The paper hat on his head seemed to give him a sense of pride resultant only from being a producer and manufacturer of something fine. A product that was produced every time with the same amount of attention, quality, and cheese. The wax pen scribbled in a diner short hand: Working Man Special, Cheese, Easy Mustard, Strawberry Shake. As the drive thru window buzzed for attention we sat on some orange short stools in the dineresque seating that lines the very small restaurant.

Burger Boy has managed to stay golden in an area that has seen its fair share of change. However tumultuous the changing crowd may be with the White Rabbit situated not far down the street, Burger Boy knows its Americana roots. The building remains untouched and unscathed and very…clean. I want to say it’s a throwback, but this building, like the burger, is the real deal.

So, now the cheese, right? This working man special not only is well deserved for a man that’s been working but it definitely puts a little proud hair on your chest. The burger and fries were delicious and the strawberry shake with sprinkles is extra precious. The prices in this place are ridiculously reasonable as well. In a time where you can pay over $10 for a burger and then have to add your fries and drink on separately, come on. But not at this burger joint. At this burger establishment you can look forward to feeding the family or hanging before a show for a reasonable and delicious price. Double cheese gives it a nostalgic 7.5.

Burger Boy
2323 N Saint Marys St
San Antonio, TX 78212
(210) 735-1955

Aloha burger lovers, DoubleCheese is bringing to you all of the good things you deserve.

First, although DoubleCheese is aware that the Malthouse is not for everyone, it for the 2nd year in a row has been selected for the People’s Choice Award in San Antonio for best neighborhood burger joint. So, my swanky little burger place is just the perfect little burger place on the Westside.

And now…

This year on July 16th San Antonio will be hosting and celebrating and cheesing like no other at the 2nd Annual All American Burger Festival! [SCREAM.]

Currently at the center of this cheestival is a hot and cheesy good ol’ fashion Burger Cook-Off between Mayor Julian Castro (Democrat) and Tommy Adkisson (Democrat). Taking place on the East Side of San Antonio, no stranger to delicious food like Big Lou’s featured on Man Vs Food and my personal favorite Wednesday lunch haunt Mr. G’s, the city hopes to shed some light on the beauty of the Eastside. And beauty, I believe is what we will see. There will be a cook-off among individuals and local restaurants affording bragging rights and a mighty fine trophy to the winner for a whole year.

At the event, St. Philips College Culinary Departments and the Culinary Institute of America will be honored as well as scholarship winners Hali Myrick and Joshua Dennis. And before you start putting on your stretchy pants and/or unbuttoning that top button on your pants, check out the event schedule that includes an Art Exhibit, Car Show, Live music and a rocking KidZone.

Listen, this event is free. It’ll be hosted on Commerce street around 3 blocks away from the Historic Sunset Station. So in this hot summer heat everyone come out and get CHEEEEEEESEEEEYYY!

Check this out:

http://www.saburgerfest.com/

Murf’s Better Burger
7102 San Pedro Ave
San Antonio, TX 78216
(210) 822-6467

Sometimes mingling health conscience with junk food makes doublecheese feel like all those green yuppies need to just eat lettuce all day and leave doublecheese’s ever corrupting arteries alone. But, after a very harsh look into the food industry, doublecheese realizes that what doublecheese thought was pure meat, sometimes isn’t. Sometimes cheese isn’t really real cheese. And that some of these co-mingling savor flavors are the product of an equation that includes chemicals and processing and unhappy animals and mutated vegetation. That scared doublecheese.

Enter The Cove. Organic. Fresh. Real. Buying from local growers, The Cove makes gourmet food that is real. Located not far from the San Antonio burger institution Chris Madrid’s, which feeds off artery pollution, The Cove takes a fresh modern stand on food production. That stand has garnered attention from the Food Network’s Guy Fieri and was declared the best burger in San Antonio, 5th in the state by Texas Monthly.

So what’d doublecheese think of the SOL ( sustainable/organic/local) revolution that includes serving soda containing no high fructose corn syrup. Yum. Yum. Yes. And yum. A taste of the 09er burger has doublecheese reeling in delight for a goodness definable in every bite as a bite of the all natural product of people who do things conscience of the balance of nature. The burger selection is constructed thoughtfully, putting inconsideration the gourmet and still evading the pretention that can tag along in these matters. The patty is juicy and cooked with skill. Sweet potato and potato fries are available and savory. The sauce that accompanied my burger, although never defined, had an interesting zest that was spiced perfectly and made my sweet potato fries inhalable.

Something that also needs to be mentioned is the environment. Compared to an Austin dive, The Cove does have something fun about it. Maybe it’s the ping-pong table, the kid playground, the live music or the offer to do your laundry and wash your car their if you need to- that’s right maybe The Cove does have it all. Every 2nd Thursday is wine-tasting Thursday. Every 3rd Thursday is beer tasting Thursday and the fees for these events are decent.

