@burger was a burger restaurant that opened on Liberty Street in 2010. It was a single location, operated by Big Boy and envisioned as the first of a chain of such restaurants. It was a little too expensive for me to go regularly. I wrote down some thoughts after my first visit but never published them. Now they’re closed and I’m putting my thoughts up in case people wonder what that empty storefront used to be.
I don’t usually review restaurants, but until @burger goes wide enough to get a Tesg review, I’m jotting down a few thoughts here for the curious.
Atburger is so far only one store, with the potential to become an upscale fast-casual burger chain in the vein of Five Guys or Fuddruckers. Ann Arbor has neither of these yet, though Five Guys is coming to State Street soon. @burger has been open since July so now seemed like a good time to check it out.
The good things about the @burger website are the slight CSS rotation effect on the Story page, and the coupons on the Coupons page. The bad thing about the @burger website is its favicon. At that resolution, the @burger logo is too small to read, and in fact looks like a cartoon boner. I would’ve framed a closeup on the @ personally.
Ordering at @burger is a lot like ordering at Noodles & Co., or the self-serv option at Buffalo Wild Wings that I think the servers secretly hate me for. You place your order at the register by the front door, pay there, and receive a beeping vibrating tag that you hold up as a beacon when your order comes out. They bring it out for you, like Noodles, no tipping. You pull your own fountain drinks. @burger has beer taps at the register too, but they were not labeled and they didn’t seem to be serving beer. Maybe beer is only at dinner? Not sure.
Good things about soft drinks at @burger are Coke products at the fountain, and lemon wedges. Bad thing is no Cherry Coke.
The burgers come in “Small Appetite” and Regular. 7oz [the regular] doesn’t sound like so much on the menu but it was quite filling. The good thing is that it was grilled! With grill lines and smoky taste and stuff. The bun was quite good too. Sort of a cross between the Fuddruckers bun and those soft rolls you get with your meal at Bob Evans. It was maybe not quite big enough for the burger.
After they’d been open a while they started to offer bottled beer and the tap ultimately included PBR and some regional brews. They had some odd t-shirts for sale too. A pixel-art “1UP” burger was cute, but I couldn’t see anyone wearing the “@HOLE” shirt. Five Guys appears to be thriving, and Liberty Street continues to languish after a slew of recent store closings and an increase in panhandling.
