they have a patty melt on the menu, as well.  Christy Creme's quarter pound burgers are all processed and ground by Omaha Steaks, the famous mail order meat processor.  I ended up getting a cheeseburger (double cheeseburgers are available).  

They make the burgers as ordered, so it was about a 10 minute wait as they flat grilled the burger and made it up for me.  With everything on it, the bill came to $3.75 plus tax.  

I took the burger out to my car since I had a bottle of water out there.  It was wrapped in green and white checked wax paper.  It was piping hot directly off the grill.

The first bite yielded not much of a taste buzz for me.  The burger was a little dry and overcooked.  I could tell that it was just a processed burger patty - one that you could get from a number of food distributors across the Midwest.  It did have that good flat grill flavor to it and it did have ample amounts of condiments on the burger.  I especially liked the chopped onions - they were extremely fresh and flavorful.  The bun was not much to talk about.  It, too, was a little dry and lifeless.  Quite frankly, the cheeseburger at Christy Creme reminded me of the burgers you can get at most Dairy Queen's.  And don't get me wrong, Dairy Queen makes a surprisingly good cheeseburger.  I'd put Christy Creme's burger on par with Dairy Queen's burger.  But if I had my choice, I'd support Dave Christiansen over going to Dairy Queen anyday.  

Yeah, it was a good burger.  Not a great burger and probably not what I would call a Top 25 burger in the Midwest.  I could name 25 burgers off the top of my head from around the Midwest that would beat out a Christy Creme burger.   But Christy Creme is quaint part of Midwestern Americana and I'm certain the editors at Midwest Living took that into consideration when they came up with their list.  Christy Creme would be worth the stop for just the unique nature of the business.  But I can tell you of three other places I'd rather get a burger in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area.

Dinker's Bar - Omaha

Midwest Living magazine came out with a list of their top 25 (and then some) burger joints around the Midwest earlier this year. Many of the places listed can be found on Road Tips, but I became interested by a number of other ones that I wasn't familiar with. Quite probably the one that intrigued me most was a place in Omaha called Dinker's Bar. On a recent trip out to Omaha, I decided to find Dinker's for a burger.

I've been coming to Omaha for business since 1986 (and about 10 years prior to that when my sister and brother-in-law used to live in Omaha) and while I was familiar with places like Stella's and Louie M's Burger Lust, I had never heard of Dinker's Bar before. But the locals certainly love it. It has been voted as Omaha's best burger many times over the years. In fact, they're so confident of the burgers at Dinker's Bar they have a permanent sign on the front of their building that says, "Omaha's Best Burger." While I certainly love the burgers at Louie M's and I've given Stella's high marks over the years, I was somewhat taken aback that I hadn't known about Dinker's burgers until I read about them in Midwest Living magazine.

Dinker's Bar has been in existance since the mid-60's when Frank "Dinker" Synowiecki opened the doors to the neighborhood bar south of Omaha's downtown area known as Sheely Town. Sheely Town was named after Joseph Sheely who owned and ran a packing plant on Omaha's south side in the 1800's and who built tenement housing, initially, for mostly Irish workers. But later on, a number of Polish and Czech immigrants came to Omaha to work in the stockyards and slaughter houses of South Omaha. Many of the Polish immigrants settled in Sheely Town while many of the Czech's settled further to the south. Today, the Sheely Town neighborhood is a mix of small bungalow houses and larger two story homes that were built before World War II.

Initially, Dinker's Bar was just a "beer and a shot" type of place. However, Synowiecki put in a grill and began to serve burgers and sandwiches. Today, Synowiecki's son, Bob, runs the place. It's located in a long narrow building at the corner of S. 29th St. and Castelar St., just south of Martha Street and right next to I-480 (see map). Midwest Living compared to decor to a 1970's bowling alley. I guess I didn't get that when I walked into the place. I found it to be open and airy, but comfortable enough for people to carry on conversations. There are a number of tables throughout the long dining room with the bar in the front and the kitchen in the back.

I got in just after 1 p.m. and found the "Order Here" sign toward the dining room. A small line was in front of me as I took a look at the menu on the wall to see what I wanted to get on my first visit to Dinker's.

Dinker's Bar not only features their idea of the best burgers in Omaha, but they also have a number of sandwiches, salads and appetizers including homemade buttermilk-battered onion rings. Dinker's also features a lunch steak entree with a 6 oz. Omaha Steaks sirloin served with fries, a salad and their garlic cheese bread. They also feature luncheon specials each day - that day the hot beef sandwich was the feature. Quite honestly, it looked good when one of the waitresses walked by with a heaping plate as I was standing in line to get a burger.

The burgers at Dinker's Bar are hand-pattied, then cooked on a flat grill and pressed. Their beef is fresh, delivered three times a week to the bar, and I believe they grind their own burger meat. Their signature burger is the Haystack - a quarter pound patty topped with American cheese, honey smoked ham and then finished with a range free fried egg. That sounded really good. They also have a jalapeno burger that is topped with pepper jack cheese and fried jalapenos. But they also had a mushroom/Swiss cheese burger that I ended up getting.

The lady at the counter asked if I wanted any fries or onion rings with my burger. I wasn't certain I wanted anything other than the burger. She said chips came with the burger and that the rings or fries were extra. I ended up ordering some fries with the burger. You pay for the food at the counter as you order (WARNING - Dinker's is a cash only establishment), they give you a number to place on your table and they'll bring the food out to you.

There's really no wait staff at Dinker's Bar, so after you order your food and if you want a drink you have to go to the bar. I ended up sitting at the bar placing my number beside me. The bar area, itself, was a throwback to a 70's style bar with brickwork on the wall, along with mirrors hung over the brick. A series of bar glasses, a number of liquor bottles and even a Jagermeister machine cluttered up the back bar area. It was your typical neighborhood bar.

After about 15 minutes, a man brought me my burger and set it in front of me. When I ordered at the counter, the lady had asked if I wanted lettuce, tomato and onions (grilled or sliced) on my sandwich and I was rather impressed with the freshness of both the lettuce and tomato slices. The onions were pungent and fresh, as well. A large mound of French fries accompanied the burger in the basket.

The burger was thick and juicy, covered with copious amounts of fresh mushrooms. In fact, the mushrooms were so plentiful, they were sliding off of the burger with nearly each bite. Four napkins were dropped off with the burger and I needed them all. The burger, itself, was cooked perfectly with a little bit of pink in the middle. With all the veggies on the burger, it was difficult to get a full taste of the beef. But I pulled off a corner of the burger patty and tasted it on its own. It was very, very good.

Last, but certainly not least, the kaiser bun that Dinker's uses for their burgers was light and fluffy, adding a wonderful taste to the burger. It was lightly toasted and helped with the overall taste of the burger. It held together very well with the moist and juicy burger. I was overly impressed with Dinker's burger.

I'm sort of kicking myself for not knowing about Dinker's Bar before this. I love little neighborhood places like Dinker's. The burger I had was very, very good and I may have to make a couple more visits to Dinker's before I can decide if it truly is the best burger in Omaha. Stella's and Louis M's Burger Lust are certainly high on my list and I would have to say that Dinker's Bar has a burger that would be as equally worthy - if not more - as the burgers at those places.

The Corner Grill - Blue Grass, IA

When growing season started earlier this year, Cindy and I decided to hitch a ride with our neighbors Dave and Steve out to a greenhouse between Davenport and Blue Grass.  After spending an abundant amount of money on plants and flowers, Dave suggested we go to a spot in Blue Grass called the Corner Grill.  Dave is an electrician and he helped wire and place lighting fixtures in the building when it was rehabbed into the Corner Grill about two years ago.  He said, "I was in that place working for a couple weeks, but I've never eaten there."  We had wanted to try the place out, as well, as we like going to Jeff's Market just across the street from time to time to get meat from their butcher counter. (see map)  (Photo courtesy Quad City Times)

The Corner Grill is owned by Joe and Roseanne Sampson who happen to live in Blue Grass.  The Sampsons, who are involved with their own family construction business, bought the building in the fall of 2009 after it sat empty for a while.  Given that there were no full service family restaurants in Blue Grass, a combination bedroom community and agricultural-based town of about 1500 people located 10 miles west of Davenport, the Sampsons decided to rehab the building and put a bar/restaurant in the place.  

The building in which the Corner Grill sits is over 100 years old and has been a bar and/or restaurant for all those years.  The original owners of the building, Joe and Kate Mohr, opened their tavern in 1900 and ran it until 1918.  After that it was owned by a number of people over the years before it closed in the early part of 2009.  Joe Sampson, who along with his brothers in the family construction business, has extensive remodeling experience for both restaurants and houses in the Quad City area.   Linda Sampson brought some restaurant know-how as her father and uncle owned a number of McDonald's franchises.  After extensive remodeling, they opened the restaurant in April of 2010.  

The orginal building was around 1500 square feet and an additional 1500 square feet were added in the 1940's.  There is a room in the back of the Corner Grill that can be used for private parties or overflow on busy nights. The high tin plated ceilings have a number of antique-like light fixtures hanging from them.  "Those are heavy bastards," Dave told us.  "They were a bitch to hang!"  The Sampsons did a good job in making the building look like it may have 100 years ago without taking away the modern conveniences.   

The large bar is "L"-shaped and features a number of televisions high on the wall behind the bar.  The day after we at at the Corner Grill I was telling my friend, Scott, that we needed to go out there to meet our friend, Tom Kakert from Hawkeye Report, for lunch sometime.  Tom lives on the south side of Blue Grass and he always comes in to Davenport to have lunch with us from time to time.  I told Scott that we needed to reciprocate on going out to Blue Grass sometime so Tom didn't have so far to travel.  

It was just past 7:30 when we got into the Corner Grill and there was a good crowd on hand.  We were seated by a young hostess in a corner booth in the front part of the restaurant.  As we were seated, I decided that I needed to go to the restroom to clean my hands after handling all the plants.  I walked into the restroom and the first thing I noticed was a two-way mirror with a flat panel television in the middle of it.  I tried to take a picture of it, but it didn't come out all that well with the reflection in the mirrow.  Now, I've seen mirrors with televisions in them before, but mainly in higher-end houses where dealers that I work with have put in extensive whole house audio and video systems.  But I'd never seen one in a bar/restaurant before.  It was actually kind of a nice little touch.  A guy I encountered in the restroom later in the evening said, "This is great!  I can just bring my beer in here and watch the game on the TV and wouldn't have to miss any of the action if I had to get up and go pee!"  He certainly had a point.

I went back to the table and we started to go through the menu.  The menu at the Corner Grill is your basic pub fare food with burgers, sandwiches, appetizers and a few entrees including chicken, pork and steak.  I was thinking about trying their breaded pork tenderloin until I glanced at the booth across from us where a young lady had half a burger sitting on her plate.  It looked big, thick and juicy.  I was torn between the two, but decided upon getting the burger.

Dave was telling us stories of working the place as we waited to give our orders.  After about 10 minutes, I turned to Cindy and said, "Notice anything about this place?"

She said, "Yeah, we haven't been waited on."  She was correct.  After the girl dropped off the menus, no one came over to even greet us after that.  In fact, a couple seated at the booth behind us had came in after we were seated, were greeted by a young waitress, got their drinks AND placed their food order in that 10 minutes span.  

I told them that I'd wait another five minutes.  Dave asked, "Then do what?  Get up and walk out?"

Cindy said, "We've been known to do that!"  

Another five minutes went by and I noticed that a couple waitresses were just hanging up by the front hostess stand jabbering away with the young hostess.  What appeared to be a manager walked up and was talking to them, and when he turned around in our direction I waved him over. He said, "How can I help you, sir?"

I said, "We've been sitting here for 15 minutes, at least, and no one has waited on us.  And I could use a beer."  He apologized profusely and went over to one of the waitresses standing there and told her to go over and take our drink order.  A waitress came over and it was obvious she had an attitudinal problem with waiting on us.  Her posture, tone and cold look on her face told us she would rather be anywhere else than right there at that moment.  She said, "You guys need drinks?"

I shot back, "Well, yeah, for about the last 15 minutes."  She took our drink orders and left to go get them.  Steve said, "What was her problem?  She really had an attitude, didn't she?  I won't stand for that if she's our waitress the rest of the evening."  

After a bit, another waitress came over with our drinks and she introduced herself as Rachel.  Steve asked her, "Are you going to be our waitress?"  She said she would be.  Steve said, "Good.  We didn't care for the other girl's attitude. That was uncalled for."  

Rachel said, "I'm sorry about her, you guys.  I didn't know she was getting off at 8 and this was supposed to be her table.  But then she told me that she was leaving and she wanted me to take it over."  Rachel was lively, bubbly and fun.  We all immediately liked her. 

Since we'd been sitting there for better part of 20 minutes, we were all ready to order our food.  Cindy ordered what she thought was going to be the lemon-pepper cod dinner entree.  She got a choice of side with that which included the usual fries, cole slaw, cottage cheese, veggies or something called "rabbit food".  Cindy said, "All right, I have to ask.  What's rabbit food?"

Rachel said, "Oh, that's just carrots and cauliflower and we serve them with ranch dressing.  We call it rabbit food to make it fun."  

Cindy said, "Oh, I'll just take the cole slaw." Then she stopped and asked, "Is your cole slaw good?"

Rachel replied, "I think it's pretty good.  I like it.  It's creamy and has a good taste to it.  It isn't too vinegary, though."   

I ordered the mushroom/Swiss cheese burger and for a dollar extra I got bacon slices.  I got fries as my side.  Dave ordered the Corner Grill Special which was an Italian beef sandwich served on a hoagie bun and topped with grilled onions and green peppers.  

Steve was still trying to figure out what he wanted (even after all this time) and he finally ordered the Henny Penny chicken.  Henny Penny is an Ohio company that makes rotisserie pressure cookers and chicken friers for restaurants.  I want to also say that they provide the chicken for "Henny Penny" chicken, as well.  I believe I've seen Henny Penny chicken restaurants here and there in my travels, but I may be mistaken.  For his sides, mashed potatoes and gravy came with the chicken and Steve ordered the vegetable for that evening which was green beans.  Since Cindy ordered cole slaw, Steve thought that sounded good and he asked Rachel if he could also get some cole slaw.  She said there would be an upcharge, but Steve said it was all right.    

About 25 minutes after we ordered - a little longer than we all anticipated getting our food since much of the restaurant had cleared out from the earlier dinner rush - Rachel and another girl showed up with our food.  Cindy's cod was actually on a hoagie bun (below left).  She said, "I didn't know it was a sandwich.  I'm not going to eat the bread."  

I said, "I thought you ordered the lemon pepper cod entree.  She must have gotten you the cod sandwich instead."  Cindy said that she'd eat it like that.    

Steve's chicken consisted of two pieces of dark meat like he ordered, a scoop of mashed potatoes slathered with a brown gravy and some limp looking green beans.   The cole slaw was in a bowl.  Actually, the chicken looked pretty good.  

Dave's Corner Grill Special sandwich also looked pretty good (below left).  It had mounds of tender Italian roast beef on the hoagie bun.  A large pile of fries accompanied the sandwich.

My burger was placed in front of me and I noticed that it was missing the bacon.  I said to Rachel, "Hey, kiddo, I think you forgot my bacon." 

She sort of looked down at it, scowled and then said, "Oh!  Look under the hamburger."  Sure enough, there was the bacon.  Aha!  Usually, the bacon is draped across the top, but not so at the Corner Grill.  The bun was a nice fluffy kaiser roll bun.  The burger, itself, didn't look as thick as the one the girl who was seated across from us had.  In fact, it was a little overcooked.  Actually, a lot overcooked.  I didn't tell Rachel how I wanted it cooked because she didn't ask.  If I get a burger there next time, I'll have to make sure they don't overcook it.  Nonetheless, the burger was pretty good, the bun helped out a lot.  But for $9.95, I thought it was pretty pricey for what it was.  The fries were your typical krinkle cut fries that you find at any nondescript restaurant.  Although the burger was big, I didn't think it was that great of a value. 

Cindy said the cod was "pretty good".  When I asked how the cole slaw was and she said, "Eh!"  She said she could take it or leave it.

We were eating and making conversation when Dave said out of the blue, "This sandwich is damn good."  It looked damn good. I don't care for grilled onions or peppers.  I like the taste, but they don't like me during the digestion period.  Dave was overly happy with his sandwich.

Steve plowed through the chicken.  He said it was also very good.  He also didn't think much of the cole slaw, however.  And he didn't think the potatoes tasted like they were real.  "I'm guessing they are, but it's like they're too dry or something."  And he said the green beans were as lifeless in taste as they were looking on his plate. 

For our first trip to the Corner Grill I'd have to say that it was just all right and nothing special.  I certainly didn't think the food was all that much of a good value and wondered if they'd be able to sustain a restaurant with these types of prices in a small town like Blue Grass.  But given the number of people that were in there for dinner that evening, I'm sure they do pretty well.  Other than the hiccup of not being waited on for the first 15 minutes while we were there, I have to say that Rachel more than made up for it with her work that evening.  She got a nice tip from us all.  As I said, I'll probably go back out there at some point to have lunch with my buddy, Tom.  But I doubt if we'll purposely drive out to Blue Grass for dinner again, unless we were also going to stop at Jeff's Market and get some meat.   

B-Bop's - Urbandale, IA

B-Bop's is a seven location local burger chain based out of Des Moines that actually got its start a number of years ago as part of a concept that came out the old Mr. Quick fast food restaurants from the 70's and 80's. It had been quite sometime since I'd had a burger at B-Bop's, and as I was driving along I-80 recently I decided to get off at the NW 86th St. exit and head south to the corner of Meredith Drive and 86th to the B-Bop's located there (see map).

The man behind B-Bop's is Illinois native Bob Johnson who first worked at a Mr. Quick fast food franchise in Princeton, IL beginning in 1971.  Working his way up to assistant manager in a short period, Johnson caught the eye of Mr. Quick management back at the company's headquarters in Moline, IL.  He was offered a franchise partnership for a Mr. Quick location that was opening just off of Interstate 80 in my hometown of Newton, IA.  Johnson moved to Newton after Mr. Quick was built and began his career as a franchise partner with the company.  Johnson eventually put in Mr. Quick locations in Muscatine, IA and Fairfield, IA before he split with the Mr. Quick organization in 1983 and renamed his restaurants Sizzlin' Sam's.

Here's the personal part of the story - I lived right behind the Mr. Quick location in Newton for about four years in an apartment building that was separated by an open field that is now a Super 8 motel.  I can't tell you how many times I walked across the weed-strewn field to get a burger or a hot ham and cheese sandwich at Mr. Quick.  (Photo at right courtesy RoundAmerica.com) 

There were many quirky things about Mr. Quick, as well.  I knew some people who worked for Bob Johnson and he insisted that the workers address him as "Mr. Johnson".  Line cooks and counter workers were also expected to address store managers and assistant managers as "Mister" as a sign of respect.  I thought it all was very pretentious on the part of Bob Johnson and used to somewhat make fun of it when I'd talk to others about Mr. Quick.  I had some friends who worked there over the years and they all thought it was rather strange and somewhat demeaning to have to refer to ownership and management in such a stiff and formal manner.   But, hey, sometimes kids need that sort of structure in their lives, so who am I to judge?

The other thing that I used to get a kick out of was the unique language Mr. Quick workers used when the counter workers would shout back the orders to the line cooks.  For example, an order that consisted of a double cheeseburger with extra ketchup and no pickles with an order of fries was yelled out, "Double CB, extra K, hold the p, and one!"  The "one" being the fries.  Onion rings were "golden o's".  Milk was called "Grade A".  When the line cooks didn't hear the order clearly, they'd yell out, "Echo! Echo!"  I used to laugh when they'd do that.  (And I still do, just thinking about it.)  It was somewhat overblown pomposity in nature. 

I had a friend who was rather smart - and who was somewhat of a smart-ass at times - who used to work at Mr. Quick in high school.  I liked to go to Mr. Quick with him and he'd order in the Mr. Quick language to the counter workers.  They'd look at him like he was from Mars before they'd catch on that he used to work at Mr. Quick.  I had to stifle outright laughter when he did it.

In the late 70's and early 80's, a number of hamburger places - primarily in the Southwest part of the U.S. - began a concept of double drive-thru lanes at their restaurants.  Generally, there was no indoor seating like you found at a place like Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's, and a walk-up window was available for those who either rode bikes, motorcycles or simply walked up to the location.  Bob Johnson saw this concept as the future of fast food business and started the first B-Bop's near the corner of NE 14th and Euclid Ave. in Des Moines in 1988.  That location is still there today (see map).   

Johnson uses the same cooking procedures at B-Bop's that he had in place for years at Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's.  The burgers are cooked on a Neico gas flame automatic broiler that rotated a metal grated treadmill over and under an open flame that cooked both sides of the burger as it passed through.  There was a separate rotating metal treadmill at the bottom to toast buns.  It was a quick and efficient way to cook burgers.  Quite actually, the burgers at Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's, and subsequently at B-Bop's, were not necessarily of the fast food variety as burgers were made to order and were never cooked before and set in warming bins like you found at places like McDonald's or Burger King.  That's what helped make the Mr.Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's/B-Bop's burgers a little more desirable compared to other fast food places.

The B-Bop's concept took off and quickly became one of the favorite drive-thru burger joints in the greater Des Moines area.  Johnson ultimately sold off or closed down his three Sizzlin' Sam's locations and focused primarily on the B-Bop's restaurants that he was opening or franchising in the Central Iowa area.  Today, you'll find 4 B-Bop's in the greater Des Moines area, a location in Ankeny, a location in Altoona and a B-Bop's in nearby Ames.  

All the B-Bop's offer the same menu of burgers, pork tenderloins (called "fritters" at B-Bop's), fried or broiled chicken sandwiches, a fish sandwich, and something known as a Sloppy Joe Slider - a loose-meat burger with a tomato-based sauce mixed in served on a small bun.  And interestingly while B-Bop's has French fries and chicken nuggets on their menu, they don't have onion rings.  The onion rings at the old Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's were actually pretty good.  But the breadth of the menu items at B-Bop's is significantly smaller than what was offered at Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's.  

