The annual CEDIA Expo was held in Atlanta recently and our company showed a number of products at our booth at the Georgia World Congress Center. Here's a picture of me and one of my dealers - Steve Hintz from Connectronix in Milwaukee - with one of the Focal Grande Utopia EM loudspeakers. These retail for $180,000 a pair (that's right!), and they stand 6'6" tall and weigh 580 pounds - each. They are truly amazing loudspeakers. Of course, they should be for $180,000 a pair!
It had been about 10 years since I'd last been to Atlanta. But the group of guys that I work with now are much more in tune with finding good places to eat rather that the guys who I worked with previously who were just looking for food - any food. While in Atlanta, we stayed in the Buckhead area and there is a plethora of great restaurants within a five minute drive from our hotel. My colleague, Ian, travels to Atlanta as part of his territory and he said, "We could have stayed downtown near the convention center, but most of the restaurants down there are of the tourist-trap variety. This is more of a drive, but the restaurants are much better."
We all arrived on the afternoon of Labor Day and made it out to our hotel, the Doubletree in Buckhead. It was the middle of the afternoon and we were all pretty famished and needed lunch. Ian had come up with a list of places to eat in the area and one of those listed was a burger place called Canyon's Burger Company, just up the road from the hotel on Peachtree Road NE (see map). We jumped in the van and headed up for a mid-afternoon burger.
Canyon's Burger Company began in early 2008 in the Atlanta suburb of Woodstock, GA. The two owners, Sonny Crumpton and Nick Binnings, were veterans of the restaurant business. Crumpton had been the director of franchise support and construction for the Planet Smoothie and Moe's Southwest Grill chains, while Binnings started Hero's All-American grill in the New Orleans area in 2001. Hero's grew to four locations before Binnings sold it in 2004.
Binnings moved to Atlanta soon thereafter to work with Raving Brands, a restaurant franchiser that oversaw concept restaurants such as Monkey Joe's, Boneheads and Doc Green's. It was there where he met Crumpton and the two worked on a concept to open their own restaurant - a gourmet burger place that celebrated outdoor sports such as rock climbing, hiking and cross-country biking. And just a week after our visit to Canyon's Burger Company, Crumpton and Binnings sold the company to Growth Concepts, a California-based acquisition company that fosters and encourages franchise growth of concept restaurants. Growth Concepts is headed by Daniel Kim, who is also the owner of the Baja Fresh Mexican Grill chain mainly on the West coast, but there are some Baja Fresh locations in the Chicago area.
Since it was in the middle of the afternoon, and on Labor Day, no less, there were only four people eating in Canyon's Burger Company when we got there. 8 of us walked in and the guys behind the counter were surprised. The guy taking the orders said, "It was a real slow day until you guys walked in!"
Burgers rule the menu at Canyon's, as one would expect. The burgers are 100% Angus certified beef and are never frozen. They have a number of free toppings that you can choose from to customize your burger, and there's an up charge for cheese, bacon or sauteed mushrooms. The burger patties appear to be about a half-pound and are grilled to your specification and placed on a toasted soft bun. It's not fast food - they make 'em as you order them.
They also feature a chicken tender plate at Canyon's. They take white breast chicken meat, marinate it overnight, then dip it in a batter before deep frying the meat. Interestingly enough, they didn't have a grilled chicken breast sandwich on the menu. But they did, however, have a ground turkey burger on the menu. I understand the turkey burger is one of their biggest sellers.
While my colleagues ordered up their food, I was just looking for a basic burger. They did have some specialty burgers including the 360 Burger that was just, basically, a bacon cheeseburger; and their Black and Blue Burger that featured a burger with blackened spices and topped with blue cheese crumbles. Then they had this one - The Grand Canyon - which featured two of their burgers topped anyway you wanted. That was tempting, but I resisted.
I ended up getting the Canyon Burger and topped it with Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, ketchup, yellow mustard and some jalapenos on the side. While some of my colleagues ordered onions rings, regular french fries or sweet potato fries, I abstained from a side. However, I did notice that they had Sweet Water 420, a wonderful local-brewed pale ale that I fell in love with during our earlier trip to Savannah. I ordered one of those up. Of course, my colleagues - knowing that I'm a beer aficionado - had their interest piqued on the type of beer that I got. Suddenly, everyone was ordering a Sweet Water 420. The problem was they only had four bottles of it in their cooler. We quickly bought 'em out of that and some of the other guys had to settle for another variety.
The dining room at Canyon's is pretty good sized and features tables and booths. After ordering our food, we went to sit down and catch up with everyone while we waited for the burgers to come out. There were a number of televisions on in the dining area. One had a football game on, but some of them were showing extreme outdoor sports, such as mountain biking and snowboarding. The snowboarding caught the eye of my colleague, John, whose family was literally raised on skiing. His mother was a national champion skier a number of years ago, and his brother teaches skiing in New England.
Our burgers came out and they were hot and juicy, just off the grill. My burger was pretty good - the burger was cooked to my liking and the bun was light, yet sort of chewy. It wasn't dry or too chewy, however. And I'm glad I got the jalapenos on the side! Wow! Those bastards were hot! My colleague, Ian, even remarked, "Now these are fresh jalapenos!" They were so hot that I had finished my beer and had to go get another beer, this time a Bud Light since they were out of Sweet Water 420.
I'm glad I didn't order any french fries, but I rarely do any longer. They were a crinkle-cut fry, indicative of a pre-frozen fry, rather than the fresh cut potato fries that are much better. Some of guys were sharing their onion rings and sweet potato fries. The rings were OK and the sweet potato fries were about the same. Both were nothing special and I'm glad I didn't get an order on my own.
All in all, Canyon's Burger Company was good. It wasn't what I'd call a Top Ten burger, but it would get an honorable mention. In the growing market of boutique burger joints across America, Canyon's doesn't necessarily stand out and they may have tough time growing their business with franchisees. But if one were to come to the Quad Cities, I'd certainly go back. But only for the burger.
Binnings also created and then sold in 2004 the four-unit Hero’s All American Grill burger concept in New Orleans. He moved to Atlanta to work for Raving Brands founder Martin Sprock, where he met Sonny Crumpton, who was involved in building the Moe’s Southwest Grill and Planet Smoothie concepts, both of which Raving Brands later sold.
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Man, is that you? You have lost weight!!! You look good, Will!
Posted by: Tim Lake | November 06, 2009 at 07:25 AM