Friday, June 11, 2010

Juicy Burger: A Review

Today I wanted to go to lunch with 3 of my 5 favorite men:  Jeff, Alex, and Mathias.

We'd thought about trying Juicy Burger once before, but opted for something else.  We just happened to be in the area so it seemed like a convenient time to try something new.

From the Juicy Burger website.........

After spending a year with Ruth's Chris Steak house in Boston,Bobby Mitchell, former owner of Wheatfields and Doc's Steakhouse decided to return to the area with his family and open a restaurant with a new concept.  JUICY BURGERS
AND MORE... is just that.  The"quick serve" restaurant features, "Fresh - Never Frozen" steak burgers cooked to order in our specially designed 1800 degree over-fired broiler.  The restaurant also serves a variety of fries, onion rings,entree size salads and soups.  A unique feature of the new restaurant is the guest's ability to order from a computer terminal at the restaurant or online from home, office or PDA.  Once placed, the order is either delivered to your table when ready or packed for your pick-up.  JUICY BURGERS AND MORE...
also cares about the environment and uses only "green" products wherever possible.

The atmosphere is very clean and modern.  The walls are black, red, and yellow (to represent a burger maybe?)  There are large unframed pictures of burgers and fries on the walls.  Two flat screened tv's were hung on the wall playing the food network.  The restaurant, itself, was very clean and the staff appeared to be impeccably groomed.

The menu is fairly simple.  Soups, salads, Burgers, Fries, and Onion Rings.  The Salads run between $3.95 and $7.95 and can be topped with grilled shrimp or chicken, sirloin, ahi tuna, or a juicy burger for an additional fee.  Soup is Lobster Bisque ($5.25) or soup of the day ($4.25)

But if you're going to a burger place.....you should get a burger, right?  Everyone but Mathias thought so, but I'll get to kid's meals in a bit.

The burgers range in price from $6.50 to $7.25.  They have specialty burgers and good old fashioned burgers.  You can also "build a burger" from their extensive list of toppings.

The three adults ordered the Cheeseburger (a basic burger topped with lettuce, tomato, and onion), the Cajun Burger (cajun spice, cajun mayonnaise, spicy peppers) and the Roasted Red Pepper Burger (roasted red peppers, basil pesto, and fresh mozzarella)

The fries are fresh and hand-cut.  You can choose from yukon gold fries or sweet potato fries.  They also have onion rings.  You can also mix and match for a little more money.

Fountain drinks were Pepsi products which always makes me happy.

I love the idea that you could order from home or your phone and have the food ready for your table when you get there.  I tried to do this but the website only offered me a to-go option.  Not sure why that doesn't work but I'd love to try it out.  It's a great feature for families with small, impatient children--if it worked.  The computer terminal at the restaurant was set up for people to sign up for their mailing list and that's it.

The food was not quick to come to the table.  I wouldn't classify this as quick serve.  I waited just as long as I would at a sit down restaurant. 

As far as taste....the food was good, but that's all I can really say.  I didn't try any of Jeff's cheeseburger but he said it was pretty good.  Alex was disappointed that his burger wasn't spicy.  At all.  I tried a bite and agreed (and I'm way more sensitive to spicy food than he is)and I was expecting bolder flavor from the pesto and red peppers--you couldn't really tell there was pesto on my burger, but the peppers had a lot of flavor.  Everyone agreed the fries were tasty, but not anything extra special.  I tried the sweet potatoes as well.  Yummy but not amazing. 

Mathias ordered the Chicken Fingers kids meal ($4.95 does not include drink)  His portions were HUGE considering it was a kids meal.  An adult could be reasonably satisfied on what he was served.  In fact, Jeff and I munched on his food (there was no way Mathias was going to finish it) and Jeff decided he'd rather have had that meal instead of the cheeseburger.

Once again, price is where my negativity lies.  You see, when you pay that seven bucks for the burger--it's just for the burger.  Fries are nearly three dollars extra and your drink is two bucks on top of that.  I don't think the quality or quantity of the food is worth twelve dollars a person.  Even with the excessive portions, the kids meal tops out at seven dollars.  I don't spend this much when I go to Chili's or Applebee's, mostly because it's understood that fries COME WITH your burger.  Hell, at Red Robin I'd spend less than this and get unlimited fries!!!

All in all....Juicy Burger is just OK.  I wouldn't go out of my way to go there again.  In my opinion, if you want a good burger (specialty or otherwise) for a good price, Red Robin is the way to go.

Atmosphere2/5 tacos
Food3/5 tacos
Service2/5 tacos (The food took longer than expected and once the food was served we didn't see our server again.)
Price: 2/5 tacos


I chose to go to Juicy Burger on my own.  I paid for the meal myself and all the opinions expressed in this blog are mine or my immediate family/friends.  My love of Red Robin is genuine and not paid for in any way :)

1 comment:

Robyn said...

Omg yam fries and yukon potatoes.... God I wish I lived in North America again. Bad Stephee, you made my tummy sad!