Pulling up to the B-Bop's in Urbandale, you have your choice of either going to the right for driver side service, or to the left for passenger side service.  That works well when you have a passenger who can order from that side, be able to pay for and receive the food as it comes out through the window.  But because most people coming into B-Bop's are alone, the line to the right is usually longer.   

The menu board is located at the entrance of the drive-thru lane.  A two-way speaker system is located on top of the menu board.  I didn't want much that day so I just ordered one of the 1/4 pound cheeseburger deluxe burgers - basically a quarter pound cheeseburger with all the regular condiments along with shredded lettuce, a slice of tomato and mayo added on.  It's literally the same thing that I was having at Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's back in Newton 30 plus years ago.

Because you can't go inside, I don't know if they use the same language to shout out orders at B-Bop's as they used to at Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's.  I'm guessing with the success Bob Johnson has had over the years, the language probably hasn't changed in any of his restaurants.    

Because of the long line of cars in front of me, by the time I made it to the window and handed over my money for the burger, it was sitting in a sack on the counter.  The window guy who took my ordered handed me the sack.  There's a parking lot for a strip mall behind B-Bop's and past experiences dictate that I needed to be stopped and parked if I was going to be eating the deluxe cheeseburger.

One of the signatures of a Bob Johnson-corporate restaurant over the years is that they serve the burgers in a styrofoam container.  I'm sure Mr. Johnson has his reasons for this, but B-Bop's may be the only fast-style burger place that still uses styrofoam that I know of.  I don't think this styrofoam container is bio-degradable or recyclable, but I may be mistaken.  In any event, it didn't have any signs of being recyclable on the outside of the container. 

The burger was basically similar to the taste of the old Mr. Quick/Sizzlin' Sam's burgers.  It had a pleasant charbroiled taste to the meat and it was loaded with an almost excessive amount of lettuce and mayonnaise.  The sesame seed bun was toasted enough that it had a good flavor and it held the burger together very well.  However, with each bite globs of shredded lettuce and mayo would fall from the sandwich - some of which didn't hit the styrofoam container if you catch my drift.  Thankfully, B-Bop's include at least three napkins in each sack per burger.  You'll need them for a deluxe cheeseburger.

I see from time to time that B-Bop's gets local awards for having the best burgers and fries in Central Iowa as voted upon by their customers.  Compared to other fast food restaurants, I would rather eat at a B-Bop's than a national chain.  It's more "fast food as ordered" than what you find at a typical fast food chain.  But I certainly can't say that the burgers at B-Bops are all that great.  They're certainly good for what they are and it's worth a stop if you're in a hurry and need a burger fix.    

Oddfellows Burger Kitchen - Ames, IA

After eating at - and doing background research on Pazzesco Pasta and Chophouse in Ames, IA (see my entry on that place here) - I found that the owner was also a partner in a new gourmet burger joint in town, Oddfellows Burger Kitchen.  I was in Ames recently calling on a dealer and I found that Oddfellows wasn't far from his office.  I stopped in for lunch that particular day just to see if their burgers were as good as advertised.

(Update - Pazzesco closed their doors in March of 2012, not long after I visited their restaurant.  They say on their web site they're looking for a new location, but as of the fall of 2012, they appear to still be closed.) 

The owner of Pazzesco, Chris Patterson, partnered up with Sai Kiojai, to open Oddfellows earlier this year in the old Cafe Shi location in the Northern Lights shopping center, just north of the North Grand Mall on Wheeler Avenue just off Grand Avenue on the north side of Ames (see map).  Patterson is a native of nearby Nevada, IA and attended Iowa State University.  He had a long history of working at, managing and owning a number of restaurants around the country before moving back to Ames a couple three years ago to open Pazzesco.   Patterson saw a need for an upscale burger place in Ames and came up with the concept of Oddfellows.  

The decor of Oddfellows can easily be described as colorful and funky.  The walls are painted in bright pastel colors and covered with movie posters, odd-ball antiques and concert posters.  Most of the posters are tacked up with staples and I'm wondering how long it will be before some of them are torn off the wall.  There's a main dining area and a bar area.  The main dining room was still full just after 1 p.m. when I got in there, so I took a seat in the bar area.

A large group of workers from Iowa State University was finishing up their lunch when I was seated near a window in the bar.  There are a number of flat screen televisions in the bar area and it looks like it would be a good place to watch a sporting event.  But I would stop short of calling it a sports bar.  

The young man who directed me to my seat dropped off a menu and told me my waitress would be with me shortly.  I took a look through the menu as I waited and found that Oddfellows did, indeed, have some interesting burgers on their menu.  They grind their beef fresh each day and feature fresh ingredients for their toppings.  Their signature Oddfellow burger features a burger that uses a split donut instead of a bun.  The Elvis burger is topped with bananas and peanut butter (editorial comment: "Yuck!"), and they had a grilled cheese burger that is basically a double grilled cheese sandwich made with four slices of Texas toast and a burger in the middle.  They also had burgers, one topped with crab meat, another with beef brisket.  They also had a number of appetizers including bacon-wrapped dates.  I'm not big on dates, but it's pretty hard not to like a food that is wrapped in bacon. (Although I recently did have bacon-wrapped braunschweiger that almost made me gag.)

I had been there for about three minutes and the young guy who seated me came over and said, "Sorry she hasn't been here to take your drink order.  She's a little busy finishing up with this big group.  What can I get ya?"  I ordered a bottle of beer and continued to look over the menu. 

My waitress came over to me and dropped off my beer.  She had the unique name of Kearstin and profusely apologized for not coming over sooner.  I told her I fully understood.  She had a large group that all paid individually and she and another waitress were doing their best to keep up.  By that time, I'd had enough time to look over the menu and I had decided to get the green chile burger, topped with pepperjack cheese, cooked medium.  I had my choice of sides like fries, rings or macaroni and cheese.  For funsies, I got the mac and cheese.

Less than 20 minutes after I ordered, Kearstin cheerfully dropped off my burger at the table.  The pepperjack cheese was melted over the green chiles, holding them on top of the burger patty.  Actually, I don't know if I would call the green chiles as "fresh" - they looked like they had just come out of a can.  That didn't matter to me all that much.  

The burger, itself, was cooked exactly as I like with a little bit of pink in the middle.  Too many times I encounter grill chefs who don't quite understand that a burger cooked all the way through is not medium.  The meat did taste fresh and had the nice flat griddle taste to it.  The bun was light and fluffy, lightly toasted and a little chewy.  It held together well with the juiciness of the burger.  The only problem was that the chiles kept falling off.  It made for a messy burger and they need to put more napkins on the table when they serve a burger like this.  I went through the napkin I had on my lap rather quickly and had to reach across the table and steal the napkin wrapped around the extra silverware.  

While I can say the burger was above average, the mac and cheese was "eh!"  It was pretty basic and lifeless.  Trader Joe's mac and cheese out of a box was much better than the mac and cheese at Oddfellows.  I just had a couple bites before I decided it wasn't worth eating any more.   

While the burger was very good, it was also a little expensive ($9.00).  I don't know how a place like Oddfellows will do in a smaller university town in the Midwest like Ames, but I'm hoping they do make it.  Kearstin did a nice job in taking care of me and I hung around a bit taking a look at some of the posters and memorabilia they had on the walls at Oddfellows.  All in all, I give Oddfellows Burger Kitchen a "thumbs up".  A little expensive, but still pretty darn good.       

Lucky's 13 Pub - Bloomington, MN

After I'd written about J.L. Beers in Fargo earlier this year, I'd heard from a couple people from the Fargo area who thought that the burger at Lucky's 13 Pub was the best in Fargo.  I looked up Lucky's 13 on the Internet and found out that they were actually based in the Twin Cities with the original location in suburban Mendota, and a location in Bloomington, not far from the Hampton Inn that I like to stay at when I'm in the area.  I'd had a couple morning meetings and was headed back out to the hotel to prepare for a meeting later in the day and decided to run by Lucky's 13 and see if their burgers were as good as advertised.  

The people behind Lucky's 13 are Charlie Burrows and Linda Young, longtime partners who were behind the Axel's restaurants in the greater Twin Cities area.  (Click here to see my entry on the Axel's Bonfire location in Savage, MN.)  Burrows and Young sold their interest in the Axel's restaurants a couple three years ago and now run the Rudy's Redeye Grill in Rosemount with three other locations around Minnesota.  They also run the Me and Julio Mexican restaurant in suburban Hastings.    

Before selling their interests in the Axel's restaurants, Young and Burrows opened the first Lucky 13's Pub in what was the old Mendota Saloon in suburban Mendota in the fall of 2007, just a block away from the original Axel's restaurant on Minnesota Highway 13 (hence, the "13" in the name).  They opened their second Lucky's 13 location out in Spearfish, SD in late 2009.  The third location in Bloomington opened not long after that in a former Bennigan's restaurant near the intersection of Interstate 494 and Interstate 35W, just across the freeway from the corporate headquarters of Best Buy.  They expanded to Fargo, ND in the fall of 2011.  

It was after the noon rush when I got into the Lucky's 13 location in Bloomington.  The address - 1800 American Boulevard West - is a little confusing.  Actually, Lucky's 13 is located north of the intersection of American Blvd. West and Knox Ave. on Southtown Circle, just to the east of Southtown Shopping Center (see map).  I went in and sort of stood at the front door waiting for a hostess or, at the least, a waitress to greet me and direct me to a seat.  When no one showed up, I walked to the large rectangular bar and took a seat.  The bartender greeted me and she asked me if I wanted something to drink. I said, "I'd take a menu, first."  

I then asked her if they had any Surly Brewery products available.  She said, "No, I'm sorry."  I started to look at what they had on tap and I noticed an Alaskan Brewery beer tap.  When I asked her what Alaskan beer she had on tap, she said, "That's the Amber."  Sold!  I love Alaskan beer.  

The interior of the Bloomington Lucky's 13 Pub location is open and bright in the daytime.  It featured brick walls and matching brick pillars with ornate tin ceiling tiles.  A number of flat screens were throughout the place with good viewing angles from just about every seat in the bar.  Old time pictures hung on the brick walls.  I especially liked some of the old Minnesota Twins team pictures they had in the men's room.  It was smaller than Joe Senser's, but I sort of liked the layout a little better.  While I like Joe Senser's as a sports bar, I'm always looking for alternatives since I don't want to get burned out on going to one place over and over.  Even without trying the food, Lucky's 13 immediately became an alternative.  

The lunch menu is primarily burgers and sandwiches with a number of appetizers, salads and entrees including bacon-wrapped meat loaf, pan-fried or deep-fried walleye, shepards pie, and fried chicken.  Actually, the dinner menu isn't much different, only without some of the lunch specials they offer.  

The one thing that stood out were the prices.  They were certainly proud of the food at Lucky's 13.  A basic 1/3 lb. burger is $9.99, while most of the specialty burgers were $10.99 to $11.49.  The sandwiches were also a little pricey - they ranged from $9.49 for a basic B.L.T. or a grilled four cheese sandwich to $13.99 for a walleye B.L.T.  Most of the sandwiches were in the $10.99 to $11.99 range.  But you also get your choice of sides with the sandwiches or burgers, so that takes a little bit of the sting out of the price.  

Even though some of the sandwiches sounded good - like the Chivito that featured sliced beef, egg, bacon, ham, olives and mozzarella cheese; or the meatloaf melt - I was looking more favorably at the extensive burger list they had.  Even seeing cajun walleye fish tacos on the menu didn't steer me away from the burgers. 

Lucky's 13 Pub has just under 20 burgers to choose from on their menu.  In addition to their basic burger (add cheese for $1.00), they also have a number of interesting and eclectic burgers to choose from.  The Sunrise burger is topped with a fried egg, ham, cheddar cheese and a cake of hash browns; the Sweet Heat has grilled, candied jalapenos along with onions and cheddar cheese on top; and the French Onion burger is topped with onions, au jus sauce and provolone cheese.  They have two different variations of the Twin Cities stuffed burger known as the Juicy Lucy (or Jucy Lucy, depending upon your preferred spelling) - the Juicy Lulu stuffed with American cheese, and the Stuffed Bleu - stuffed with bleu cheese and bacon bits.  

Quite actually, my choice that day was between the Stuffed Bleu, the Mushroom/Swiss burger that I was going to have them put some bacon on top for an extra buck, or the signature Lucky 13 burger that is topped with sweet onions, cheddar cheese, bacon and sweet peppadew peppers.  At the last second, I switched my choice from the mushroom/Swiss/bacon burger to the Lucky 13 burger.  I love sweet peppadew peppers and wondered how they'd take on a burger.  I got a choice of side that included fries, onion rings, kettle chips, fruit or cole slaw.  For an extra buck you could get some of Lucky 13's loaded tater tots (which sounded interesting) or sweet potato fries.  I asked the bartender if the onion rings were homemade and she said, "Absolutely.  They're very good."  I took the onion rings.  

After awhile, a young man brought my burger out for me and grabbed some ketchup and mustard for me.  The burger was placed between a lightly toasted sesame seed bun.  Two strips of bacon were criss-crossed over the patty, which was layered with the peppadew peppers, sweet onions and cheddar cheese.  I wasn't sure what to expect for the onion ring sides as far as how much I'd get or what they'd be like, but they gave me four somewhat large rings.  I decided that was perfect because I didn't really need more of that.  

The burger was ordered medium, but it was much more medium-well than that.  The bun was light and fluffy and tasted pretty well.  The burger, itself, was just OK.  It was a little over-cooked to my liking, but the sweet onions and sweet peppadew peppers were a nice combination of taste on the burger.  The bacon wasn't limp, but definitely not overcooked and brittle.  While I couldn't say it was an outstanding burger, it was far from bad. I could name a couple three places in the Twin Cities off the top of my head that head better burgers than the one at Lucky's 13 Pub.

But the highlight was definitely the onion rings.  They had a nice little spicy bite to the taste.  After a bit I wish I would have gotten more than just the four large rings they gave me as a side.  The batter was flaky and the onions were sweet.  The only problem is that they gave me indigestion later in the day.  I like the taste of fried onions, but they don't like me afterward.   

The burger at Lucky's 13 Pub was good, but definitely not great.   That's not to say that I won't go back, because I will.  The menu is long and diverse enough that I know I can try something else on my next visit.  Given the amount of televisions they have, if I want to catch a sporting event on TV when I'm in the Twin Cities I can easily do that at Lucky's 13.  I'll give them another chance on their burger - probably getting the mushroom/Swiss/bacon burger next time.  Or I may try one of their interesting sandwiches.  The atmosphere was nice, the service was adequate, and the food and beer selection was above average.  Lucky's 13 was a nice place for a good lunch.

Westport Flea Market - Kansas City, MO

I want to give a shout out to Tricia T. who sent me a note telling me that she thought Westport Flea Market in the Westport Entertainment and Shopping area of Kansas City, MO had the best burgers in that area.  I wasn't familiar with Westport Flea Market, so on a recent trip to K.C. I decided to have lunch there one day.  I had trouble finding it, driving by it once.  But when I figured out where it was, I was almost embarrassed that I didn't know about this place before.

From the street, the Westport Flea Market is pretty non-descript.  For the uninitiated - like me - it sort of does look like a building that houses a decrepit flea market.  And that's probably what I thought as I know I've driven past the place on Westport Road (see map) many times in the past.  In fact, there's a Sonic Drive-In just across the street that I've eaten at a couple times in the past.  Had I known a good burger joint was just across the street, I would have gladly ditched the Sonic burger in favor of a good ol' bar and grill burger.  

Actually, the Westport Flea Market and Bar and Grill - in its present state - has been around since 1981.  It truly is a flea market/bar and grill.  There are a handful of booths run by vendors (hours vary).  Looking into some of the fenced in spaces, it looked like an eclectic mix of kitsch and nostalgia.  

The background story of Westport Flea Market goes back even further than their opening in 1981.  Prior to World War II, the building housed the Calhoun Mantle and Tile Company - a business that made mantles for fire places and sold ceramic tiles for floors.  Due to a downturn in home building during World War II, the company went out of business and the building sat vacant for a handful of years.  In 1950, the building was bought by the old Kitty Clover potato chip company out of Omaha and served as their Kansas City-area factory until 1963.  

The building was transformed into a restaurant in the mid-60's called The Place in Westport.  It was primarily a bar and grill that sold burgers and beer - similar to the present day Westport Flea Market.  It was sort of a bohemian type of place that featured dancing and also sold artwork from local artists.  It was in business for just a few years before closing around 1973.   

In the mid-70's, the building was transformed into a retail market space called Things Unlimited, the precursor to what became the Westport Flea Market.  With the downturn in the economy in the late 70's, the flea market went into bankruptcy.  A Kansas City area investor, Mel Kleb, bought the Westport Flea Market and reopened it as a bar/grill/flea market.  

The Westport Flea Market thrived for years, very much known for their big juicy burgers and their variety of beers they had on tap.  But in 2005, Hooters came calling, wanting to put in a Hooters restaurant in the Westport area of Kansas City.  Kleb, being the consummate businessman, took their offer and began the process of selling the business.  

Then two things happened.  The first involved a young entrepreneur by the name of Joe Zwillenberg who found out that Kleb was selling the business.  Long a fan of the Westport Flea Market, Joe contacted Kleb and wanted to buy the Westport Flea Market from him.  Kleb told him that the deal was already consummated with Hooters.  Undeterred, Zwillenberg, who ran a burger joint styled after the Westport Flea Market, finally sat down with Kleb and offered him a downpayment of $25,000 and showed him a line of credit from his bank to finance the remaining part of the purchase.  Kleb still resisted, saying the deal with Hooters was done.  However, Kleb told the young Zwillenberg that if the deal fell through, it was his to have.  Zwillenberg was determined to have the Hooters deal fall through.  

The second thing that happened was when the Westport Neighborhood Association found out that the Hooters corporation was going to demolish the existing building to put up a new restaurant, they put up a fight to stop the demolition.  While the fight was going on to stop Hooters from building a new restaurant, Kleb was getting checks from Hooters on a monthly basis to purchase the building and business.  However, due to an accounting oversight Kleb didn't receive a check one month.  Kleb immediately called it a breach of contract and told Hooters that the deal was over.  He sold the business to Joe Zwillenberg.

Two months later on March 1, 2006, Kleb and Zwillenberg consummated their deal with the "passing of the burger" - a five-pound ceremonial burger that was made for the occasion. (Picture at right courtesy KC Confidential.com)  Zwillenberg brought his "Joe's Burgers" concept over to the Westport Flea Market and the rest, as they say, is history.  

Zwillenberg is no stranger to the food service industry.  He has a long history of working in various capacities in a number of restaurants in the Kansas City area.  He was a singing waiter at the age of 17, he was a bartender at an upscale bar/restaurant at the age of 20 - both jobs he got by lying about his age.  

After graduating with a degree in hotel and restaurant management from the University of Missouri, Zwillenberg started to work for the Gilbert/Robinson restaurant corporation, owners of the Houlihan's restaurant chain and J. Gilbert's Wood Fired Steaks in suburban Overland Park.  He managed a couple Houlihan's in the Kansas City area before he decided he wanted to get into business for himself in the mid-90's.  

After a short experience as a partner in a restaurant that soured him on ever having a partner again, Zwillenberg started Joe Joe's Italian Eatery, an Italian-style bistro in Kansas City's mid city area.  Joe Joe's is said to be the first place to serve panini sandwiches in the Kansas City area.  

There was a Hardee's just across the street from Joe Joe's and it closed up a couple years after Zwillenberg opened his Italian bistro.  Zwillenberg had been looking at wanting to do a catering company and he ended up buying the old Hardee's and opening his catering business - Joe Joe's Catering.  It continues to be one of the top catering businesses in Kansas City today.

Having a large love for the Westport Flea Market concept, Zwillenberg lifted a menu from the business on one visit and used it for his blue print for his own burger joint, Joe's Burgers.  It wasn't long after he opened his burger joint that he found out that the Westport Flea Market was up for sale.  It was then he contacted Mel Kleb and that's the beginning of their relationship which eventually led to Zwillenberg taking over the Westport Flea Market, saving the building and sparing the Westport area from the mediocre food served at a Hooters.   

It was around 1:30 when I got into the Westport Flea Market.  I took a quick look around and decided to have a seat at the L-shaped bar.  I looked behind the bar and saw their very impressive line up of draft beers that they have on tap.  I wasn't certain I wanted a beer, but looking at all those tappers sort of made me thirsty. 

I took a menu and began to look through it to see what they had to offer at Westport Flea Market.  Actually, there's a lot more than just burgers on the menu at Westport Flea Market.  They have a number of sandwiches, including Joe Zwillenberg's famous grilled chicken panini that he brought over from his days running his Italian bistro.   The menu features a large array of appetizers, a handful of salads, daily specials and a special kids menu.  In fact, their burger menu is only three items long - the Flea Market burger, the smaller Mini Market burger, and a patty melt that features the Mini Market burger on a toasted rye bread with grilled onions and Swiss cheese.  

The burgers have been named "Best in Kansas City" by a number of polls consistently over the past 20+ years.  Westport Flea Market gets their beef from McGonigle's Meat Market, a famous Kansas City butcher shop that is nationally known for their steaks and other cuts of meat.  It's been awhile since I've done an entry on a butcher shop.  The next time I go to Kansas City, I need to take a large cooler with me and get some beef from McGonigle's and do a Road Tips entry on the place.

A waitress/bartender came over and greeted me after a bit.  She asked if I wanted something to drink and I asked back, "Do you have Boulevard Pale Ale on tap?"  Actually, that was a pretty stupid question - any beer bar worth their salt in Kansas City has Boulevard Pale Ale on tap.  She said that they did and wondered if I was ready to order some food.  I had noticed in the short time that I was there that a guy was calling out people's names over an in-house P.A. system and they would go to a window and pick up their food orders.  I said, "Do I order food from you?"

She said, "Yep!  We'll call out your name and you pick up your food at the window over there."  She pointed at a small dining area just beside the bar area.  "There's a small condiment bar down there and you dress your food with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, whatever."

I said, "Well, I understand your burgers are pretty good."

"The best in town," she quickly shot back.  

I ordered up a burger, medium.  She asked, "You want cheese on it?  Cheddar, Swiss, pepperjack..."  I stopped her at pepperjack.  

She then asked, "You want any grilled mushrooms, bacon ?"  I said mushrooms sounded great.   And I got a choice of sides with the burger, as well.  Curly fries, cole slaw or cottage cheese were my choices, but for an upcharge I could get onion rings.  I wasn't certain I wanted fries, but cottage cheese sure sounded good to me.  

After about 15 minutes, I heard my name called over the P.A. and I went over to the pick up window to get my burger.  The condiment bar featured onions, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes and some other things.  I got some onions, pickles and the tomato slices, though small, looked very fresh for the time of year.  

Sitting down with the burger, well...  You ever have food sat down in front of you and the smell of it is so good that you KNOW that it will be good?  That's what the Flea Market burger smelled like.  There were a gob of fresh grilled mushrooms on and around the burger that was covered with a thick blanket of pepperjack cheese.

My first bite - it was ecstasy.  Oh, my God!  I immediately said, "Ummmmm...." as I chewed my first bite.  The burger was juicy and overly flavorful.  It had that old time flat grill seasoned taste to it.  The juices just flowed out of the burger.  The sesame-seeded lightly toasted bun was thick, but still pretty light to chew.  It went well with the burger meat.  About the only quibble I had with the burger was that it was probably more medium-rare than medium.  I know that if my wife would have ordered a burger medium and it came out like this she would have sent it back.  But I was fine with it.  I'll just have to remember to order it medium-well the next time.  

With the great tasting grilled mushrooms, the fresh and forward tasting onions and the tangy pickles, this burger was a winner.  I immediately realized had to put it in the Top Ten of my Best Burger List.  I'll have to figure out where I'll put it when I finally do my updated Best Burger List 2012 sometime in the coming weeks.  I could easily see why it's been named the best burger in Kansas City for so many years.  And I was also a little embarrassed that I hadn't had one of these burgers before this visit.   As many times that I've been in Kansas City in the past, I should have known about Westport Flea Market before this.

As I got finished, my waitress/bartender came over and asked how the burger was.  "Killer," I replied enthusiastically.  And it was.  

She handed me my bill and I got out my credit card to hand to her.  She said, "Uh, normally we don't take credit cards..."

I said, "Oh!  OK!  No problem!"  I got a $20 bill out of my pocket and handed it to her.  She gave me $4.65 in change and I left $3 bucks for her tip.  OK, so rookie mistake and something to remember for next time - Westport Flea Market only takes cash.  They have an ATM in their billiards area for those who are caught short on cash for their food.

Before I left, I took a look around the place.  Toward the street side of Westport Flea Market there's a dining room with a number of vintage beer cans that line the walls on shelves.  This room was actually closed off for diners at this time, but they have two other dining areas - the one pictured above near where the pick-up window is located, and a dining area up near the bar.   

So, thanks to Tricia for turning me onto Westport Flea Market for a great burger.  I was overly impressed with the place, the food, the service and and the history behind the business.  Once again, I'm somewhat embarrassed by the fact that I had no idea that a great burger place like this existed in a city that I've been traveling to for over 25 years.  I highly recommend going to Westport Flea Market if you're in K.C. and want to go to a fun and interesting place with a world-class burger.     

King Kong - Omaha

I had gotten into Omaha early one afternoon and was sort of hungry.  I had to do a training meeting that evening and knew I wouldn't be eating dinner until later on.  I tried to think of someplace that I hadn't been to in sometime and finally it hit me - King Kong!  King Kong is a burger/gyro place on Dodge St. in Omaha (see map).  I decided to go there for a gyro for lunch.  

King Kong's name is interesting enough, but how it came to be is pretty interesting in its own right.  It begins with a young Nick Triantafillou growing up on a Greek island, working almost since he was able to walk.  Growing up, Nick dreamt about going to the United States to join up with his uncle who had a restaurant in Omaha, NE.  Nick left home in his early 20's joining a commercial shipping company where he sailed the seas and worked as the waiter for the ship's captain.  

On a particularly rough journey in 1973 from the United Kingdom to Texas to pick up a boat load of sugar, the young Triantafillou knew he'd had enough of the sea life.  After docking in Galveston, TX, knowing no English and armed only with his uncle's telephone number in Omaha, Nick jumped ship.  He made his way to some friendly Greek locals in Texas who put him on a plane to Omaha to join up with his uncle who ran a gyro shop in town.

Getting a foothold in the restaurant business, the young Triantafillou opened his first restaurant across the river in Council Bluffs, IA - Nick's Sirloin House.  He eventually sold the steakhouse and opened a diner in a small town near Omaha.  Triantafillou then opened a fine dining restaurant - Nick and Diana's - in suburban Bellevue, NE.  None of the restaurants did particulary well, but Triantafillou kept trying.  

Now fully immersed in the restaurant culture, Triantafillou eventually opened a chain of gyro/burger joints across Nebraska called Nick's Gyros.  He had locations in Kearney, Grand Island, Lincoln and Omaha.  He eventually sold off all the locations, but kept the one location at 44th and Dodge in the heart of Omaha's midtown area.  

One of Nick's signature meals was a 1/2 pound burger that he wanted to name after something big.  Getting the inspiration from the original King Kong movie that he saw as a young man in Greece, Triantafillou named his burger the "King Kong".  Not only did King Kong signify the size of his burgers, but also the size of his dinner entrees, including gyros, that Nick's served.  And all at a good value price.  

In 1994, Triantafillou decided to change the name of his restaurant to King Kong and had his lawyer look into whether he'd be infringing on any trademarks.  It turned out that a federal court in the 1970's had ruled that the original King Kong story had become public domain since there were a handful of books and serial articles that had been published about the time the original movie came out in 1933, but it was unclear who actually wrote the first story on King Kong.  

And, amazingly, Triantafillou's lawyer also found out that no one owned the trademark on either the King Kong name or the King Kong gorilla image.  None of the movie companies or publishing houses had trademarked King Kong since it became public domain 20 years prior.  Triantafillou bought the King Kong trademark, the gorilla image trademark, as well as trademarking the "Double Kong" and "Triple Kong" burgers.  That's right - a small restaurant owner in Omaha, NE owns King Kong.  

In 2001, Triantafillou opened a second location in south Omaha, and subsequently opened two other locations including one in Lincoln.  There had been talk of King Kong expanding into Missouri with locations in St. Joseph and Independence, but I don't think those locations have ever opened. 

(Pictured left - The Triple Kong 1 1/2 lb. burger.  Photo courtesy justjdm.com)

King Kong is on the south side of Dodge, just after 42nd St. and before Saddle Creek.  If you're heading west bound on Dodge St. coming out of the downtown Omaha area, you'll have to take the southbound Saddle Creek exit on the right just before King Kong as there's no left turns into businesses along Dodge St.  Get in the far right lane of Saddle Creek and take the eastbound Dodge Street exit.  It cloverleafs up and around to eastbound Dodge just before the entrance to King Kong on the right.  It was around 1:30 p.m. when I pulled into the parking lot of King Kong, well after the noon time lunch rush.  But it was still busy enough where there was a fair sized crowd inside the dining room when I went in.

The menu is located on on a lighted marquee board behind the counter.  In addition to gyros and burgers, King Kong also features steak and dinner entrees, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, salads, as well as a number of Kid-sized meals for the youngsters.  They also have daily specials through the week.  I was going to get one of their gyros since it had been a long time since I last had one from King Kong - probably more than 10 years ago.  A young lady with an Eastern European accent took my order for a gyro.  Within a minute it was up on the counter waiting for me to pick it up.

I found a seat in the back corner of the dining area.  There are a series of white-topped tables with matching ice cream parlor-styled chairs throughout the place.  The dining room decor sort of has a faux jungle/tropical color and kitschy feeling to the room.  It also feels a little more cramped than cozy in the dining area as the tables are close together.  

The gyro, itself, was huge (above right).  It was piled with gyro meat, fresh onions and tomatoes all swarming in King Kong's homemade tzatziki sauce.  Even with a fork, it's a messy delight.  The gyro meat was flavorful and tender.  Oh, there were a couple pieces of the gyro meat where it was a little more done than others, but it was still edible.  The onions were overly fresh and somewhat powerful.  Given that it was early spring, the tomatoes were surprisingly fresh.  And the homemade tzatziki sauce was a great complement for the whole gyro.  The pita bread was soft, pliable and chewy.  The gyro at King Kong was exactly as I remembered it to be from the last time I had one a number of years ago.  

True to its name, King Kong gives you a lot of food at a great value.  My very large gyro cost $5.99 and it was more than a regular lunch meal for me.  I was stuffed after I left King Kong.  I've never tried one of their burgers so I may have to go back at some point and get one.  I doubt if it will be either the Double or Triple Kong burgers (they even have a "Super Kong" 2 lb. burger on the menu), but the 1/2 pound King Kong burger should be able to work for me.  But the gyro at King Kong is still worth going there to get one.  It's no wonder all four King Kong locations in Omaha and Lincoln are a favorite with the locals.     

Major Goolsby's - Milwaukee, WI

I have recently been going through the bulk of my past posts, cleaning them up a bit, fixing font problems from when I used Internet Explorer as my primary Internet portal, and posting a number of blog entries on Urbanspoon. I was very surprised when I found that even though I had Major Goolsby's in Milwaukee as an honorable mention on my Best Burger List, I had never really done an in-depth look at the place. During a recent visit to Milwaukee, I decided to stop in for a burger at Major Goolsby's.

Major Goolsby's is one of the original sports bars in America. It opened in 1970 under the ownership of Jerry Cohen.  Cohen also owned a local watering hole called Someplace Else.  He hired Tom Shepard to first manage Someplace Else, then took Shepard over to Goolsby's to be the first manager there.  Shepard went on to own a number of restaurants including his namesake Tom Shepard's Saloon, Dos Banditos, Jordy's Fox Point Inn, the Brown Bottle and Brew City Barbecue.  

When Major Goolsby's opened, it really had no name.  I understand that the first year they were opened, the local phone book had them listed as "The Bar With No Name."  After trying to figure out a number of names (including "East of Mecca" - U.S. Cellular Arena just across the street to the west of Major Goolsby's used to be known as the MECCA - Milwaukee Exposition Convention Center and Arena), he settled on Major Goolsby's Pub and Grill.  

Another key person in the history of Major Goolsby's was an old college buddy of Cohen's, Leo Damge.  Although he didn't have a stake in the business, Cohen thought of Leo Damge as a partner as Damge kept the books for Cohen's businesses.  There's a comic poster of "Leo the Cop" on the door that enters the basement at Major Goolsby's and the character is based on Leo Damage.  Leo passed away in 2003 but his spirit still lives with "Leo the Cop".

As a sports fan, I dig the memorabilia that Major Goolsby's has collected over the years.  They have pictures, jerseys, even bunting from World Series games on display.  There's old programs from games and news articles that you can take a glimpse of.  More than once, I've grabbed a beer at Goolsby's and just wandered around looking at all the stuff they have on display.

Our first introduction to Major Goolsby's happened years ago during a visit to Summerfest in Milwaukee. Summerfest started 45 years ago and Major Goolsby's has been one of the vendors for all the festivals held at the Henry Maier Festival Park for about 40 of those years. My cousin lived in Milwaukee for a time a few years ago and would have us come up for Summerfest.  It became a ritual for us to have a late night Major Goolsby's charbroiled burger before we left to go back to his place for the evening. The burger patties weren't all that thick, so getting a double cheese burger to sop up all the beer in my stomach was the usual order I had at Major Goolsby's. 

(Picture right - patrons lining up at the Major Goolsby's window at Summerfest. Photo courtesy of OnMilwaukee.com)

Major Goolsby's is located at the corner of West 4th and Kilbourn in the heart of the Old World 3rd Street area of downtown Milwaukee (see map).  As I said earlier, it is right across the street from U.S. Cellular Arena and across and down the street from the Bradley Center. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee basketball teams play at U.S. Cellular Arena, while the Milwaukee Bucks of the N.B.A., the Milwaukee Admirals minor league hockey team, and the Marquette Golden Eagles play at the Bradley Center. Because it can seat nearly 500 people, Major Goolsby's is the epicenter for fans before, during and after hockey and basketball games in Milwaukee.

In 2005, Sports Illustrated listed their top 25 sports bars in the nation and Major Goolsby's was listed at 4. Now, I don't know if Sports Illustrated listed them in order or in just in fashion of a random 25, but Major Goolsby's makes a big deal about being ranked as the 4th best sports bar in the nation per S.I. With a number of televisions and three areas to sit and view games, it is pretty impressive for a sports bar. And earlier this year, Fox News named Major Goolsby's as one of the top sports bars in America.

It was just before noon when I got into Major Goolsby's. The downtown lunch crowd was beginning to filter in and I took a seat at one of the high tables in Goolsby's main bar area. The menus are located on the table held between a bottle of ketchup and the salt and pepper shakers. My waitress came over to greet me and asked me what I wanted to drink. I thought it was a little too early for a beer, so I just went with water.

The menu at Major Goolsby's isn't all that extensive. Besides their burgers, they have a number of bar-type appetizers, a couple variations of a grilled chicken sandwich, brats, hot dogs, and a barbecue pork rib sandwich. On Friday's Major Goolsby's features a fish fry dinner for $11.25.

But I was there for a burger. The Major cheeseburger and the Major bacon cheeseburger are the big draws at Goolsby's. Both feature double patties of beef, topped with cheese. The bacon they have on the Major bacon cheeseburger is smoky and crisp. I didn't feel like having a double that particular day so I ordered up a single bacon cheeseburger. Fries are extra ($2.45) and I passed on them or any other side.

It's hard to categorize the burger at Major Goolsby's. Honestly, there's not much to it. It's a large, yet thin and somewhat overcooked patty placed on a toasted bun that's average at best. The bacon is sort of crumbled on top and it's so crispy it's sort of tough to chew. While it's not the best burger I've ever had, and it's far from the worst. 

That charbroiled taste of a Major Goolsby's burger is the key.  I don't know what it is about the taste of their burgers, but I really like it.  It's so hard to figure out because if you take a look at the burger, it's really nothing special. And the cooking technique is just throwing it on a flame grill.  I don't know if the grill is seasoned with years and years of cooking thousands and thousands of burgers on it.  I'm guessing it almost has to be.  But the charbroiling of the burgers gives them that signature taste that I crave from time to time.

 

The food at Major Goolsby's should almost be secondary to the draw of dozens of televisions on which to watch any sporting event.  The minimal menu pretty much tells you that is the case.  If you want to take a look at years of Milwaukee and Wisconsin sports memorabilia, Major Goolsby's is the place to go.  The burgers may not be for everyone and maybe it's because of my fondness for Summerfest, but Major Goolsby's bacon cheeseburgers bring back a lot of great memories of fun times we had years ago.  But you don't have to wait for any of the number of festivals they have in Milwaukee to get a Goolsby's burger.  Just go to the corner of West 4th and Kilbourn and get a burger.  But don't pass up the chance to look at an extensive collection of sports memorabilia.

Town Topic - Kansas City

Since 1937, Town Topic in Kansas City has been churning out burgers for the masses, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  What started out as a White Castle, Town Topic uses a flat grill and smashes onions into the top of the burger patty during the cooking process.  When they're done, the patties are flat and crispy on the outer fringes with caramelized onions embedded into the meat.  I've been wanting to try a Town Topic burger for quite sometime and I had the chance during a recent trip to Kansas City.  (Photo courtesy of Serious Eats.com)  

There are three Town Topic locations in the greater Kansas City area - the one on Broadway just north of Southwest Blvd. that I went to (see map), another one literally around the corner and three short blocks away on Baltimore (see map), and a third location in what was the old Valentine Diner in suburban Shawnee Mission, KS (see map).  Only the Broadway location is open 24 hours, the other two close around 7 p.m.  

The original Town Topic opened in 1937 as a White Castle just down the street from the current Broadway location.  Owner Claude Sparks opened to little fanfare and rang up $21.00 in sales on his opening day.  A few years later, Sparks said good-bye to White Castle and opened his first Town Topic diner four blocks north on Broadway in the Crossroads section just south of downtown Kansas City.  The Baltimore Ave. location opened a few years later, and in the late 80's the Shawnee Mission Town Topic location opened.  Today, Town Topic is still owned by the Sparks family with Scott Sparks running all three locations.  

There's a somewhat large parking lot next to the Town Topic on Broadway.  Actually, I think there are more parking spaces than seats in the little restaurant (I counted - it seats 13 with a stand-up counter along one window on which to eat).  I was a little worried I'd be able to get into Town Topic as it was just before 1 p.m. and I knew that it was a pretty popular place during the day.  But I was able to get in with no problems.  I found a stool at the end of the counter and took a look at the menu on the wall behind the counter.  

While burgers are the main item on the menu, Town Topic is also known for their breakfasts, homemade chili and thick milkshakes.  I've been told that many a late night partier has downed Town Topic's "Truckstop Omelet" - a four-egg omelet stuffed with hashbrowns, cheese and your choice of sausage, bacon or ham.  It sounds somewhat similar to a "Magic Mountain" that has satisfied the late night hunger cravings of drunks for years at Ross' Restaurant in Bettendorf, IA.    

The burgers at Town Topic aren't very thick, so I ordered up a double cheeseburger with everything from one of the three waitresses working behind the counter that day.  And because they aren't very thick, it doesn't take long for a burger to show up in front of you.  

The crusty outer shell of the meat patty sealed in the juices and flavor of the burger.  I'm guessing the flat griddle that the burgers are cooked on is probably close to 70 years old and it makes for some great flavoring to the burgers.  The burger, itself, was pretty good sized (I'd read where they were the size of White Castle "sliders" - they were much bigger than that.) and they easily covered the somewhat average bun.  While I still have a slight aversion to "smashed" burgers, I'm quickly warming up to the concept thanks to the taste of the burgers like the one at Town Topic.  I'm glad I got a double as a single would have been overwhelmed by the bun.

And the burger was good at Town Topic.  I can easily see why thousands of people have craved their burgers since 1937.  The place is a local institution in Kansas City and full of nostalgia and history.  While I'm not overly certain that I'd race back to Town Topic, I'm sure I'll go back at some point in time.  And like it's been since the 1940's, the original Town Topic will be exactly the same on my next visit, whether it be later this year or in three years.

Rusty Duck - Dexter, IA

The nominations for the 2012 Iowa Beef Industry Council Best Burger in Iowa contest have come in and a number of burger places across the state are vying to succeed the Rusty Duck in Dexter, IA as this year's winner. Rusty Duck's Ultimate Cheeseburger, a 14 oz. ground steakburger, topped with three different kinds of cheese, sweet red peppers, sauteed mushrooms and onions, beat out 275 other nominees for the best burger in Iowa for 2011. It has been my goal to try Rusty Duck's burger at some point, but on my first two visits to the place I was shut out. The first time, I came too early (they open at 5 p.m.) and the second time, I came on the wrong day (they are closed on Sunday and Monday). This particular visit, I made double damn sure that they'd be open, even calling beforehand just to make sure.

The Rusty Duck has been in business for nearly 8 years and is primarily known as a steakhouse. Owner Brad Waldron cuts his own steaks and uses the trimmings from both sirloin and strip steaks for his burgers. He grinds them himself and the more steaks he sells in his restaurant, the more hamburgers he can make up. There were times right after the Rusty Duck won the Best Burger award that they'd run out of burgers. He only had enough meat for so many burgers. Over a typical Friday and Saturday night period, the Rusty Duck sells over 200 burgers. In addition to the 14 oz. monster burgers, the Rusty Duck also has an 8 oz. burger on their menu.

Waldron (pictured at right), who started out his restaurant career about 25 years ago as a busboy at Gino's Italian Restaurant in Des Moines, knows his way around the kitchen. He is the grill chef at the Rusty Duck with over 80% of the items sold on their menu coming from beef. In addition to steaks and burgers, the Rusty Duck also features pork chops and chicken. In fact, their breaded tenderloin sandwich got 4th place in the Iowa Pork Producers Best Pork Tenderloin sandwich award in 2011. That's not too bad - winning the best burger and getting a top 5 finish in the best pork tenderloin.

The Rusty Duck is located in the heart of the small downtown area of Dexter (see map). Angled parking on both sides of the street is plentiful, that is if the American Legion across and down the street doesn't have a big crowd. I pulled in around 6:30 one evening and went inside. The decor of the restaurant isn't much to talk about. The dropped ceiling tiles are a little dingy and dirty, the chairs and tables are very basic. There's a large bar area that seats about 20 to 24 people with a mirrored backwall and a television in the center.

A hostess greeted me and asked if I wanted to sit at the bar. There were a number of people at the bar and I decided to sit at a table. She tried to seat me at a high table, but I asked to sit at a regular table. She sort of acted a little miffed that I wanted to sit at a table, then when I asked to sit at a regular table she sort of gruffly tossed the menu down on a table in front of the fireplace. I thought, "OK, yeah, whatever..."

However, the waitress that came over to greet me was very nice. "Welcome to the Rusty Duck," she enthusiastically said. "What can I get you to drink?"

I took a quick look at what turned out to be a very extensive menu for a small place. Of course, there were steaks, chops, chicken and some seafood items on the menu in addition to sandwiches and some salads. I was there for the burger and right at the top was the Ultimate Cheeseburger. However, I saw that it had sauteed peppers. I can't handle cooked green peppers very well. I like the taste of them, but I get indigestion something fierce afterward.

I did see that they had a bacon cheeseburger on the menu and I thought I could get one of those and maybe see if they could stick some mushrooms on the burger. When the waitress came over to take my order, I asked her if I could get a burger like that. She said, "Did you see our Ultimate Cheeseburger? It has everything on it that you're looking for." When I told her that I couldn't handle sauteed peppers very well, she perked up and said, "Oh! They're the red sweet peppers!"

Well, I CAN handle sauteed sweet red peppers, so I did end up going with the Ultimate Cheeseburger. She asked me how I wanted it cooked and she warned me that Waldron tends to cook his beef a little to the rare side. I ordered mine medium. She then said that because the burger is pretty thick, it takes awhile to cook. I was fine with that. I had my choice of French fries or their homemade steak fries. She said, "Our steak fries are actually cut long and thin, not the big thick steak fries that you get at other places." I got those, although I knew I wouldn't be eating many of them.

About 20 minutes later, I heard a bell ring at the service window and I just happened to look up to see the monstrous burger sitting there. My waitress went over to pick it up and, sure enough, she brought it to my table. Wow! This thing was HUGE!!! There was a ton of cheese on top of the burger, followed by strips of sauteed red peppers, large fresh sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, and crisp bacon. The bun was lightly toasted, light and moist.

In order to even handle this behemoth burger, I had to cut it in two. The beef was excellent - very fresh and flavorful. Actually, it was a little overcooked to my taste and I thought that if Brad Waldron tended to cook his meats a little to the rare side, I'm glad that I didn't order it medium-well. But it was still juicy enough.

Because of all the toppings on the burger - especially the cheese oozing off the top with every bite - eating the burger was a messy experience. I'm not certain any of the bacon, peppers or mushrooms actually stayed on the burger because they were constantly slipping off with each bite. I was constantly stopping and picking up the dropped toppings and putting them back on the burger. And with all that mess, I was using my cloth napkin constantly. Actually, between constantly wiping my hands and my mouth area, what I needed was a big roll of paper towels. The cloth napkin was a nice touch, but my hands never felt clean even after wiping them off. I had to go to the restroom and wash my hands after I finished the meal.

I ate half the burger with no problem and I cut the other half into another half. I barely finished that smaller quarter of the burger before I decided I'd had enough. I had a couple of the thin steak fries and they were good, but I couldn't eat any more. I saw an article on the wall of the restaurant that had to be written before they won the Best Burger award last year that said a number of guys had tried to eat the Ultimate Cheeseburger in one sitting, but hadn't been able to do so. I'm guessing that isn't the case now that the secret of the Rusty Duck is now out. I probably could have finished the whole thing had I not had lunch earlier in the day. But it was beginning to sit like a gut bomb in my stomach. Oh boy. I have to say that I was full for at least two days afterward. I didn't have breakfast or lunch the next day and I didn't care.

The overall taste of the burger was.... Good. I can't really say that the Ultimate Cheeseburger at the Rusty Duck was the best I'd had - I'm not even certain that it's the best burger I've ever had in Iowa. But it would definitely be a Top Ten all-time of Iowa burgers if I did such a list. I wish he would have taken it off a couple three minutes earlier, but the overall taste of the beef was well above average. The criteria for Best Burger in Iowa not only encompasses the taste of the burger, but how it is presented, the unique nature of the burger, and how well the bun works with the burger. I'd give the burger an A on uniqueness, an A in presentation, an A- with the bun and a B for overall taste. With all the cheese and toppings, there was a lot going on and I'm not certain that I really got a good taste of the beef. Maybe I'll go back at some point and get a smaller burger without all the fixin's.

Grinnell Steakhouse - Grinnell, IA

Thanx to Doug T. for the tip on the burgers at Grinnell Steakhouse, just off Interstate 80 at the Grinnell, IA exit (see map). I'd probably gone past this place a large number of times over the years, but never stopped in. Doug e-mailed me a few weeks ago and asked if I'd ever had the cheeseburger at the restaurant. Nope, I hadn't. He suggested I stop in when I could and see what I think.

I found out that the cheeseburger at Grinnell Steakhouse was one of the Top 10 finalists for the Iowa Beef Industry Council's "Best Burger in Iowa" contest for 2011. Grinnell Steakhouse is run by Laurie and Greg Hauser, assisted by their son, Chad. I was told that it's been in business for about three years, but I seem to remember that there was a restaurant in the building previous to this. Actually, now that I think about it, I believe that it was more of a bar than a restaurant. Either way, I'd never been in the place before this visit.

The key feature of the Grinnell Steakhouse is their "cook you own" concept. There's a couple three other places in Central Iowa that do "cook your own" steaks - Rube's Steakhouse is the most notable with their original location in Montour, IA (not far from Grinnell), and a location just west of Des Moines, just off of I-80 at the Waukee exit. It has been - geez, I don't know - about 25 years since I'd been to Rube's in Montour. I don't know if I'm a big fan of grilling my own steaks in a restaurant. Actually, I'm sort of scared to do so as I'm such a grilling snob that I'd probably end up cooking everyone's steaks, even people that I didn't know.

Grinnell Steakhouse had not one, but TWO open pit grilling areas in their restaurant. They had this one in their main and spacious dining room, and they had another one that was smaller than this one and situated back in a smaller dining area back near the bar that is probably used as overflow on busy nights, or for private parties.

It was after the lunch rush when I stopped off I-80 on a springlike day as I was on my way to Des Moines for a mid-afternoon meeting. From the outside, it didn't look like the place was open. If a large sign out front hadn't said, "Open Daily at 11 a.m.", I probably would have just driven on.

I was greeted by a young lady - Jazzmin was her unique name - and she asked if I wanted to have a table or eat at the bar. The dining room was empty, as was the bar. I decided to sit at the bar. Actually, the bar - although not very large - was sort of nice. It had seats for seven or eight people and had a nice back bar area filled with bottles of liquor and an assortment of beers they had to offer. A couple nice glass-faced refrigerators full of beer were down below.

Jazzmin gave me a menu and even though it appears that steak and chops are the focus at Grinnell Steakhouse, they also had a lunchtime menu that featured a handful of burgers and sandwiches. A good sized salad bar was one of the more prominent features in the main dining area.

I pretty much knew what I wanted - a burger and when Jazzmin asked me if I was ready to order, I didn't hesitate. I got a cheeseburger (I had a choice of American, cheddar, pepperjack, bleu cheese or Swiss - I got pepperjack) and a side of fries. They evidently had a grill in the kitchen because I could easily smell the charbroil scent of beef when the burger was cooking.

Jazzmin brought out the burger and set it in front of me. At first, I was sort of taken aback at how thin it appeared to be sitting open-faced on the plate. The overall size of the burger was big, but I thought it would have been a little more thick. But after taking a couple bites of the burger, I found that it was actually a lot more thick than I thought it was. Fresh red onions and pickles came with the burger, as did a lettuce leaf. A large sheet of very fresh and pungent pepperjack cheese laid on top.

The taste of the burger was good - very good, in fact. The meat was lean, but still had some juiciness to the taste. It had a little bit of pink in the middle, just as I like it, and the thick-melted pepperjack cheese gave each bite a little aftertaste kick. The bun was light and was a nice complement to the burger. Overall, it was a very good burger, one that definitely was worthy of a mention for one of the best burgers in Iowa. But I don't think I could put it on my Best Burger list. An honorable mention - probably.  But it could be a Top Ten if I just did a list for the state of Iowa.  

I really don't do a very good job of closing out my blog entries. So, thanks to Doug for the tip on the burger at Grinnell Steakhouse.  I'm sure the steaks they have at Grinnell Steakhouse are good, but I was impressed with the burger. It was good and a pretty good value. I'll go back again if I get the chance.

KC Smoke Burgers - Kansas City

On a visit to Kansas City just before the end of 2011, I was in the Westport area of Kansas City looking up the new location for Vinyl Renaissance, a record store/audio dealer in the greater Kansas City area. The owner of Vinyl Renaissance had invited me to stop by his new store on West 39th St. and I made my way there during the middle part of the day. As I was going down W. 39th, just inside the Missouri/Kansas border, I happened to look over and see a place called KC Smoke Burgers. After my visit to Vinyl Renaissance, I decided to back down the street and have lunch at this burger place. (see map)

KC Smoke Burgers opened in December of 2010 in what was the former Jerusalem Cafe, a Middle Eastern restaurant that was once one of three locations around Kansas City. Owner Farid Azzeh decided that there were too many similar restaurants in the immediate area and came up with a concept of a smoked burger restaurant. After remodeling the restaurant into a burger place, KC Smoke Burgers was born.

They grill the burgers first, then they put them in an enclosed pot with wood chips on the bottom, the burger on a little grill and a pot top over the burger. Leaving it in the smoke pot for a short time closing out the cooking process gives the burger a hearty smoked taste. (Photo courtesy of the Arnot family.)

It was just after the noon rush and a number of professionals, quite possibly from the Kansas University Medical Center which is just two blocks away across State Line Road, were finishing up their lunch. (KC Smoke Burgers' web site is geographically challenged. They say they are located in Kansas and not Missouri.) A booth in the corner was open and a waitress took me over there. She asked me if I wanted anything to drink. "We have Pepsi products," she said.

I asked if they had Boulevard Beer, which is a pretty stupid question because nearly every bar/restaurant/barbecue joint/burger joint in Kansas City has Boulevard Beer. She said, "We don't serve alcohol here."

Whaaaaaat? A burger joint with no beer? A red flag popped up in my head. What kind of place was this? I just got a glass of water instead.

The inside of KC Smoke Burgers wasn't all that big. It featured a high ceiling with an arched wood beam across the length of the restaurant. Tables and booths were throughout the place offering seating to about 40 to 50 people at a time. Above the front door was a plaster mural of some of the buildings along the Plaza, one of the municipal icons of Kansas City. There's an outdoor seating area that was shut down for the winter.

On the concrete brick walls was a bunch of graffiti. Interestingly, it appeared that most of the graffiti was done by people with similar penmanship. Graffiti reached from the floor to the ceiling. It was sort of interesting and strangely weird in a sort of forced way of decorating. 

The menu at KC Smoke Burgers features a number of basic burgers, as well as a handful of specialty burgers. They have a lamb burger with ground lean lamb meat and topped with a garlic cucumber sauce. They also had a gyro burger that featured a 50/50 mix of ground lamb and beef, mixed with Greek spices and topped with Greek Tzatiki sauce. They also had a Kansas City variation of the Twin Cities "Jucy (Juicy) Lucy" stuffed cheeseburger.

Their basic burgers featured a Danger Zone Fire smoke burger topped with jalapenos and chopped habaneros, as well as pepper jack cheese. They also have a Bacon cheese smoke burger, as well as a Challenge burger - something that evidently very spicy.

In addition to burgers, KC Smoke Burgers has all beef hot dogs (including Chicago-style hot dogs and chili dogs), Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, grilled chicken sandwiches, a gyros sandwich (old habits from a former Mediterranean restaurant are hard to die), and something called a grilled chicken gyros sandwich.

I decided to go with the Bacon cheeseburger and you get your choice of one of six different types of cheese. I took pepper jack cheese and I asked if I could get mushrooms along with the burger. It cost 50 cents more, but I didn't care.

It takes awhile to get a cooked burger at KC Smoke Burger. I'm sure between the grilling, then the smoking process it's going to take awhile. I was hoping that they didn't overcook it. When the girl brought out my burger and took it off the smoke pot and placed it on the lower part of the bun, I could tell from the hardness of the meat that it was overcooked. But the the presentation was nice including the branded "KCSB" in the top of the bun.

Even though I wasn't looking to get fries, they came with the burger. The smoky smell from the smoke pot was still in the air as I doctored up my burger with pickle slices, lettuce, a tomato slice and sliced onions that came with the meal.

The bacon was thin and pretty pedestrian when it comes to bacon. The burger was definitely overcooked and not very flavorful. Actually, about the only thing I could taste was the smoke flavor. And I really couldn't taste the mushrooms - I had to stop once just to pull the toppings off and look to see if they had actually put the mushrooms on the burger. They had, but they were grilled down to almost nothing.

I had a few fries and they were cool, limp, mushy and basically lifeless. I ate what I could of the burger and left the fries on the plate. When the waitress came over to take my plate and leave my bill she asked how it was. "Good," I said, knowingly lying. It wasn't.

I can't give KC Smoke Burgers any type of glowing recommendation. I can't give it even a glimmer of a recommendation. The burger was overcooked, it was too much of a smoky taste to it. The fries were bad. It just wasn't a good dining experience. You may want to try it if you get to Kansas City to see if you like it. But I certainly won't go back.

 

I ♥ Burgers - Las Vegas

My colleague Todd did a good job of picking out restaurants in Las Vegas this year.  One that we went to which was a complete surprise for me was a place that opened last March in the Shoppes at the Palazzo, next door to the Venetian - I ♥ Burgers.  After a few hours of setting up displays at the Venetian and the Mirage for CES, we were ready for some dinner.  We took the short walk across the way to the Palazzo and after some backtracking and searching, we found  I ♥ Burgers.

I ♥ Burgers bills themselves as "a modern take on a classic American burger joint".  Just as many gourmet burger places are popping up around Las Vegas,  I ♥ Burgers tries to set itself apart from the others with homemade buns, in-house ground beef, bison and turkey, and having one of the largest selection of eclectic beers and drinks in Las Vegas.  The restaurant is part of the Fine Concepts group, a group of restaurants and food concessions run by local entrepreneur Jeffrey Fine that also include a number of Jamba Juice locations and a handful of The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf franchises.  

I ♥ Burgers executive chef and general manager Errol LeBlanc (pictured right) used to own the R.E. Tapas Kitchen in Las Vegas and has worked at such renown restaurants as the exquisite Aureole at Mandalay Bay, as well as stints at restaurants at the upscale Green Valley Ranch resort and at the heralded Les Artistes steakhouse in the Paris hotel in Vegas that closed up last summer.  LeBlanc reportedly worked with 16 different types of bun recipes before settling on the one they use at  I ♥ Burgers.  They tried 50 different variations of potatoes before settling on a Yukon Gold potato for their French fries.  And LeBlanc worked with different blends of beef - primarily steak and brisket - to come up with a consistency in his burgers.  

Figuring that we'd be working pretty late getting the bulk of our product up on display, Todd had made the reservations at  I ♥ Burgers for 8:30 p.m.  However, our fearless leader, Daniel, decreed around 7 p.m. that he was hungry and we had made a significant dent in getting the displays up and running.  He asked Todd to see if the restaurant could move the reservation up an hour.  Todd called over and since it was a Sunday evening they didn't have any problem fitting us in.

I ♥ Burgers is sort of tough to find in the Shops at the Palazzo.  It's up on the second level tucked back in a corner toward the northeast corner of the mall.  We were seated at a long table and immediately given menus.  The decor of I ♥ Burgers was interesting, the most prominent feature were these large contemporary art mushrooms that seemingly rose from the checkered floor toward the well-lit ceiling.  It was a curious decor choice for a burger joint.  The open kitchen was toward the back and a contemporary bar area with high chairs was toward the front of hte restaurant.  The staff were casually dressed in t-shirts with broad "I ♥ Burgers" across the front.  Except a couple of the guys had t-shirts that said "I ♥ Beer".  I found out that those shirts were available for $15 bucks.  But they were cut small and even their XXL shirts looked snug.  

A beer menu was on the table and I immediately began to look through that.   I ♥ Burgers had a boat load of eclectic beers to choose from including La Fin du Monde, a beer that I've had up in Montreal, Arrogant Bastard Ale from Stone Brewing Co. in California (Todd had one of those because I'd accused him of being an arrogant bastard earlier in the day), and beers from the Delirium brewery from Belgium.  I found one of my all-time favorites on the menu, an Alaskan Amber from the Alaskan Brewery in Juneau, AK.  

I ♥ Burgers also features a number of specialty drinks including a bloody mary that had Cajun pork rinds, or pork cracklins, in the concoction with applewood smoked bacon salt on the rim of the glass (didn't know there was such a thing as applewood smoked bacon salt), a number of interesting ice cream drinks including one that had butterscotch schnapps and vodka, and for the adventurous milk shake drinkers - the Blueberry Panshake.  They take vanilla ice cream and blend it with pancake batter, blueberries and maple syrup.  Man, you want to talk about a gut-bomb!  

We were there for the burgers.  While the burger menu wasn't deep - they really only had six different burgers to choose from - you can personalize your burger with a number of toppings (for an extra charge) including four different types of cheese, applewood smoked bacon, jalapenos, roasted green chiles, sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions.  A couple three of the burgers caught my eye.  

The Oregon Trail burger featured lean ground bison meat with aged cheddar cheese, a variety of veggies, and roasted garlic aioli on a wheat bun.  The Dante had toppings of American bleu cheese, caramelized onion and the roasted garlic aioli.  And the I ♥ Bacon burger had applewood smoked bacon ground up with angus beef, then the patty was topped with strips of bacon, mayo with bacon bits, smoked gouda cheese, onion strings and served on I ♥ Burgers' homemade brioche bun.  It all sounded good.  

I ended up getting the Standard Burger - ground angus with lettuce, beefsteak tomato and red onion on top - then added a fried egg, pepperjack cheese and roasted green chiles.  I didn't order fries, but some of the guys near me did.  I ♥ Burgers has their regular Yukon Gold fries, as well as sweet potato fries and parmesan garlic fries.  The parmesan garlic fries got my attention and there was enough of all three ordered that we all could enjoy the different styles of fries.  

The burgers and fries came to the table and I was ready to eat.  A hard fried egg was on top of my burger, which was topped with the pepperjack cheese.  The only problem was that I couldn't find the roasted green chiles.  I asked one of the ever present waitstaff got get the green chiles on the side and he protested that they had to be on the burger.  I looked underneath the patty, then underneath the veggies and didn't find them.  When he brought out a small side of the green chiles, I immediately realized that what I was seeing on the bottom bun were the green chiles.  They were in roasted strips and not in chopped up fashion that I expected.  I was sort of embarrassed.   

The burger, itself, was good.  The patty was lean, but not overcooked.  The egg gave it a nice overall taste to the burger and the smokiness of the green chiles gave it a nice little after-bite on the taste buds.  The brioche bun was light and moist, and didn't overpower the the burger.  The lettuce and tomato were OK - I ended up taking them off halfway through the meal, and they only gave me about three or four small rings of red onion.  But that was more than enough as they were very pungent.    

The regular Yukon Gold fries were served in a basket with checkered wax paper, just like the burgers.  They were a thin cut and crispy to the bite.  They were good, but not overly outstanding.  I tried some of the garlic/parmesan cheese fries and, they too, were good, but nothing to write home about.  Actually, the best of the three types of fries we had at the table were the sweet potato fries.  They had a nice crispiness on the outside and were light and flaky on the inside.  They had a wonderful, rich taste to them.  Rich, as in filling.

Todd got the Oregon Trail bison burger (below left), but had it topped with avocado and got a side of jalapenos.  He said, "This is pretty good.  I like the avocado taste.  Very fresh."  I tried some of the jalapenos on my burger and they were pretty mild.  The roasted green chiles were better.  

My colleague John was seated next to me on the other side and he got the Dante (above right).  I almost got that as I wanted to try the combination of the bleu cheese and the garlic aioli.  John said his burger was good, but that the bleu cheese overpowered the taste of the garlic aioli.  I sort of wondered if it would.      

Todd got thumbs up from all of us for picking I ♥ Burgers for our opening dinner at CES.  The burgers were good, service was very good and the beer list was outstanding.  It was a great night to relax and get everyone together, even though we'd all just been in Montreal about three weeks before.  Still, we've got a great team that works hard and a boss that loves to see us all have a good time when we get together.  And I ♥ Burgers was a very good time.   

 

 

Serious Burger - Appleton, WI

On a late fall trip to Appleton to see a couple dealers, I drove by a new burger place in town with a name that jumped right out at me - Serious Burger. I asked one of the guys at one at the American TV store in Appleton if they'd ever eaten there before. His reply was, "Yeah, once. It was good, but it was so expensive. I don't know if it will last." I still decided to give it try before I left town that particular day.

Serious Burger is the brain child of Marc Waltzer, an Appleton area restaurateur and Culinary Institute of America-trained chef. Waltzer's primary business is consulting restaurants on developing new products. As the head of Premiere Culinary, Waltzer has not only worked with restaurants such as TGI Fridays, Rock Bottom Brewery, and Panera Bread, but also with food industry giants such as ConAgra, Sara Lee, Tyson, Hormel and Kellogg's developing new ideas for pre-packaged foods.

Waltzer is also something of a "foodie", looking for food ideas at restaurants around the U.S. After eating in a Seattle pizzeria, Waltzer decided to open his own wood-fired pizza place - Wild Truffle Pizza - in Appleton. Using only fresh ingredients and using a pizza dough recipe that took two years to prefect, Wild Truffle was an immediate hit in the area for people looking for gourmet pizzas.

Waltzer (pictured right) then turned his attention to perfecting the common burger. In May of 2011, Waltzer opened Serious Burger in a small strip mall near Fox River Mall (see map). Using grass-fed beef grown on a farm in Colorado, Serious Burger grinds a combination of four different cuts of steak to make their burger meat. Walther also contracted with a local Appleton bakery - Breadsmith - to develop a French brioche bun made with organic eggs and European butter. From there he went to a number of Wisconsin dairies to get the eclectic cheeses that he tops his burgers with, as well as using bacon from Nueske's - a small Wisconsin meat packer who has become well-known for having some of the best smoked meats in the Midwest. (The New York Times once described Nueske's bacon as the "beluga caviar of bacon".) Add to this, Serious Burger also offers other particular toppings such as organic fried eggs, garlic aioli, roasted Crimini mushrooms and charred tomatoes. Obviously, there are a number of reasons why Serious Burger is more expensive than your normal burger joint.

(As an aside to this story - Waltzer found himself in a little trouble late in 2011 when he was charged with misdemeanor prostitution and disorderly conduct for an incident in his home with a former restaurant employee who said he offered to pay her for sex when she was cleaning the Waltzer family home. A trial was to happen on Dec. 22 of last year, but evidently three similar charges from former employees of Waltzer's surfaced in the meantime and the trial is now scheduled for March 26.

Update March 20, 2012 - Waltzer was fined just under $2700 for violating a city prostitution ordinance.  Prosecutors dismissed misdemeanor prostitution-sexual contact and three counts of disorderly conduct against Waltzer saying that if the case went to circuit court, the outcome would likely be a fine with no jail time or probation given to him.) 

Serious Burger is not a large place seating only about 40 people. Most of the tables in the long and narrow restaurant are high with tall chairs. There's kind of a contemporary industrial motif to the inside of Serious Burger. There are two entries into Serious Burger - one on each end.

The menu for Serious Burger is on the back wall behind the counter. You place your order at the counter and they'll give you a number to take with you to your table. After the burger is made, they'll bring it to your table. Each burger is made to order so there is a wait. On the menu, you have your choice of three different ways to cook your burger - Red (Medium rare), Pink (Medium) and Brown (Well done), along with approximate times it will take to cook your burger - 6, 8 or 10 minutes, depending upon how thoroughly you want it cooked.

Serious Burger has six specialty burgers you can order. Or if you want to make your own, you can do that, too. Their basic burger starts out at $5.99 and from there you can add six different types of Wisconsin artisan cheeses for $1.00 extra. You can order up to three condiment and/or veggie toppings for free - each one over the limit will cost you an extra 25 cents. They also offer premium toppings (organic fried eggs, caramelized onions, sauteed spinach, roasted mushrooms, etc.) for an extra 50 cents each. Nueske's bacon is an extra buck and they have a choice of specialty sauces you can add for another 50 cents each. So, ordering a burger with the works adds up quick at Serious Burger.

I decided to make my own burger concoction and I got a burger - medium - with Swiss cheese, organic ketchup, yellow mustard, raw onions and pickles. I almost got a couple three slices of Nueske's bacon, but decided to just go with the basic burger on this trip. The girl taking my order asked me if I wanted a side of fries to go with the burger and, quite uncharacteristically of myself, I said, "Yes!" They have hand cut French fries served with organic ketchup, along with truffle fries, sweet potato fries and beer-battered onion rings made with Leinenkugel beer. I just got a small order of the hand cut French fries.

Seated at a high table near the front counter, it was about 12 minutes from the time I ordered my burger to the time the girl brought it out to me. The presentation was pretty basic - the burger was on a tray that was covered with a paper that was designed to look like newsprint with fake articles printed on it. The French fries were plentiful and served overflowing in a wire basket with a small handle.

The burger, itself, was big and juicy, sandwiched in between a very large brioche bun. But the bun was spongy and very soft. When I squeezed the buns on the top and the bottom, they became much smaller and easier to put in your mouth.

I'll have to say that the burger at Serious Burger was seriously good. Very good. It was one of the best artisan-gourmet style burgers I've ever had. The meat was lean, yet very juicy. It was cooked the way I like - medium with a little pink in the middle. The condiments were fresh and a great complement to the burger. But the star was the French brioche bun. It was moist, spongey and light. Very, very tasty. Overall, it was an excellent burger.

The fries, however, were over-seasoned with sort of a salty seasoning on them. The organic ketchup - eh, I couldn't tell if it was different from your run-of-the-mill bottled ketchup. The fries were good on their own - full of great potato flavor. But they really needed to back off on the seasoning. I don't eat a lot of salt and I think that even for someone who does salt their food this would have been too much for them.

Given Marc Waltzer's legal problems and the fact that their burgers are pretty high-priced, I don't know if Serious Burger has much of a chance of sticking around, especially in a small-town market like Appleton. But I hope they do because I thought the burger was very, very good. When I do my new Best Burger List for 2012 (coming up soon!), Serious Burger will definitely make it into the Top Five of gourmet burgers that I've had. I hope to go back and try a burger with a fried egg and Neuske's bacon - that is if they're still open when I get back up to Appleton later this year.

Zombie Burger - Des Moines

Zombie Burger is a fairly new (opened August 31, 2011) burger joint in the e300 building on E. Grand in Des Moines' historic East Village entertainment, shopping and restaurant district, near the state capitol building (see map). Their style of making a burger is similar to a growing number of places that smash the burger patty onto a flat iron grill causing the juices to char the outside of the burger. For years, that went against every fiber of burger cooking in my body. However, I've rapidly warmed up to this style of cooking a burger and I was interested in giving it a try. A good friend, Denny Duncan, was telling me about the place and I was able to stop into Zombie Burger for lunch during a recent trip to Des Moines.

Zombie Burger is the brainchild of chef/restaurateur George Formaro, a Des Moines native and the owner and head chef at restaurants such as Centro, Django, South Union Bakery (and the South Union Bread Cafe) and Gateway Market and Cafe. Formaro took his love of zombie horror movies - something that is big with the 14 to 35 age demographic group these days - and turned it into a pop-culture themed burger restaurant.

The contemporary industrial design of the restaurant is interspersed with individual and mural paintings of zombies. Large windows allow a large amount of natural light to come in, with contemporary lighting filling in when the sun goes down. One would think a theme restaurant featuring zombies would be sort of drab and dreary, but it was far from that.

It was around 2 p.m. when I made it into Zombie Burger. There is parking on the east side of the e300 building - it's angled, back-in only, a new parking concept that I had never seen before. I'm guessing that it's that way for easier traffic management - not that there's a lot of traffic that I could see on that side street. There's two entrances to Zombie Burger - the southeast corner entrance takes you into a carry-out only/overflow area (below left) where you can order your burgers to go, or pick up orders that were phoned ahead. The main dining room is on the other side of the building and you walk through outside seating to get to that entrance. I was greeted by a guy just inside the door and he asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar. Sure, that works fine with me.

The back bar area featured a full variety of liquor and main-stream and micro-brewed beers. Zombie memorabilia was placed on top of the liquor cabinets. A menu that was fashioned to be a Zombie-style newspaper, complete with fictionalized stories about zombies, was in front of me on the bar when I sat down. They had Bell's Two Hearted India pale ale on tap and I got that as I perused the offerings.

All the burgers have a zombie theme name to them. They ranged from the basic Zombie burger - cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion and a homemade Zombie sauce, to the Undead Elvis - fried bananas, peanut butter, bacon, egg, mayo and cheese that pays homage to Elvis Presley's favorite food - a friend banana and peanut butter sandwich. (That just doesn't sound good to me.) They also had the Dead Moines burger - smoked gouda, fried prosciutto, ham and truffle mayo (that sounded better), and the Redneck Zombie with bologna pâté, pimento and American cheese, chicken fried bacon (ooo... that's interesting), and ranch dressing.

In addition to a myriad of different types of burgers on the menu, Zombie Burger also features a number of various styles of deep-fried hot dogs, appetizers that feature fried brussel sprouts (uh, no), fried pickles, Zombie nachos with shredded adobe pork, guacamole and cheddar cheese, and something interesting called fried buffalo bacon. They also had a number of different appetizers featuring French fries - cheese fries, chili cheese fries, VEGGIE chili cheese fries, bleu cheese and bacon fries, the list went on and on. The most interesting part of the fries appetizers was the Zombie poutine fries, a variation of the French-Canadian dish that features fries with cheese curds and gravy. I had poutine - once - a number of years ago and my arteries just recently softened enough for my blood to flow freely through my body.

Zombie Burger also caters to families as they also have a number of eclectic milkshakes including the Tallahassee - vanilla ice cream, a Twinkie and cherry Kool-Aid powder, as well as the Zombie Bride Wedding Cake Shake - vanilla ice cream with yellow cake mix. Hmm... Dunno about that.

You order your burger with either one, two or three patties, each are a quarter pound BEFORE cooking. That's a very important thing to consider when you're talking about smashed burgers - or bashed burgers, as they call them at Zombie Burger. I went with the T-Virus burger - a single - that featured Swiss cheese, a grilled portobello mushroom, topped with lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo. I got a side of their regular French fries to try, as well.

The burger came out in a basket with the fries and the presentation was very nice. The bun was lightly toasted, the burger patty was smashed enough that it was sticking out over the perimeter of the bottom bun, and the golden crips fries were ample in their number. I was ready to dig in.

The burger itself, was pretty damn good. The bun - which I'm guessing was made in Formaro's South Union Bakery - was spongy-soft and chewy. The only problem was that there was too much bun for the burger that I got. The premium beef patty was pretty thin and a double would have been much better. A single patty allowed the bun to overpower the burger, something that shouldn't happen in my book. But a second patty would have been the right combination to go with the very good bun.

The portobello mushroom was a wonderful topping to the burger. It had a great sauteed taste to it and went with the burger very well. Once again, it would have been even better if there was more meat on the burger. Next time - a double, that's for sure.

The fries were very crisp and very good. They weren't limp in any stretch of the word and had a nice crunchiness to them with each bite. They'd have to be that way if you're having them with cheese, chili, cheese curds and/or gravy.

I was impressed with Zombie Burger. Everything was very good about the place - the zombie-themed decor, the sense of humor the place had, and especially the good burger. I've already figured out the burger I'm getting on my next visit - the Dawn of the Dead that features an egg, bacon, cheese, red onion and mayo. And yes, it will be a double.

 

 

DMK Burger Bar - Lombard, IL

When Cindy and I were in Chicago last summer for our little mini-vacation, we had lunch at Uncle Julio's in Lombard (click here to see that entry). We parked in the lot near the restaurant, but another place caught my eye. It was DMK Burger Bar. I'd read about DMK Burger Bar in Bon Appetit and in the Chicago Tribune and had always wanted to visit their Chicago location (see map). I went there once, but parking is at a premium and I couldn't find a spot that was close. It turns out they had just opened their second location in Lombard just a day or two before. While I was intrigued by DMK Burger Bar, we wanted to stick to our rule of not visiting a restaurant during its first three months of existence, just to allow them to get the kinks out. We had lunch at Uncle Julio's that day, but I was in Chicago recently and was able to stop into DMK Burger Bar for a burger.

The DMK Burger Bar in Lombard is located in the Fountain Square shopping and entertainment area of Lombard, in between Oakbrook Center Mall and Yorktown Center Mall (see map). It is the second location opened by partners Michael Kornick and David Morton, who also are involved with Fish Bar, next to the Sheffield Ave. DMK Burger Bar location.

If the name Morton sounds familiar, it's because David Morton is the son of Arnie Morton, the legendary restaurateur who founded the Morton's steakhouse chain, as well as the founder of the Playboy Clubs and Resorts. Some of Morton's children have dabbled in the restaurant business, as well. Peter Morton founded the Hard Rock Cafe chain, Miichael Morton is the owner of the contemporary N9NE steakhouses in Chicago, Las Vegas and Dallas, and David Morton founded the Pompei Italian Restaurants with four locations in the greater Chicago area.

Michael Kornick has his own legacy as the executive chef at the long defunct Gordon restaurant (a place that I ate at a couple times years ago and it was absolutely fabulous), as well as working on various projects with Richard Melman of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurants. Kornick was also the executive chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston for a spell.

Kornick (pictured right) became involved with two partners to work on and open two restaurants - Marché and Red Light - but the partnership quickly dissolved. With the help of his wife, Lisa, Kornick opened mk, a highly popular eclectic restaurant in the River North area of Chicago. Kornick started his relationship with the Morton family when he was hired as a consultant/chef/partner for N9NE, then partnered with David Morton to open DMK (a combination of David Morton's and Michael Kornick's initials) Burger Bar in 2009. Kornick is also a multiple James Beard Foundation nominee for best chef in the Midwest.

The menu at DMK Burger Bar consists of nine grass-fed beef burgers that all cost $8.00 each (with the exception of the Big DMK, the bison burger, and the guacamole burger). For the more health conscious, DMK Burger Bar also has turkey burgers, lamb burgers, and salmon burgers, as well as a veggie burger and a portobello mushroom burger. They also feature sides of salads, onion straws, fried okra and dill pickles, and a number of delectable French fries - called Chicago fries - that include sweet potato fries served with a lemon Tabasco aioli sauce, salt and pepper fries with homemade ketchup, parmesan cheese fries with truffle cream, and Amish bleu cheese fries with bacon.

Since it was during the noon hour when I got to DMK Burger Bar, I had a hell of a time trying to find a parking spot in the lot in front of the business. With Uncle Julio's across the way and a Starbuck's next door, parking is at a premium during the rush hours. I was able to find a spot behind the restaurant and went in. I took a seat at the bar and the very friendly bartender greeted me with a menu. Not only does DMK Burger Bar have a number of eclectic burgers to choose from, they have a very good beer list. They had eight beers on tap and another nearly three dozen beers available in bottles. I ended up getting a Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold lager beer they had on tap.

While the bar area is bright and open with white tiled walls behind the bar, the dining area is a mix of brick, contemporary lighting and a wall lined with banquette seating. Not only was the bartender overly friendly and chatty, but so was the wait staff and the manager. They certainly were doing their best to make you feel welcome.

Picking a burger was going to be tough. At new places, I usually like to go with the basic cheeseburger, with possibly bacon and mushrooms on it, to get the feel and taste of the burger. But the were so many mouthwatering burgers being described on the menu that I was having trouble figuring out that I wanted. The Number 8 (you order by the number) was a basic cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, mayo, onions and pickles. The Number 2 was topped with chili rubbed onion-strings, Amish bleu cheese and a spicy chipotle ketchup. The Number 1 had aged cheddar, barbecue sauce, smoked bacon and charred balsamic red onions. You can see what I was up against.

But what really jumped out at me was the Number 4 - real roasted green chiles (not the stuff you get from cans), smoked bacon, Somoma jack cheese and a sunny-side-up farm fresh fried egg on top. I couldn't pass that one up, so I ordered that with a small side of the salt and pepper fries with the homemade ketchup. (I've since learned the sweet potato fries with the lemon Tabasco aioli sauce is to die for. Next time...)

About 15 minutes after I ordered the burger, one of the waitresses brought it out to me. The presentation was nice - the sunny-side-up egg was prominent on top with the bacon off to the side on the light and flaky homemade bun. It was time to dig in.

From the first bite, it was exquisite. The green chiles gave the burger a great peppery taste, but it wasn't spicy in the least. The grass-fed beef was cooked to a pink middle - exactly as I like it. Although I'd rather have a hard fried egg on my burger, the sunny-side-up egg wasn't all that messy. Along with the jack cheese and the smoked bacon, it was a superb burger.

The salt and pepper fries were absolutely great, as well. I normally don't like to get fries all that much, but these were fabulous. They were crispy on the outside, but moist on the inside. The homemade ketchup was tangy and somewhat tart. Overall, it was an outstanding meal.

I like to stay out in the western suburbs of Chicago when I'm in town for more than a couple days, mainly because it's centrally located for the dealers I call on in the area. DMK Burger Bar is about a five mile drive from where I like to stay and I'm sure that there will be more visits to this particular restaurant in the future. It was a burger worth of mention when my updated Best Burger list comes out in 2012. As I said, it was an outstanding burger.

 

JL Beers - Fargo

After our dinner at Green Market Kitchen when I was in Fargo earlier this past fall, my dealer, Rod, suggested that we go to a place down the street from the restaurant - JL Beers - to get a couple nightcap beers.  As we were walking there, Rod's wife, Ellen, said that JL Beers has pretty good burgers.  "They have this machine that cooks them on both sides and they come out to you pretty fast," Ellen said.  "And they have the most amazing homemade potato chips!"  We had a few beers that night, but before leaving Fargo the next day to head west, I stopped in at the West Fargo location of JL Beers to see what the deal was.

The JL Beers in downtown Fargo was the original of what is now four locations of the beer bar/burger joint.  In addition to the one in downtown Fargo and the one I visited in West Fargo, there's a JL Beers that opened up in 2011 up the road in Grand Forks.  They were also scheduled to open a JL Beers across the Red River from Fargo in Moorhead, MN sometime before the end of the year.  Each location features at least 32 beers on tap and another 25 to 30 beers available in bottles.  The food menu at JL Beers is pretty basic - they feature nine burgers and you can add on toppings such as cheese, onions (raw or fried), an egg, bacon, lettuce, tomato, or grilled peppers for an upcharge.  In addition to the great homemade chips Ellen was raving about, they also have fries and something called "Buffalo Blu" chips.  The fries and the homemade chips are available seasoned in either sea salt, barbecue spices or Cajun spices.  

Warren Ackley and Randy Thorson (pictured right - photo courtesy of the Fargo-Moorhead Forum) are the two owners behind JL Beers.  Thorson's and Ackley's company - Global Investments - is the owner of the Old Broadway, a downtown saloon/eatery that I've eaten at a couple times in the distant past, as well as Borrowed Bucks Roadhouse (also with locations in Sioux Falls, SD, Grand Forks, ND and Bismarck, ND) and the WOW 94.7 Radio Bar, billed as the world's first radio station that also serves beer.  

The name JL Beers pays homage to an old friend of theirs - Jim Lauerman - who owned Jim Lauerman's Chili, Sandwiches and Beer, a popular hangout for the locals.  After Jim's death, Ackley and Thorson bought the building that housed Lauerman's chili joint hoping to put a restaurant in it.  However, they didn't do anything with that building and ended up selling it.  Instead, they bought the building on 1st Ave. North in downtown Fargo that also housed a sandwich shop called 1st and Deli.  They opened the first JL Beers in November of 2009.  

The concept was pretty basic - burgers and beers.  And because of the small, narrow size of the space for JL Beers, they initially had seating at the bar - 24 seats.  In fact, their motto was "Seating for 1000 - 24 at a time."  The did put in three high top tables that seated four each at the downtown Fargo location.  The West Fargo location is a little bigger - their motto is "Seating for 25,000 - 49 at a time."  

While the JL Beers in downtown Fargo is located within a building, the other JL Beers locations are free standing buildings that are constructed to look like it's an old building in which the buildings on each side were torn down.  It's a pretty clever design and a pretty neat concept.  When restaurants are looking to expand and have seating for up to 100 or more people, JL Beers wants to keep it simple.  

I got into the JL Beers in West Fargo (see map) around 11:30 a.m. and there was already a good sized crowd in the house.  I took a seat at the bar and took a look at the menu.  As I said, JL Beers only features nine different burgers, but with the add-ons you can literally call your own shot as to what you want on your burger.  

The burgers are cooked on a flat grill with a heated press that comes down and smashes the burgers, cooking them in less than five minutes and giving them sort of a crusty edge.  I'd never seen a flat grill with a heated press like this before.  Once again, another unique concept to the place.  

The burgers they have on the menu range from the Original Burger with just pickles and a special sauce on a single patty, to the Buffalo Ranch burger that has Buffalo wing sauce, ranch dressing, tomato, lettuce and a seasoning on the burger.  Three burgers that caught my eye were the Humpty-Dumpty that featured a burger with cheese and a fried egg on top, the BLT Blu with bacon, lettuce, tomato and bleu cheese on top, and the Rajun' Cajun with pepperjack cheese, JL Beers homemade chili lime sauce and grilled onions.  

And, of course, they have beer at JL Beers.  The West Fargo location has 40 beers on tap as well as a number of imported and domestic beers in bottles.  JL Beers also slums with the best of them by offering over a dozen domestic beers in cans from the likes of Schlitz, Old Milwaukee, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Grain Belt Premium.  The previous night, I was introduced to a beer from a new local brewery called Fargo Brewing.  They have a Wood Chipper India pale ale (the wood chipper is a nod to the somewhat gory scene in the movie "Fargo") that was pretty darn good.  For now, the beer is brewed in Wisconsin, but the group that owns Fargo Brewing hope to have a local brewery up and running sometime within the next year or so.  I had a Wood Chipper IPA brought to me while I looked through the menu.

One thing I thought to be somewhat odd at JL Beers was the fact that you couldn't get mushrooms or jalapenos on a burger.  I was hoping to do a bacon, mushroom, Swiss cheese burger, but I couldn't do that.  I ended up going with the Great American cheeseburger topped with ketchup, mustard and pickles and a slice of American cheese.  For extra measure, I got some bacon on top.  I also ordered some of the homemade chips with the sea salt seasoning and I got a side of their chili lime sauce.  

It certainly didn't take more than three or four minutes before my meal showed up in front of me.  There was a pile of homemade chips surrounding the burger with a toasted homemade bun.  The chips were warm and very tasty.  And the chili lime sauce had a little zip to the taste and went along great with the chips.  But there were so many of the chips and a healthy side of the sauce that I knew I wouldn't be able to eat all of them.  Two people could easily share the order of chips at JL Beers. 

The burger, itself, was, well, just OK.   The bun tasted good - nice and fluffy, but not chewy.  The burger wasn't all that large to begin with and had sort of a crunchiness to the outside of it.  But it wasn't all that flavorful.  It seriously tasted like a fast food burger.  As I said, it was OK, but it wasn't spectacular at all.

It was a pretty expensive lunch, too.  With a beer the bill came to $14 bucks before the tip.  You get dinged pretty good for the burger, then when you add on the chips and the chili lime sauce, it adds up pretty quickly.  Actually, the highlight of the meal was the chips.  Well, and the beer.  The Wood Chipper IPA is a very good beer.  

My impression of JL Beers is that you go there for the beer and if you're hungry you can get an average burger.  Or get the chips if you're looking for something salty in taste to go along with the beers.  While I do like the concept of JL Beers, I'm not overly impressed with the burgers.  Go for the beer, but there's better burgers elsewhere in Fargo, I'm sure.    

Top Notch Beefburger Shop - Chicago

Since 1942, the Top Notch Beefburger Shop has been making great burgers for hundreds of thousands of hungry Chicago area people. The burgers have been praised in print and on film as being some of the best around. I had to find out for myself if what they said about Top Notch Beefburgers was true and when I was in Chicago recently, I made it a point to stop there.

Top Notch Beefburgers is located on W. 95th St. in the Beverly neighborhood of Chicago. Beverly is a picturesque community within the city with tree-lined streets, stately homes and a Norman Rockwell feeling to the place. The hard-scrabble businesses up and down W. 95th hide the beauty of the surrounding neighborhood. Top Notch Beefburger Shop has had a presence along W. 95th for nearly 58 years.

Armenian immigrants John and Asanette Soulian first opened their Top Notch Beefburger Shop on 47th street in Chicago in 1942. Along with their boys, Diran and William, the Soulians sold their burgers for 20 cents during the height of World War II. The young Soulian boys did everything from clean floors and tables to working the grill flipping burgers. The burgers were ground fresh everyday using chuck beef, a practice that they changed after the war to the more flavorful round steak. Top Notch continues to de-bone and grind their own round steak daily (they have their own walk-in cooler with hanging beef) and only uses salt and pepper during the cooking process.

After the death of their parents, the Soulian brothers took over the burger joint now on W. 79th St. in 1954 and eventually moved to a location on West 95th street. It was there for 30 years before moving to a larger place at its present day W. 95th St. location just east of Western Ave. (see map)

William Soulian passed away in 1994, but Diran Soulian is still there every day, puttering around behind the counter and greeting the regulars when they come in. Now in his early 80's, he's stooped over a bit, but Diran Soulian still has a vivid personality.

Top Notch had a satellite location for about 20 years further down 95th Ave. to the west in suburban Oak Lawn. However, that location closed up about three years ago due to dwindling sales. They also tried to open a location in far south suburban Orland Park in the mid-90's, but they had problems with the landlord and couldn't get that accomplished. But in doing research for Top Notch Beefburgers, I see an address for them with an Orland Park location, but I have found nothing to suggest that there is such a place. So, to my somewhat limited knowledge, I believe the only place you can get a Top Notch Beefburger these days is at the main location on W. 95th.

Parking along the stretch of W. 95th in Beverly can be a little tough, especially in the middle of the day when the breakfast crowd dwindles down and the lunch crowd ratchets up. I found a parking spot a block down the street from Top Notch Beefburgers and went inside.

Although the decor suggests it's been in there longer than 1984, the inside of Top Notch Beefburgers is very inviting. It's well lit and roomy with a number of tables and booths throughout the dining room. I sat at the counter and grabbed a menu they had sitting in a holder.

The kitchen area is behind the counter and somewhat open. They use a cast iron flat griddle to cook their burgers and since it's over 25 years old (at least, unless they moved the flat griddle from the old address) it has to have some great cooked in seasoning on it. The best burgers are made with old time flat griddles, I think.

They have three different sizes of burgers at Top Notch - the Regular (1/4 lb.), the Super (1/2 lb.) and the Super King (3/4 lb.). When you order a Super King, you don't get three quarter pound burger patties, you get one 3/4 lb. burger patty. That has to be very large.

For the diet conscious, Top Notch Beefburger has turkey burgers and grilled chicken sandwiches. They also have a pretty extensive breakfast menu that features omelets, pancakes and French toast. I understand the breakfasts at Top Notch are a big draw through the week.

Along with the burgers, you get a portion of Top Notch Beefburgers hand cut French fries, cut and soaked in water for 24 hours before they're fried up. Soaking them in water takes the excess starches and sugars out of the potatoes and they end up cooking more even in the fryer.

Behind the counter was Diran Soulian talking and joking with some of the waitresses. A waitress - a new one at Top Notch Beefburgers (I knew that mainly from the conversations she was having with one of the other waitresses behind the counter) - came over to take my order. I decided to get a 1/2 lb. Super burger with American cheese. Lettuce, tomato and pickles were available upon request, as well as either raw or cooked onions. I went with raw onions.

About 10 to 15 minutes after I ordered, the waitress brought the burger and fries out to me. It was definitely big. It was served open faced with the veggies off to the side. The bun was lightly toasted and a side of mayo was on the plate, as well.

After dressing the burger, the first bite was, well, interesting. The combination of the seasoned grill and the ground round made the taste of a Top Notch burger different from many other burgers I'd had in the past. I can't say the taste was bad, but it was different, and in a good way. The patty was full and flavorful, but it didn't taste like anything I've ever had in a burger. I wasn't certain that I liked it right off the bat, but as I went on with the eating process, I found it to be a wonderful burger. One that was lean, yet still juicy. The toasted bun was also very good, helping to keep the veggies and condiments on the burger without falling apart.

The French fries were very good, as well. Cooked to a perfect golden color, they had a great potato flavor without the greasiness you can sometimes get in fries. Taking a cue from my Canadian and French colleagues, I dipped some of the fries into the mayo. But to my dismay, I found that it was really Miracle Whip and not real mayo. (Yes, I can taste the difference.)

Concentrating on finishing the burger, I returned to taking a few more bites of the Super burger. The more I ate, the more I liked. It's like a taste sensation you've never had before, and at first you're not sure you like it. But after I finished the burger and left a few fries on the plate, I knew what people in the Chicagoland area have been raving about for nearly 70 years - Top Notch Beefburgers are, indeed, top notch.

Top Notch is open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday thru Saturday and closed on Sundays. Up until a couple three years ago, they never took credit cards - it was cash only. But they take credit cards today. The burger and fries were around 7.95 and the new waitress got a $1.50 tip from me. She did a good job for what could have been her first day on the job. So, yes, I have had a Top Notch Beefburger - finally - and I fully understand what all the hub-bub is about. Ground round steak burgers are very flavorful and set Top Notch Beefburgers apart from others trying to come up with a great burger.

CJ's Pub - South Bend, IN

I was out in South Bend, IN recently for a couple of meetings that required an overnight stay in the city.  I didn't really know where to go for dinner that evening, so after I checked into the hotel I started to do some on-line searches for restaurants in the city.  I didn't want anything overly fancy, but I didn't want fast food, either.  A burger sounded good and I started to look into burger places in the area.  I found one in downtown South Bend - CJ's Pub, famous for their 10 oz. burgers.  I immediately set out to find the place.

It turns out that CJ's Pub is sort of an institution in South Bend.  The idea for the place began in the early 80's when two sisters, Cindy Medich, a columnist for the South Bend Tribune, and her sister, Judy Gish, began to talk about opening a business together.  They settled on opening a tavern/burger joint on North Michigan Ave. in South Bend, near Memorial Hospital.  Of course, they named the place "CJ's" and it opened on Labor Day of 1984.  It quickly became a favorite of Notre Dame students and alums for their burgers, waffle fries, appetizers and cold beer.  They put in a number of televisions throughout the place that sat about 125 to 150 people, making it one of the very first sports bars in the Midwest.  

The sisters welcomed their brother, Frederick, also known as "Ricky Joe", to work at the business and he quickly became the "face" of the place.  Ricky Joe was described as an interesting guy who was a performing musician, a scratch golfer, a huge Notre Dame sports fan and a guy who welcomed all to his family's place in South Bend.   Ricky Joe was sort of a bon vivant, travelin' kind of guy before he decided to come back and settle in South Bend to help his sisters out.  

The original CJ's was nothing more than a hole in the wall that had a boat load of Notre Dame memorabilia on the walls.  It was popular with the college kids as it stayed open until 3 a.m. every day except Sunday when it would close at midnight.  The Medich family was in the location for 21 years before a freak accident almost brought their business to a close.

Workers were tearing down a six story building next door to CJ's Pub in January of 2005 when part of the structure fell onto the building.  Part of their building collapsed (four people were inside, including Ricky Joe, but no one was hurt), damage was extensive to the structure, including the infrastructure of electrical and plumbing.  After 7 months and $250,000 in repairs later, the family reopened CJ's Pub in time for the Notre Dame football season.  

However, another tragedy hit the Medich family - Ricky Joe suffered from pneumonia in the fall of 2008.  When being looked over by doctors, they found cancer in his lungs.  It quickly spread to his brain and lymph nodes and he died just over two years ago at the early age of 60.  His death devasted the Medich sisters - Cindy Medich couldn't bring herself to enter CJ's Pub after Ricky's death.  Judy was also having a hard time coming to work and in early 2010, they decided to close the original location.  But the spirit of Ricky Joe got them looking for a new location to put CJ's and the decided on a spot at the corner of Wayne and S. Michigan where the old Rumrunners bar was located (see map).  In fact, Ricky had talked about moving to that very same location before he died, so the sisters thought it was fitting that they move to that very building.  The sisters reopened CJ's Pub in August of 2010.  It's not much larger than the old location, but they are now in the heart of the downtown area of South Bend.  

It was around 7 p.m. when I got into CJ's Pub.  I took a seat at the bar and the portly bartender asked if I was there for the General Electric party.  I said, "No."  Then I stopped for a second and said, "Should I be?"  He sort of laughed as I took a seat at the bar.  He gave me a menu and asked me what I wanted to drink.  They had a number of beers on tap - including something called "House Light".  I asked what that was and he told me it was whatever light beer they got a special on that particular week.  It was Miller Light that week.  I told him I'd just take a Bud Light in a bottle.  And it was very, very cold.  

The inside of CJ's Pub is well lit and features a long wall of pictures and memorabilia.  I'm not a Notre Dame fan at all - I usually root for whoever is playing against them, much to the consternation of my former neighbor, George - but I do understand and appreciate the Fighting Irish's place in football history.  There were many pictures of Ricky Joe Medich with Notre Dame sports legends and famous alums.  A number of flat screen televisions were hung throughout the dining area and there was one behind the bar.  

Burgers are the main item on the menu at CJ's Pub.  The burger menu features a number of named burgers that start out with CJ's famous 10 oz. "Super Burger" patty including the Baja Burger that has pepperjack cheese and banana pepper rings, the Hockey Works that has Swiss cheese, mushrooms and Canadian bacon, and the Four Horsemen that featured Swiss, American, cheddar and pepperjack cheeses.  In addition to the burgers, CJ's Pub also has a handful of appetizers and sides, as well as soups and salads, and sandwiches, paninis and wraps.  

The large party for General Electric began to trickle in and it was apparent that the bartender was also the waiter.  My first beer was gone rather rapidly, thanks to the coldness of the beer, and I was ready for another.  But the bartender was taking orders for the large table.  Finally, another bartender and another waitress showed up for work and I was able to get my beer.  

The first bartender/waiter finally came back and asked me if I wanted something to eat and I just ordered up a Swiss cheese, mushroom and bacon burger.  Their waffle fries sounded good, but I knew that I would have more than enough to eat with the burger.  "Lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion on it," he asked.  Sure!  You bet!

Now, one of the best things I liked about CJ's Pub was the cold, cold beer.  It was flowing down the gullet pretty easily.  I love cold beer and the colder the beer, the easier I drink it.  I'd had about four beers before I realized that I hadn't gotten my food.  It was well past 20 minutes after I had initially ordered my food, but with a lot of people in there, not to mention a large party seated directly behind me, it was taking for ever to get my food.  

It was nearly 30 minutes after I ordered my burger when the second bartender came out with a big burger on a plate and a large plate of a combination of the waffle fries and onion rings.  He looked at the large bartender/waiter and said, "Did this guy have the works with the combo plate?"  

He said, "He had the works, but not the combo plate."

The bartender turned to me and said, "You had the works, buddy?"  I said, no, I had the mushroom/Swiss/bacon burger.  He said, "Yeah, that's what we call "The Works"."  Oh!  I didn't know the vernacular of CJ's Pub, but I learned part of it right then and there.

 The burger was, indeed, huge.  The patty was layered with an ample amount of Swiss cheese and mushrooms with two slices of bacon crossed on top.  A side of potato chips came with the burger, but I wasn't overly interested in those.   The burger, itself, was thick and juicy.  It had a great flavor and the toppings went along very well with it.  The bun was moist and helped with the overall taste.  With each bite, I found myself becoming more and more impressed with this Super Burger from CJ's.  I can see why they've been called the Best Burger in South Bend for years and years.  

And it was a belly buster.  I'm very glad I didn't get any waffle fries with the meal as I probably wouldn't have made any dent in those.  But the burger was top notch.  I'm going to have to do a lot of reshuffling when it comes to my Best Burger list in 2012 and CJ's Pub is going to get some serious consideration as either Top 10 burger or, at the very least, will garner a High Honorable Mention from me.  Given the history and tradition at Notre Dame and how great the hamburgers taste at CJ's Pub, I may be able to get over my disdain for all things Fighting Irish if I get back to South Bend on a regular basis.   

 

 

Shanghai Boy - Lee's Summit, MO

Kevin and Chris used to work at an old dealer that I called on - Accent Sound - in Overland Park, KS. When the owner retired, no one stepped up to buy the business and the employees sort of scattered in the wind, ending up at other audio stores - or in Kevin and Chris' situation - they opened their own place, Soundbytes KC. One day when I was visiting earlier this year, Kevin came in with a cheeseburger. It smelled great. I asked, "Where did you get that, Kev?"

He said, "Shanghai Boy."

I said, "Shanghai Boy? That Chinese restaurant about a mile west of here?"

Kevin replied, "Yep! You wouldn't think a Chinese restaurant would make a good cheeseburger, but these guys do." I made a note to stop at Shanghai Boy at some point. Earlier this fall, I had the opportunity to do so.

The story I got from Kevin and Chris about the place was Shanghai Boy is housed in what was an old Dairy Sweet or something like that. It was a fast food restaurant with 10 letters in its name and they sold ice cream, hence the ice cream cone above the Shanghai Boy sign. The new owners bought letters to replace what was on the original sign and came up with the name of Shanghai Boy because, well, it had 10 letters in that name, too.

I took off down the street after leaving Soundbytes KC and headed west toward Shanghai Boy (see map). Actually, I accidentally passed Shanghai Boy - I passed the first entrance and when I realized I'd done that I tried to get into the second entrance, but that was blocked with a vehicle trying to get out onto busy SW 3rd St. Not wanting to hold up traffic, I went around the block and pulled into the parking lot.

The inside of Shanghai Boy is pretty non-descript. It looks like any fast food joint with cramped booths with two or four person tables. With the large windows letting in the sunshine and the fluorescent lighting, you could definitely say it was well lit.

The menu for Shanghai Boy is on a series of boards above the front counter. Interestingly enough, most of the prices of the food are either incomplete or missing on the menu. While most of the menu is Chinese food, there is board off to the side that had their burgers listed. A guy in front of me ordered Chinese, as did a couple directly behind me in line. But I followed Kevin's suggestion and got a double cheeseburger with everything. Everything is lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mustard and ketchup.

I got the burger and took it to the car. I found that I didn't have any water, so I drove down the street to a Quik Trip and got a bottle of water to have with the burger. I sat in the parking lot of the Quik Trip and unwrapped the burger.

It didn't look any different from most fast food burgers that are out there. It had a sesame seed bun that covered the two cheeseburger patties. The veggies and condiments were on the bottom bun under the patties. The taste of the burger was pretty good. The bun was woefully dry, however, and as I've said many times in the past, the mark of a great burger is the bun. You have a dried out or overly chewy bun and it really detracts from the overall taste of the burger.

But the smell of that burger is exactly what I remember from the one I smelled when Kevin brought it into his store - it had a that great, flat griddle smell to the burger and the patties were a wonderful taste. There was a little too much lettuce, but overall it was an above average burger. What kept it from being a truly outstanding burger is the bun. Too dry and that was too bad.

Shanghai Boy is a pretty good place to get a burger if you're not willing to patronize any of the fast food chains - like me. I don't know about their Chinese food, but the burger was better than you'd find at most fast food places. I'd rather give my money to a mom and pop operation than a big corporate chain any day. I just wish the buns at Shanghai Boy weren't so dry.

Hinkle's Sandwich Shop - Madison, IN

A Road Tips reader sent me a note earlier this year and said that I really needed to try a burger at Hinkle's Sandwich Shop in Madison, IN. I really have to apologize for not remembering who it was as I do like to give credit to those who steer me in the direction of interesting places when I'm on the road. Hopefully, whoever it was will read this and take credit for sending me there.

I had to look up where Madison, IN was because I wasn't familiar with it at all. It turns out that it's a peaceful little community nestled along the bluffs of the Ohio River just north and east of Louisville (see map). When I was in Louisville recently, I finished a morning meeting and decided that I had time to head up the road a bit and get a late morning burger at Hinkle's. It was a little out of my way to my next stop up in Indianapolis, but I had time as my next appointment wasn't until around 2 p.m.

Hinkle's is well-known throughout Southern Indiana and Northern Kentucky as one of the great old burger joints. It opened in the height of the Great Depression when Winifred Hinkle began to make burgers in his little place (that's right - Winifred is a man). Over the years, it became a destination for people looking for the flat grilled burgers topped with fried onions and cheese. Today, Jack LeGrand (who also owns a local trucking firm in Madison) and his daughter, Amber, own Hinkle's Sandwich Shop. People come from miles around for their burgers and on the weekends (Friday and Saturday) they stay open 24 hours a day. A word of warning, if you go there on a Sunday, Hinkle's is closed.

The drive up from Louisville up to Madison takes a little over an hour, first on Interstate 71 northeast out of the city, then up a winding two-lane Highway 421 that meanders through valleys of trees and running streams. Past the city of Bedford, Kentucky, the winding road goes past fields of tobacco, soy beans and corn. It was a beautiful drive on an early fall morning and the trees were already bright with orange and yellow colored leaves that contrasted against the green leaves on trees that hadn't turned yet, and the brilliant blue Kentucky sky. As you near Madison and the Ohio River, the road takes a deep pitch along the bluff down toward the valley below. There's a turnout for trucks whose brakes fail trying to slow down going down the steep grade. The road eventually ribbons around to a narrow bridge over the Ohio that made me nervous to travel on as it was so high and the road was hugging the rails.

Hinkle's Sandwich Shop is located on Main Street in downtown Madison (see map), a picturesque community with post-Civil War era buildings full of businesses and shops. I found a parking spot on the street down the way from Hinkle's and went into the place to get a burger.

Hinkle's is actually two separate places - the little sandwich shop with a counter and bar stools on one side (above left) and the dining room next door (above right) that looks more like an old time ice cream parlor than a greasy spoon restaurant. There were outdoor picnic tables with umbrellas for people who wanted to dine outside. And there were people seated there when I walked up.

I went into the smaller side, sat at the original counter and took a look at the menu on the wall. In addition to their burgers, Hinkle's also has breaded tenderloins (can't be a real greasy spoon in Indiana without having breaded tenderloins on the menu), breaded chicken sandwiches, as well as breakfasts such as biscuits and gravy, pancakes and French toast.

But the burgers are the draw at Hinkle's and they're cooked on an old time flat iron griddle that has, quite possibly, had a million burgers cooked on it in its lifetime. The burgers were cooked on one side and the fried onions on the other. There were already about two dozen burgers on the grill when I got there about 11:30 a.m.

The burgers at Hinkles come as singles, doubles or triples. I really didn't know how big the patties were - they looked pretty good sized on the flat grill when the cook popped them on. I ended up getting a double cheese burger with grilled onions. I like the taste of grilled onions, but my stomach doesn't care for them. I need to get my taste buds and my stomach on the same page one of these days.

When the waitress brought me the burger, it was smaller than I anticipated and was served on a small plate. Looking it over, it was more of a White Castle-style of burger than anything. The patties were bigger than a White Castle burger, but the bun was small and it was flowing with grilled onions.

The taste was also very similar to a White Castle burger. The grilled onions added a nice taste to the overall burger patty and the bun was light and airy, very easy to throw back. I made very short work of the burger and when the waitress asked me if I wanted anything else, I ordered another double cheese with the onions. I was still hungry (no breakfast that morning, still stuffed at 7:30 a.m. from my meal the night before at Lynn's Paradise Cafe) and the second one satiated my appetite. For someone with a big appetite, especially at 2 a.m., I can see where they could easily knock back three or four doubles and have room for French fries.

The burger at Hinkle's Sandwich Shop was good, although I can't really call it great. But the history and nostalgia that surrounds Hinkle's - along with its setting in a picturesque little river town - made it worth the while to make the drive off the beaten path to give it a try. It's a small town White Castle that is much better than a White Castle. The old time flat grill added a great taste to the burgers and, thankfully, the grilled onions didn't back at me the rest of the day. I can see why people flock to Hinkle's. In this case, it's not just the burgers, but it's the tradition and history behind the place.

Blanc Burgers + Bottles - Leawood, KS

I've been wanting to stop at Blanc Burgers + Bottles for quite sometime, ever since I first read about the place in a local Kansas City magazine a couple years ago.  They're known for not only their delectable gourmet burgers, but for their large and eclectic selection of beer and wine.  On a recent trip to K.C., I went to the south Kansas City Blanc Burgers location in the Mission Farms shopping area of suburban Leawood (see map).

Actually, the Blanc Burgers location in Leawood is one of three locations for Blanc Burgers.  The original location opened in Westport in 2008 when chef Josh Eans and three investors opened the doors.  The road Eans took to becoming a chef was not like other chefs.  First of all, he had no experience working in a restaurant growing up.  Many chefs either started out working in a restaurant or their family was in the restaurant business.  Eans had an academic scholarship to Arizona State University with hopes of becoming a doctor down the line, but dropped out after a year and moved back to Kansas City to re-evaluate his life.  It was during this time back in Kansas City when he met his wife-to-be, Abbey-Jo.  

(Josh Eans pictured at right) 

Living in a rental house in suburban Kansas City, Josh and Abbey-Jo talked about what they would like to do with their lives.  They talked about owning a restaurant and Abbey-Jo came up with the idea of going to culinary school together.  Josh and Abbey-Jo enrolled in the Le Cordon Bleu/Scottsdale Culinary Academy in Arizona.  After graduating from there, Josh first worked at the Sea Island Resort in Georgia before getting a job as a line cook apprentice at Seeger's, a now-closed upscale restaurant in Atlanta.

Now married and expecting their first child, Josh and Abbey-Jo decided that back home in Kansas City would be a good place to raise a kid, so they moved back to the area.  Josh took a job on the line at the upscale 40 Sardines restaurant (which, too, is now closed).   

During his time at 40 Sardines, Josh met Ernesto Peralta, Jr. (pictured at left) who was a bartender for the upscale Capital Grille in Kansas City.  Peralta and his wife, Jennifer Price, were looking to do their own restaurant/bar and recruited Eans as a consultant in the project.  A co-worker with Peralta, Eddie Crane, was also one of the partners of the new restaurant which eventually became The Drop, an acclaimed bistro near the Westport area of Kansas City, MO.  Eans became the chef at The Drop as well as their sister restaurant, Martini Corner.  

As The Drop was developing into a new dining destination for foodies across the Kansas City area, Eans, Peralta and his wife, as well as David McMullin came up with the Blanc Burgers concept, seeing that there was a void in the market place for upscale burgers.  The four formed their own restaurant company, The Circle Restaurant Group.   

Josh Eans moved from The Drop to Blanc Burgers + Bottles to become the executive chef.  The first Blanc Burgers opened in the Westport area in March of 2008.  It was an immediate hit with people with their burgers made from corn/grain/alfalfa fed beef from California (the group found that customers didn't care for the grass-fed Kansas beef that was suddenly becoming the rage across the Midwest for natural beef foods).  The second location in Leawood opened in 2009 and a third location opened in January of this year up in Omaha. The group opened a more downscale burger joint in Lee's Summit, MO called B2, but it closed up after about a year in business.  It appears the upscale burger is what people want.  So much so that the group closed down their original Westport location and moved to a much larger building in the Country Club Plaza area in 2010.  

In addition to using natural beef in all their burgers, Blanc Burgers uses locally baked brioche buns, as well as locally grown produce and herbs.  Plus they make their own ketchup and their own pickles.  The one thing that will set Eans off quicker than anything is when a customer asks for store-bought bottled ketchup instead of his homemade condiment.  

The lunch rush had subsided when I made my first visit to Blanc Burgers.  I had my choice of sitting out on their patio as it was a lovely early fall day in Kansas City, or their narrow, but well-lit dining area, or at the bar.  The selection of bottles - wine, beer, liquor and pop -  behind the bar was intriguing to me, so I opted for a seat there.  The very personable and helpful bartender greeted me, gave me a menu and asked if I wanted anything to drink.  The chalkboard behind the bar featured a number of beers and natural soda pops that Blanc Burgers rotates in and out on a seasonal basis.  One of my favorite Oktoberfest beers is Bob's 47 from the local Kansas City brewery, Boulevard.  They had just gotten them in and I ordered one of those.  

Bright and white is the interior design of the Blanc Burgers. The main walls are white as are the chairs and table tops.  Contemporary lighting with white lamp shades hung low from the ceiling.  Peralta's wife, Jenifer, came up with the color concept for Blanc, which, of course, means white in French.  

Blanc Burgers + Bottles has a very impressive roster of beers to choose from.   I was very surprised to see that they featured Capital Brewing Company's Supper Club beer - a beer you don't find that far away from their brewery just outside of Madison, WI.  It turned out that they were out of it that day or I would have gotten one just to have one.  Supper Club is one of my all-time favorite beers.  

And even though I'm not a pop drinker any longer, I was equally impressed with the list of soda pops Blanc Burgers had to offer.  Many of them were eclectic and made from natural ingredients.   They had a Thai basil and clove soda pop, as well as sarsaparilla, birch beer pop, and lemon-lime 7 up.  They also had bottles of Mexican Coca-Cola, the more sweet - and some say better tasting - Coca-Cola.  

The burger menu was intriguing.  Topping the list was an American Kobe beef burger served with a mustard/mayo aioli sauce, truffle butter and topped with watercress greens on a salt and pepper brioche bun.  They have the "Classic" burger that they top with aged white cheddar, lettuce, tomato and a red onion slice along with their homemade pickles, ketchup and mustard and served on a sesame-seed bun.  They also had the "Oscar" burger that is basically the same thing as a steak Oscar, only on a bun.  The take the American Kobe beef and top it with poached blue crab, asparagus and bernaise aioli, and serve it on a rosemary brioche bun.

In addition to the burgers on the menu, Blanc Burgers also features a ground pork burger, a chicken sandwich, a grilled mahi-mahi sandwich and a couple of vegetarian burgers.  They also feature a small list of salads and appetizers, as well as a number of handful of sides, such as hand-cut French fries, truffle fries, sweet potato fries and Boulevard beer-battered onion rings.  

Two burgers that caught my eye were the "Au Poivre" burger - a cracked black pepper encrusted burger, topped with a creamy green peppercorn sauce, grilled onions and watercress, then served on a salt and pepper brioche.  The other one - the "Bison" - featured a lean bison burger topped with a fried egg along with peppadew jam, peppadew havarti cheese, red onion, mayo and lettuce on a four seed brioche bun.  Oh man - both sounded wonderful.    

As I said, the bartender was very personable and was eager to answer any questions for me.  I told him that I was having trouble figuring out what I wanted and he immediately stopped me.  "The Au Poivre burger is, hands down, my favorite on the menu."  

I said, "That was easy.  The Au Poivre is one that I was looking at."  

He asked what the other ones were and I said, "Oh, just the Bison burger."  

"The Bison burger is very good, too," he said.  "But I just sort of like that little pepper 'pop' in my mouth with the Au Poivre."  

He asked if I wanted any sides and the Boulevard onion rings looked intriguing.  "But I couldn't finish a whole order," I told him.

The bartender immediately replied, "I'll put in a half-order for you.  How about that?"

Sold! 

When the burger came out, it looked scrumptious.  The burger had an ample amount of cracked peppercorns around it, the green peppercorn sauce wasn't drenched over the top, but rather subdued under the burger patty.  And the salt and pepper brioche was light and spongy.  From the first bite, I knew I had a winner.  The peppery taste of the burger was just exquisite.  The bun turned out to be a little chewy, but still light enough not to be a detriment to the overall taste.  I tried some of the homemade ketchup and it was sweet and had a more strong taste than regular ketchup.  It was very good. 

The onion rings were also very good.  The Boulevard beer batter was flavorful and flaky.  They were very, very good.  It was a tough lunch to beat.

After I finished up, my bartender asked, "So, how did you like the burger?"

I said, "Awesome!"

He said, "Yeah, it is, isn't it?  I just love all that pepper taste in my mouth with every bite I take."  

The burger at Blanc Burgers + Bottles was outstanding.  The beef was overly flavorful, even without the cracked pepper it in.  The natural taste of everything from the toppings to the beef to the bun was simply superb.  Josh Eans is looking to expand throughout the Midwest and I'm hoping that at some point he'll look at expanding into Iowa so Blanc Burgers will be closer to me than Omaha or Kansas City.  The burgers are a little more expensive than your regular burger joint, but not by much compared to chain restaurants.  And the burger is a helluva lot better.  Blanc Burgers is going to get a strong consideration when I do my Best Burgers List in 2012.  

 

 

Iowa's Best Burger Cafe - Kellogg, IA

At exit 173 off of Interstate 80 through Iowa is a little place with a very audacious name - Iowa's Best Burger Cafe.  It's part restaurant, part gas station, part convenience store and it also has a campground just to the east of the building.  It had been years since I'd had a burger from Iowa's Best Burger Cafe, so on a trip down I-80 a few weeks ago I decided to stop in and see how their burger stacks up against some I'd had in recent times.  

First of all, let me give you a little history and a disclosure about the gas station.  I grew up about 1.5 miles away from the place, as the crow flies.  When I was younger - as in grade school age - I would ride my bike out the station and just hang out watching the cars come and go, wondering where the people were from, where they were going.  I was envious of those people going east or west along I-80 and dreaming of traveling to someplace exotic beyond the borders of Jasper County.  Like Davenport or Omaha - exotic places like that.  Well, they were exotic to a 10-year-old kid who developed a bad case of wanderlust from reading encyclopedias and National Geographic's.  

The original gas station - a DX station - was opened in the mid-60's a couple three years after I-80 came through.  The first owner was a local garage owner, Lysle White (it was pronounced Lyle, but we used to joke around by calling him Ly-sell), and his wife, Nadine.  Lysle was a short, thin, white haired man who had some disorder where he shook all the time (Shakey was also a nickname many gave him).  Nadine was a portly woman who had a quick laugh and definitely wore the pants in the family.  After a couple years of going out to watch the cars come and go, Lysle put me to work doing menial jobs around the place, from washing windows on cars to picking up trash.  He'd pay me in pop and Slim Jim's because it was the law that you had to be 14 years old to work at an establishment along the interstate (or so he told me at the time).  Lysle told me one time, "When you turn 14, I'm going to really put you to work!"

By the time I got to 14, other interests in life had come to the forefront and it had been quite sometime since I'd spent an afternoon at the old White's DX station just off Interstate 80.  

Through the years, a number of people owned the place after the White's passed away.  I remember that an old neighbor when I was growing up by the name of Clinton (Biff) Gifford owned it for a while, calling the place Kellduff, a combination of the two towns the exit served - Kellogg and Killduff.  But I had completely lost track of who the owners were after Biff sold the business.  

I got off exit 173 and pulled into the parking lot of the place around 1:30 on a sunny afternoon (see map).  I went inside and it hadn't changed much - if any - from the last time I'd been in the place a number of years ago.  I couldn't remember the last time I was in there, but it had to be over six or seven years ago.  I don't get back to Kellogg all that often since my father passed away in 2003.  And if I do go, I'm there for a short time to see my sister and brother-in-law who now live in the house where we grew up.  

When I walked up to the counter, there was a large guy with a very familiar face taking the orders and working the cash register.  It was Connie Van Maaren, an old neighbor who grew up about a half mile away from our family.  Connie was older than me, closer to the age of my two oldest sisters, and had built a house just down the road and just over our property line about 40 years ago.  I recognized him and reintroduced myself to him.  He shook my hand and he said, "Boy, if you wouldn't have said who you were, I wouldn't have recognized you!"  We figured it was probably 30 years or more since we'd last seen each other.  

I asked him if he owned the place and he said, "No, I just work here.  Or I should say, they work me!"  He had worked at Maytag for years and had lost his job when they closed up the plants in Newton a few years ago.  He said, "I was lucky, I had enough time in so I was able to retire, but I still do things like this to keep me busy." 

Connie told me the owners of the place were Rick and Diane Wenndt who bought the place back in 1987.  The Wenndt's built a house across the road from the gas station and then put in a small restaurant with burgers and tenderloins, along with ice cream.  They also bought the land just to the east of the station and put in a pretty nice little RV/tent campground.  

The menu at Iowa's Best Burger Cafe is pretty basic with, of course, burgers, homemade tenderloins, chicken sandwiches and their homemade barbecue beef sandwiches.  They also have something called the Samson which is a quadruple cheeseburger (below left).  I understand that if you eat the whole thing in one sitting they will give you a t-shirt commemorating the event.  In addition to the food, Iowa's Best Burger Cafe also has a number of flavors of ice cream.  

I ordered up a double cheeseburger from Connie.  He said that fries and cole slaw come with the burger meal, but I passed on all that.  I just wanted a burger.  The way Iowa's Best Burger Cafe cooks their burgers is on a flame-broiled oven with a rotating rack.  I've had a number of burgers cooked this way and it's a no-frills, quick and efficient way to fully cook a burger on both sides with the juices dripping onto the lower fire and causing flare-ups that help enhance the taste of the burger.  Above right is Diane Wenndt pulling a burger patty off of the broiler.  She put my double cheeseburger in a foam container and handed it to me over the counter.     

I thanked Connie for the burger and told him it was good to catch up with him.  I went out to my car to see if Iowa's Best Burger Cafe actually had a the best burger in Iowa.

Although the burger patties start out frozen, they're thoroughly cooked with the flame broiler.  The cheese was melting on the burger patties as I pulled it out of the container.  A large amount of fresh veggies - lettuce, tomato and onions - were on top of the burger.  Actually, there was almost too much lettuce on top.  But the burger, itself, had a very good taste to it.  The bun was moist and helped with the overall taste of the burger.  While the burger was very good, I certainly can't call it the best burger in Iowa.  There are others I would certainly say are better.  But the one at Iowa's Best Burger Cafe could end up on as an honorable mention on my Best Burgers list when I update it in 2012.  It was, indeed, a very good burger.

 

As the name of this blog implies, I'm here to give you tips on out of the way places where you can get some pretty good food.  Although Iowa's Best Burger Cafe is not quite off the beaten path, it offers an alternative to the fast food chains for a very good and very quick burger.  Little places like Iowa's Best Burger Cafe don't stay in business for nearly 25 years by having mediocre food.  And the Wenndt's put their reputation on the line everyday with their very presumptuous name for their little burger place. So you've got to admire them for persevering and keeping it going.  It's a good burger.  Stop in and try one sometime.  

An Update to Nick's Hamburger Shop - Brookings, SD

 

I was driving between Fargo and Sioux Falls recently and had the chance to stop back into Nick's Hamburger Shop in Brookings, SD.  The following is the original post on Road Tips about the place, followed by an update on the "new" Nick's - 

Honestly, I don't know who it was who originally told me about Nick's Hamburger Shop in Brookings, SD.  All I know is that Nick's is literally a statewide institution in South Dakota.  And it was billed as a must-visit.  I was driving between Fargo and Sioux Falls last fall and I had time to stop in to Nick's to try a Nickburger. 

Nick's Hamburger Shop has a long and storied history.  In 1929, Gladys and Harold Nikalson (right) opened the door to their little 20-seat hamburger shop in downtown Brookings.  The method of cooking their burgers was called "tank-frying".  It's similar to the style that 2 Mits Burgers in Elkader, IA uses to cook their burgers - cooking them on a grill with water. 

The Nickburgers were a huge hit with the townspeople and the students at South Dakota State University located just blocks from the downtown area in Brookings.  The burgers were five cents each for the first 12 years Nick's was in existence, and people would pay for their burgers by placing coins in a tin can on the front counter as there was no cash register at Nick's.

When Nick went off to World War II, his son, Nick, Jr., began his career at Nick's Hamburger Shop.  Nick, Jr. eventually took over for his parents in 1947 and began to take Nick's to new levels of success.  Suddenly, business was booming as people would line up to buy Nickburgers by the sack full. 

In 1975, Nick, Jr. retired and he was bought out by Duane Larson, a long-time employee of Nick's.  Larson carried on the tradition of serving the Nickburgers on wax paper and selling them by the sack. 

When Larson was getting ready to retire in 2004, a local colorful character by the name of Dick Fergen bought Nick's.  Fergen was literally raised on Nickburgers as he was a native of Brookings and attended South Dakota State.  While Fergen says he has "big plans" for Nick's, he's committed to upholding the integrity of the burgers that have literally been the same since 1929. 

Many former students continue to come back to Nick's for a number of years long after they've graduated from SDSU.  For many people in South Dakota, Nick's Hamburger Shop is truly a destination.  In fact, Nick's is so famous, there is a book about the place (left). 

I got into Brookings around the noon hour and tried to make my way to the corner of 5th and Main in the downtown area (see map).  I was then surprised to see that Main Ave. was literally torn up, undergoing some major renovation and improvement.  I had to sort of find my way around the construction and was able to park on 5th St. just on the north side of Nick's building. 

My second surprise came as I walked up to Nick's front door.  They were closed.  As I looked in the window, it appeared they were undergoing a massive renovation.  Then I noticed a small sign - they were open next door, albeit serving Nickburgers out of a small trailer in the empty lot next to the building on the south side.  They had a number of picnic tables set up and there was a good sized line of people at the order window, and a number of people milling about waiting for their finished burgers. 

(Update #1 - It turns out that the vacant lot next to Nick's has been there since 1985 when a fire destroyed a couple buildings next to Nick's.  Dick Fergen bought the lots, paved them over and put out picnic tables on the pavement.  In the late spring to early fall months, Fergen puts up a tent on the lot and lets people enjoy the burgers in the shade.

The trailer that Nick's was using during this visit is now used to cook burgers at events around southeastern South Dakota, as well as at South Dakota State football games.)

At the time, I didn't know Nickburgers were small - about the half the size of most hamburgers.  Only after reading about Nick's after I ate there, I then realized that's the reason why some people buy 'em by the sack.  

There isn't much on the menu at Nick's - burgers, chips, homemade pie, drinks and shakes.  You have your choice of a single or double hamburger, or a single or double cheeseburger.  I waited in line for a couple minutes, then ordered a double cheeseburger with everything.  I passed on Nick's famous homemade pickle relish, which uses the original recipe Harold Nikalson came up with in the 30's. 

As I waited for my Nickburger, more and more people began to come up to the small trailer to order burgers.  One was a family of four where the dad had been a former student at SDSU and he wanted to stop and treat his family to Nickburgers. 

After about 10 minutes, my double cheeseburger showed up at the window (you could tell I was a Nick's virgin as everyone else - including women - were getting two, three or four burgers).  I took a seat at one of the picnic tables and chomped into the double cheese Nickburger.  It was moist, flavorful, juicy - all the great adjectives that go with the taste of a very good burger. 

The double Nickburger didn't last long.  It was very, very good.  I wanted to get another one, but the line had now stretched 10 to 12 people deep, with a like number of people who were waiting for their burgers.  I thought, "No, I'll just head down the road and come back some other day.

And I will be back.  I need to eat in the new and improved Nick's at some point in the future.  The trip between Fargo and Sioux Falls is long and boring.  But a nice little short stop in Brookings to go to Nick's Hamburger Shop really breaks up the monotony. 

Update #2 - A lot of things have happened at Nick's since I was last there about three years ago.  First of all, they did get their renovation done and they are up and running in the new and improved burger joint.  The front door has moved from the northeast corner to the southeast corner.  There are new cabinets, counters and seating in Nick's Hamburger Shop, but they still serve the same old burgers - called the "Best in South Dakota" by USA Today in 2010.  

I had an appointment with a dealer in Sioux Falls one afternoon recently and I called him up when I was about an hour outside of the city to let him know I was on time.  He said, "Oh, man!  I've been meaning to call you.  I've got a couple of appointments outside of the office that popped up today and I won't be able to meet until after 5 p.m."

Since it was about 2:00 p.m. and I was coming up to the Brookings exit, I just decided to swing in and get a couple burgers from Nick's.  There were only a couple three people in the place when I got there, it was well past the lunch rush.  They still have their picnic tables with a large canopy tent in the courtyard next to Nick's.  And even though it was a nice day, I wanted to sit inside.

I ordered two double cheeseburgers with everything - ketchup, mustard, raw onions and pickles.  I sort of watched how the girl made the burgers.  They keep the made burgers in a warm bin, then when they're ordered they take them and put them on a flat grill to warm them up before serving.  

The burgers are served on wax paper - no plates, one ply napkins are available on the counter.  It's very no frills.  And they still don't have a fryer, so there's still no French fries at Nick's.

And the burgers were exactly has I remembered them - they aren't very big, so two double cheeseburgers are no problem even for the smallest of appetites.  The burgers were slathered in mustard with a little bit of ketchup (come to think of it, I'm not certain if ketchup was on them at all).  The onions were overly fresh and strong.  They tasted excellent with the burger.  The burgers, themselves, have a good flavor to them.  They've been making them the same way for over 80 years at Nick's and I'm sure their grill is well-seasoned by the hundreds of thousands - no, more probably the MILLIONS - of burgers that have been cooked on it over the years.  They are damn fine burgers.

In addition to getting named the best burger in South Dakota by USA Today and the renovation of the place, owner Dick Fergen was recently named the 2011 recipient of South Dakota's "Retailer of the Year".  Fergen was lauded for his enthusiastic community support, as well as his overall positive and energetic outlook on not only his business, but for life, in general.  There was a plaque prominently displayed on the wall at Nick's, along with a number of pictures and articles about the little burger joint over the years.  

I haven't had many burgers in the state of South Dakota, but I have to say they burgers at Nick's Hamburger Shop are very good.  If you ever find yourself in the Brookings area, it's worth a stop at Nick's.  And not only for the good burgers, but for the history and nostalgia, all of which keeps people coming back year after year. 

 

Pete's Hamburgers - Prairie du Chien, WI

Years ago when Cindy and I first started to date, she used to tell me of family outings to Prairie du Chien, WI and the highlight was to stop by Pete's Hamburgers, a small trailer that served steamed burgers. Cindy and I were in Prairie du Chien about 15 years ago and we stopped at Pete's to get a burger. While I'd never had a burger that was literally boiled on a flat top grill in water with onions, I wasn't overly certain that I cared for the taste at first. After having a Two Mits burger in Elkader - which does their burgers in the same fashion as Pete's - I knew I was hooked. The burgers are moist and juicy, and have a great taste to them.

It had been years since I had a Pete's burger and I happened to be driving through Prairie du Chien from LaCrosse just before the noon hour earlier this summer. I decided to stop at Pete's and get a burger.

There's a long and storied history regarding Pete's Hamburgers, a little place on Blackhawk Ave. in Prairie du Chien just across the street from the somewhat famous Stark's Sport Shop (see map). (Stark's is well-known in NE Iowa and SW Wisconsin as a place where hunters and fishermen can get all their supplies - including liquor.) Back after the turn of the 20th century, Pete Gokay was a member of the Prairie du Chien volunteer fire department. The fire department would hold fund raisers and events and Pete was on the food committee. He was in charge of cooking hamburgers and when there would be a lull in the action, he would put the cooked burgers in a pan simmering with warm water and onions to keep them from drying out from overcooking. When people began to ask for the burgers that Pete had in the pan rather than the ones hot off the grill, he knew he was on to something.

The Foley brothers who ran a saloon in Prairie du Chien knew that Pete Gokay was on to something, as well. They asked Pete to cook his simmered burgers on weekends and holidays. On nice days, Pete would cook his burgers outside the Foley Brothers Saloon at a table he had set up. The burgers - and Foley's - would soon become a big hit with people in and around the Prairie area.

Along with his brother in-law, Jack St. Jacque, Pete went around to county fairs, street carnivals, auctions, wherever large gatherings occured just to sell his simmered hamburgers. By this time, Pete was using a special spice concoction that he'd add to the water before placing the burgers and onions in with it. Finding that moving around his cooking "box" was a little too cumbersome, Pete decided to stay in one place to cook his burgers - right next to Foley's Saloon at the corner of Blackhawk Ave. and Beaumont Rd. in Prairie du Chien. In 1942, Pete custom built a trailer that was placed at Foley's. It turned out to be a convenient way of preparing, cooking and serving his hamburgers.

A few years later, a man from Elkader, IA who was a loyal customer of Pete's Hamburgers thought this type of burger would go over well in his hometown. He convinced Pete to sell him his trailer, but Pete relented only after he built a newer - and bigger - trailer for his Prairie du Chien location. The trailer that went to Elkader was the forerunner of Two Mits.

In the mid-50's, Foley's had sold out and Geisler's Restaurant opened in their old building. Pete Gokay (pictured at left) had a fall out with the new owners and he moved his trailer to the present day location at 118 W. Blackhawk on a site that is owned by Stark's Sport Shop. Pete ran his stand for over 60 years before dying in 1972. His son, Bob, ran the stand until he passed away three years later from cancer. Bob's wife, Phyllis, continues to run the stand today with the help of her 8 grandchildren. Just as it was years ago, Pete's Hamburgers is only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from sometime in May thru the summertime and into the early fall, starting at 11 a.m. They stay open until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and until 7 p.m. on Sunday.

Knowing that lunchtime crowds can get pretty big around Pete's, I was sort of pleasantly surprised to see that there were just two people at one of the two windows that are on the side of the Pete's trailer. The menu at Pete's is pretty basic - burgers, no cheese; pop, chips, and bottled water. I made the mistake of ordering two with cheese from the lady and she curtly, but pleasantly informed me, "No cheese!" She did ask me if I wanted onions on them and I said, "Sure!"

People generally line up before Pete's opens at 11 a.m. and they were already cooking up the second batch of the day on the old grill that has the burgers on one side and the onions on the other. A thin layer of seasoned water simmers the burgers on the flat grill with a ridge around the grill to keep the water in. The burgers literally suck up the seasoned water making them moist and tender. The seasoning is there to help bring the flavor back to the burger that is cooked out in the simmering process.

Pete's had tried to do other things in the past like chicken, barbecue and hot dogs, but it's been their tried and true burgers that have kept them open for years. Two Mits in Elkader has cheese for their burgers, and they also sell brats and hot dogs. Actually, the hot dogs at Two Mits are very good.

After serving up the burgers, wrapping them up in wax paper and putting them in the sack, I got a bottle of water to go along with my meal. At $3.50 a burger and $1.25 for the water, the bill came to $8.25. The burgers are pretty small and not as good of a value as you may get elsewhere. But it is Pete's and it's a pretty famous place in the region, especially with the history behind the place.

I took my two burgers back to the car and made sure that I laid out my "smeg towel" that travels with me to sop up any juice that comes off the burgers before it hit my shirt and pants. With a little ketchup and mustard on the burger along with the simmered onions, it's not much to see for a burger. And because the meat is simmered rather than fried, there's no marks on the hand-pattied burger.

While I'm almost certain there's probably not a lot of difference between a Pete's and a Two Mits burger, the Pete's burger seems to be a little drab in flavor. Oh, you can't deny that it's juicy, moist and tender. But like boiling any meat, you do lose some of the taste of the burger. The seasoning helps to bring back some of the flavor, as do the onions. I'm not saying that the taste is bad - it's not. It's different from a grilled burger and one that does require a little getting used to.

I guess the big difference - to me - between the Pete's burger and the Two Mits burger is the cheese. The cheese on top of a Two Mits burger really livens up their burger. It really helps the overall taste and that's why I've given it an honorable mention on my Best Burgers List. Without the cheese, I'm not certain that a Two Mits burger would taste any differently than a Pete's burger.

Still, Pete's is still one of the originals and as they like to tell people there were there long before McDonalds, Burger King, Dairy Queen or any of the other national or worldwide hamburger chains. People around NE Iowa and SW Wisconsin have long believed that a Pete's burger is the best and have thought so for over 100 years now. It's an acquired taste, for sure, but there's also something magical with a slice of Americana about Pete's Hamburgers. If you're ever in Prairie du Chien - or even in the NE Iowa/SW Wisconsin area - on a summer or early fall weekend, you have to stop at Pete's at least one time.

 

Adrian's Tavern - Minneapolis

In my entry on Town Hall Tap last week, the basic story line there was that I accidentally went into that place when I was looking to go into Adrian's Tavern which is situated right next door on Chicago Ave. I was told by a local that the cheese-stuffed Juicy Lucy burgers (or Jucy Lucy, depending upon which tavern you favor) were among the best in town. I had probably been past Adrian's many times in my travels to Minneapolis as it is just down the street from one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, Pepitos (see my entry on Pepito's here). The day after I had gone to Town Hall Tap, I went to Adrian's for a Juicy Lucy for dinner.

Adrian's Tavern had been a long time destination for tons of Twin Citians for 80 years. The South Minneapolis location opened in 1931 as a steakhouse. After Prohibition ended, the place turned into a beer bar selling 3.2 beer and food. It had gone through a number of owners and in 1963 it was renamed Adrian's Tavern, after, presumeably, some guy or family named Adrian.

The tavern eventually ended up in the hands of Jim and Karen Pratt who turned it into a family friendly neighborhood tavern with a dozen different burgers on their menu, along with a turkey burger, brats, chicken and pork tenderloins. Unfortunately, and sadly, Karen Pratt passed away in July of last year leaving her husband, four children and 19 grandchildren. Jim Pratt continues to run Adrian's today.

It was around 7:30 when I got to the 48th and Chicago neighborhood in South Minneapolis (see map) and was able to find a place to park on 48th around the corner from Adrian's. This time walking PAST the Town Hall Tap, I went into the open door on the front side of Adrian's. There were seats open at the bar. The back bar area was somewhat cluttered and a large picture of Karen Pratt stood on a shelf. A Minnesota Twins baseball game was playing on a television tucked away up in the corner of the bar area.

Adrian's Tavern is long and narrow with booths along both walls. There's a gaming area toward the back of the place for the kids. It had a nice feeling to the place and I immediately liked it.

The restrooms are downstairs at Adrian's, and a word of warning - the men's restroom may have been the most despicable public restroom I've ever seen in a restaurant/bar. It appears they hadn't updated the restroom since the original owners opened in 1931. They had taken an apron to put over the men's urinal so people wouldn't use it. The floor was grimy and there was rust on the metal shelving over the heating elements. Even for me, it was pretty disgusting. Maybe only Booches in Columbia, MO makes the bathroom at Adrian's look clean. But, then again, Booches has great burgers, so that could be a common theme for these old places.

It had been a long, long day and I was interested in getting a couple beers and some food in me and then heading back to my hotel in Bloomington. I looked over the menu and saw that they did have their version of the Juicy Lucy. The guy who told me about Adrian's Tavern also told me their onion rings were pretty good. So that's what I ordered. The waitress/bartender said, "It will be about 20 minutes on the Juicy Lucy. We cook 'em slow so we don't overcook the meat while making sure the cheese inside melts between the two patties." I told her that as long as there was a beer in front of me and a baseball game on the television, I was fine with that.

The grill at Adrian's is a small flat grill that is situated in a pretty small kitchen off to the side of the bar. A number of people were in the place that evening and there were a slew of burgers and a couple three Juicy Lucy's cooking up along side onions and toasting buns. I was trying to figure out how in the world this could have housed a steak house back in the 30's with such a small kitchen. It was obvious why the menu was so limited to burgers and a few other items. They couldn't make anything else that would fit in the kitchen area.

The bartender/waitress was correct - it was a full 20 minutes before my Juicy Lucy burger came out along with the onion rings. Quite honestly, I had a lot of food in front of me and I was sort of worried that I'd leave a good portion of the large basket of rings. The rings did look good, though. And I was sort of surprised to see a side of chips (with dill pickle slices) with my burger. And another surprise that I've never seen on a Juicy Lucy-type burger in the Twin Cities - they put a slice of cheese on top of the burger in addition to the cheese inside.

The problem with Juicy Lucy burgers is that the cheese inside can be as hot as molten lava. Many places caution you to wait a few moments before biting into the burger as you can get second degree burns in your mouth from the stuffed cheese. I waited a few moments before biting in to my burger. And when I did...

Ka-BOOM! Hot cheese splattered everywhere. On my shirt, my pants, down on my shoes. I've had cheese explode in my mouth and burn the living crap out my tongue, but I'd never had a Juicy Lucy that had just exploded with such a vicious velocity on the first bite that spewed cheese everywhere. I had cheese down my hand and arm. It was a mess. Thankfully, there were tons of napkins and I did my best to clean up what I could. I had to go back down to the dingy bathroom to try and clean some of the gooey cheese off of me before I could continue. Looking back, it was probably a good thing I didn't go there the day before because if the burger would have spewed cheese on me like it did that particular evening, I would have had to go all the way back to the hotel to change clothes before going on to my next appointment. Since I was done for the day, I could handle having some stains on me. 

When I got back to the bar, the cheeseburger had cooled down sufficiently. And I can say that the burger was just OK. You have to cook the living crap out of a Juicy Lucy to melt the cheese inside and the only thing that is usually juicy is just the cheese. Even though the cook at Adrian's cooked it low and slow, it was still overdone to my liking. I realized right then and there that my quest to find the best Juicy Lucy in the Twin Cities had ended. The Blue Door Pub was number one and The Nook was a close number two. (The Nook recently reopened after a devastating fire last December.) Even the more famous stalwarts of the Juicy Lucy (Jucy Lucy) - Matt's Bar and the 5-8 Club - aren't as good as those two places.

The onion rings at Adrian's Tavern were good, not outstanding, but good. And as I thought, I knew that I wouldn't have been able to finish them all and I didn't. After what amounts to a double cheeseburger with a load of cheese in me and on me, I was definitely full.

Still, I wouldn't mind going back to Adrian's Tavern just to try a regular cheese burger at some point in time. I'm afraid, though, that I'd probably go past Adrian's and head right into the Town Hall Tap to get a burger there. That was an outstanding burger at Town Hall Tap. But I did like the atmosphere at Adrian's and the place did hold a lot of history. Being in business for 80 years is nothing to sneeze at and just for that, Adrian's deserves another chance at some point.

Town Hall Tap - Minneapolis

Sometimes, mistakes happen. And sometimes, those mistakes turn out all right. That's sort of what happened on my visit to the Town Hall Tap in Minneapolis on a recent visit to the Twin Cities. Let me explain...

Actually, I was trying to go to Adrian's Tavern on the recommendation from someone who told me they have a very good Juicy Lucy burger. (Juicy Lucy's - or Jucy Lucy's, depending upon which place you favor - is a cheese stuffed burger.) Adrian's Tavern is on a short stretch of bars and restaurants on Chicago Ave. at 48th St. south of the downtown Minneapolis district (see map). I pulled up in front of Adrian's around 2 p.m. one afternoon and I walked into an open air bar/restaurant fully thinking that it was part of Adrian's. There was no signage out front, at least any significant signage, that told me any different. I walked in and took a seat at the bar and a bartender came over with a food menu. It was then that I discovered that I was not in Adrian's, but in the Town Hall Tap. Feeling a little foolish and somewhat embarrassed, I decided to just cut my losses and have lunch there.

The Town Hall Tap is an offshoot of the Town Hall Brewery, a small brewpub that I wasn't familiar with (and a place I'll have to visit at some point). The Town Hall Tap has a nice little neighborhood feeling to it and that's what they were looking for when they opened back in November of last year. With exposed ceiling beams, wooden garage doors that open up in pleasant weather, and tasteful decorations of vintage beer signs, Town Hall Tap is a somewhat charming and very inviting place to go.

The bar at the Town Hall Tap is an antique bar that was used at a bar in Chicago and found at a place in Bloomington, IL. The back bar area (above right) features refrigeration units and storage with a large mirror that gives the cozy little tavern a sense of spaciousness. I felt completely comfortable sitting at the bar looking over the menu.

One thing that completely jumped out at me while I was perusing the beer menu at Town Hall Tap was the fact that they had Alaskan Brewing Company beers on tap, along with many of their own beers brewed at their brewery. I couldn't resist to get an Alaskan Amber beer as it had been such a long time since I'd had one. It turns out that Alaskan beers are now available in Minnesota. I was overjoyed because the closest I could get Alaskan beers was on business trips to Colorado. And that was only once a year, if that. I don't know what it is about the Alaskan beers, but they're some of my all-time favorites, including their pale ale (which, coincidentally, is not available in Minnesota as of yet).

And one thing that they do not have on the menu at Town Hall Tap is a traditional Juicy (Jucy) Lucy. They DO have stuffed burgers such as the "Hot Damn" which features a burger stuffed with jalapenos, green peppers and onions and topped with bleu cheese. They also have the "Heidelberger" which is stuffed with onions, then crusted in bacon bits and topped with Tillamook cheddar cheese. (I was told after the fact that that burger is to die for.) And they also have something called the "Serrano Popper Burger" that featured a mixture of Angus beef and prosciutto ham, stuffed with cream cheese and then topped with pickled serrano peppers. All of those sounded great, as did the "Pete's Cabin Burger" - a mixture of Angus beef, mushrooms, Minnesota wild rice and crumbled bleu cheese then topped with Wisconsin double-creme cheese.

My head was spinning from all the possibilities that I finally just decided to go basic for my first visit to Town Hall Tap. I ordered up the Brewer's Cheeseburger. It comes with your choice of seven different types of cheese on a bakery bun with homemade mayo on top. I ordered it with the mayo on the side and topped with the Tillamook cheddar cheese. Fries came with the burger.

In addition to burgers at Town Hall Tap, the menu boasts a handful of chicken sandwiches, a Cuban pork sandwich, a reuben and a number of appetizers. Turtle Bread Company - a full service bakery just down the block from Town Hall Tap - provides much of the bread for sandwiches at the tavern.

My burger came out and I was ready to eat. With another Alaskan Amber poured and in front of me, the presentation on the bar was excellent. The Tillamook cheddar was oozing over the thick and juicy burger. I popped a little ketchup and mustard on the burger and took my first bite.

The burger was cooked perfectly for me - it had a little bit of pink in the middle and it was juicy and flavorful. The bun was outstanding and really helped with the taste. The Tillamook cheddar was mild and wasn't overpowering. With each bite, I was less sorry that I walked into Town Hall Tap by mistake. This was, very simply, an outstanding burger. It was one of the better ones I've had in the Twin Cities during my visits to the area.

One thing I learned from my colleagues up in Montreal is the very European way of eating mayonnaise with French fries. The homemade mayo they provided on the side was excellent. Although I couldn't eat all the fries because my 1/2 pound burger was filling enough, I made a significant cut into the pile, helped along with the homemade mayonnaise.

So, my mistake of going into Town Hall Tap was not quite a big mistake after all. I was overly surprised at how great the burger was. And to top it off, they had Alaskan Amber on tap! I got to thinking that maybe the burger gods were looking out for me on this one as I probably would have NEVER gone into Town Hall Tap had I just gone into Adrian's next door. I did make it to Adrian's a couple nights later and I'll have that entry in a short while. But here's a little hint - Town Hall Tap blew it away!

AJ Bombers - Milwaukee

In my "Best Burger List - 2011", I have two Milwaukee area burger joints - Sobleman's and Solly's - on my Top Ten list. In the spring of 2009, upstate New York native Joe Sorge opened a new burger joint - AJ Bombers - along the restaurant row of Water Street in downtown Milwaukee. Word quickly got out that this upstart burger joint rivaled - and possibly surpassed - the venerable Solly's and the established Sobleman's for the title of "Best Burger in Milwaukee."

I had not heard of AJ Bombers until I saw the Travel Channel program - Food Wars - that pitted AJ Bombers against Sobleman's for a "taste-off" for the best burger in Milwaukee. I was immediately intrigued and knew that I had to try AJ Bombers the next time I went to Milwaukee. I had my chance earlier this Spring when I was able to get up there and had time to stop at AJ Bombers for lunch.

Joe Sorge's family had been in the restaurant industry for a number of years before he went to Cornell to study hospitality management, specifically majoring in restaurant management. Upon his graduation, Sorge went to South Carolina and worked for a couple private hospitality companies and eventually for a House of Blues location. Sorge and his wife, Angie, moved to Milwaukee in 2000 and have opened up a handful of restaurants including Water Buffalo, Smoke Shack and Swig. Sensing a need for an eclectic and interesting burger joint, the Sorge's opened AJ Bombers at the corner of Water and E. Knapp (see map) in a building that housed the long standing bar, The Corner, but most recently housed a short-lived restaurant/bar, Water's End.

Earlier this year, the Sorge's partnered with Marcus Investments to help drive the concept of multiple locations for AJ Bombers and possibly their other restaurants. Marcus Investments also owns Zaffiro's Pizza, a place that I wrote about on Road Tips a couple three years ago (you can see my post on Zaffiro's here).

The Sorge's are also proponents of social networking and were one of the charter members of the foursquare network of bars and restaurants. foursquare is a mobile application that allows networked friends to easily find each other as they update their location. Joe Sorge has also co-authored a book - Twitter Works - that shows restaurants, bars and other small businesses the advantages of social networking.

It was just before 2 p.m. on a rainy afternoon in Milwaukee when I pulled up across the street from AJ Bombers. The main lunch crowd had dwindled down to a few late lunch stragglers such as myself and I took a seat at the bar. They do have an outdoor seating area around the back of AJ Bombers, but since it was raining, that was out of the question that day.

The interior of the place is what I'd have to call urban guerrilla chic. Loads of graffiti were on the wooden walls around the the booths. Exposed brick walls along with some interesting artwork - mainly bombs and bomber memorabilia - were throughout the place. Peanut shells littered the floor, courtesy of a large peanut dispenser located behind the bar. How they get peanuts to the table is another subject I'll examine in a bit.

The bartender came over and said, "Have you ever been to AJ Bombers before?" I said I hadn't and he said, "OK, let me show you how it works."

He pulled out a sheet menu that allowed the customer to check off the type of burger, what types of toppings, condiments and extras you would want on your burger. He pointed out the A.J. Burger - their basic 1/4 pound cheeseburger that you could order has a double, a triple or even a quadruple for those inclined to gorge on a burger. The bartender said, "For example, after you've picked out what burger you want, then you go down and circle what you want on it." The choices included jalapenos, a fried egg, avocado, peanut butter, fried onions - all of which were an up-charge anywhere from 50 cents to a buck and a half (for bacon). Curiously, there was a 50 cent up-charge for pickles. They must be pretty damn good pickles!

And because you can make your own combinations, they only have three different types of Angus beef burgers. They also had a "Stuffed 'shroom" burger where you had your choice of either a deep fried or baked portabello mushroom stuffed with cheddar cheese and placed on top of a burger. And they also had "The Milwaukee Burger" - a 1/4 pound burger with double cheese, double bacon and beer braised onions. More on that burger later on.

They also featured a couple of veggie-type burgers, turkey burgers, a chicken sandwich, a grilled cheese, and a hot dog on the menu. There were a lot of appetizers and sides such as their onion straws and their "gi-normous" fries. The bartender asked me if I wanted something to drink while I decided and I got a Miller High Life. AJ Bombers has a pretty good beer list, but I thought, "Well, when in Milwaukee, you've got to have a High Life."

I ended up ordering the fried "Stuffed 'shroom" burger with bacon and cheddar cheese. It sounded intriguing to me. The bartender said, "You want any fries with that? They're hand cut and they're damn good." I broke down and took the fries.

After I ordered, he brought over a small bowl of peanuts in the shell - sort of a signature thing for AJ Bombers. In fact, they have a pretty neat way to deliver the peanuts to people who are sitting at the booths next to the bar or to the front area for a waitress to pick up and deliver to a table.

Above the bar, they have three tracks with little "bombs" attached. The bartenders reach up and fill the top of the bomb with peanuts - or "p-nuts" in the vernacular of AJ Bombers - then they push the bombs down the track where they then hit a target with the nose of the bomb which triggers a drop door on the bottom of the bomb to let loose of the peanuts into a hopper that is attached to chute where the peanuts fall into a bowl at the bottom. And it's pretty loud when the bombs hit the target. The bartender did it for an unsuspecting couple sitting in a booth directly behind me and it startled the living crap out of the lady. She obviously wasn't expecting a loud "bang" over her head and then peanuts falling into a metal bowl next to her. The bartender had to apologize profusely to the shaken woman.

Here's a You Tube video of the peanut bomb delivery system at AJ Bombers in action -

After all that fun, my burger finally showed up to the table. It was adorned with this huge, deep fried, cheese stuffed portabello mushroom on top. Bacon and a couple slices of cheddar cheese were on top of the patty with a couple fresh tomato slices and lettuce lying underneath.

The burger had a lot going on in terms of taste. It had a great smoky, char-grilled taste to it, but it was far from overpowering. It was definitely a multi-napkin burger that oozed with cheese and pure beef juiciness. The bun was light and moist, but didn't disintegrate with all the cheese and bacon grease flowing with each bite. The bun actually helped with the overall taste of the burger. I've always said the key to a great burger is the bun.

Actually, the fried/stuffed portabello was a little overwhelming for the overall taste of the burger. I wished about half-way through the burger that I would have gotten the "Milwaukee Burger" - the burger that AJ Bombers came up with for their "Food Wars" battle against Sobleman's.

When "Food Wars" came to Milwaukee to see who would be judged to have a better burger between Sobleman's and AJ Bombers, to keep the playing field level both Joe Sorge and Dave Sobleman agreed to make their burgers topped with real Wisconsin cheddar slices (times two) and a double helping of bacon. In AJ Bombers and Sobleman's case, they selected Neuske's bacon - called by the New York Times as the "beluga caviar of bacon". Neuske's isn't available in stores, but you can mail order it or visit their company store in the small north central Wisconsin town of Wittenburg.

Both Sorge and Sobleman did up their burgers and a three-person panel consisting of the show's host Camille Ford, local food critic Kyle Cherek, and noted hamburger expert and author Josh Ozersky judged the burgers. Here is the final judging segment of the contest between Sobleman's and AJ Bombers -

 While I'm not overly certain that I agree with their assessment, all I have to say is that it would be difficult to go wrong with either Sobleman's or AJ Bombers.  Both are excellent burgers and until I have a chance to get back in to AJ Bombers and try the Milwaukee Burger, I'll reserve my own judgment.  While the "Stuffed 'shroom" burger at AJ Bombers was very good, it masked the taste and overall quality of the burger.  Cheese and bacon will help enhance the taste of a good burger, but the fried portabello mushroom was a little over the top in this instance.  Still, I was overly impressed with AJ Bombers on my first visit there and can't wait to make it back again at some point.