My qualm with The Cove is the pricing. The menu is awesome with a seriously awesome shrimp taco under it’s belt and several other items on the menu that demand several lip-licking moments. But a ten dollar burger has never been my dream pricing. Maybe it’s telling of the economic times and maybe it’s just the price of buying local and dealing with growers who are hurting in the food inc times. While doublecheese has yet to return to Smashburger, for the deliciously over-priced, doublecheese definitely will be returning for the feel good burger revolution.

Now, the final count. Ideals, taste and price combined, doublecheese is compelled to give The Cove a 9. The burger is great. They are one of the best burgers in the San Antonio area. I say: Eat it and it local.

The Cove
606 W Cypress St
San Antonio, TX 78212
(210) 227-2683

Doublecheese has been in a slump. Doublecheese was lost in the ground beef and cheese hub-bub and may have forgotten what it’s all about. Deep in the belly of the whale, struggling for some light, Doublecheese returned to where it all started. Venturing deep into West Zarzamora, Doublecheese tried to return to the burger roots. Those roots, all the sweet burger memories, where found at the Malt House.

The Malt House brings a tear to doublecheese’s eye and a thousand precious moments where Selena plays on a jukebox while burgers and black cows are inhaled. Thoughts of my Pa laughing and drinking beer, enjoying chips and salsa, enjoying the peoples and products of a 50 year tradition are still encompassed by this well known establishment. And although change is transforming this place, carhops are still running food out to parked cars and the latest trends can still be purchased from a lone vendor on the outside benches.

Situated on the cusp of the touristy San Antonio downtown area, with Mi Tierra’s and El Mercado blocks away and one of the few remaining operating Handy Andy’s a few blocks into the real heart of San Antonio, the Malt House is an icon to west San Antonians. An icon portrayed in Jesse Trevino’s recent exhibition on display at the Museo Alemada in 2009. The painter captures San Antonio’s distinct cultural flavor with simple honesty a restaurant that caters to the neighborhood it serves.

When you bite into a malt house burger you’ll want to compare it to a Whataburger, easy. But, a few bites in you’ll quickly realize the small differences. The cheese and mayo mingle so sweetly with the standard simple bun. The juices of the patty create a flavor that feels so classically cheeseburgery delicious. Adding ketchup to the jumbo cheeseburger gives the sweet mayo and cheese medley a hint of sour, a taste that highlights the patty in a new light.

Although you may go to a hundred chain burger restaurants and order the same burger, you’ll walk away with a different experience almost every time. The Malt House has been serving the same burger and experience for over 50 years. A diner experience of a waitress that may not speak English fluently. An experience peppered with live mariachis and street vendors selling bracelets decorated with saints or keychains hand braided with a note of a deaf person’s prayer. I recommend this eatery to true San Antonians who understand the culture of the hard working class.

The prices are unbelievably affordable in a time where a $10 burger is becoming the standard. The service is fast and friendly. Revisions have definitely changed the once brown and tan building, but carhops are still available if you “leave your lights on.” It may never be the best burger in town, but it will be the burger place for generations to come. The place where families can leave full for under $20 bucks. I give the burger a 7.5. However, because I was raised on this burger, it will always be a 10 to me. So, Eat It!

Malt House
115 S Zarzamora St
San Antonio, TX 78207
(210) 433-8441

My burger voyage will now take you to a trendy dive off Wurzbach and IH10, orderup^. This place markets itself as a fine pizzeria, taqueria, and burgeria, which is very cool until you say burgeria so many times that it sounds like something else -arrhea (sick, sick, sick).

Now walking into this hip little place makes guests feel free and new and excited. There’s a world of opportunity out there of Spanish/ Italian/ American choices. Choices that ultimately will cost you! Veggies climb as high as $1, Cheeses at 75 cents, and additional meats (including a fried egg) escalate to $1. So if we start with your basic burger at 4.95 for lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion and a butter toasted seedless bun and want to grow from there- well just try and stay within your burger budget is all.

My resultant burger was expensively impressive. Add grilled peppers, guacamole, and jack cheese atop your basic burger foundation and voila a tres tastey very dressed up burger. Now, I kinda really liked this place. There’s mint to put in your tea or lemonade and you look so cool hanging out in a place in San Antonio that not only has live muic but also has an improv troupe perform there. But when I picked up my burger the bun was cold to the touch (gross) and yeah the guacamole was really awesome, but that was a large part of my driving to the end of the burger. Not the meat, or the (applied to liberally) grilled peppers. Infact, I even flipped the bun off my burger and fished out the guacamole with a chip (which was satisfying). The salsa was pretty friendly, not too spicy. The service was awesome, the restaurant is clean, and there’s a nice patio with outdoor seating.

I’ll probably go back and not order a burger. Pizza, perhaps, and the boy at the register highly recommended the tacos. But a burger, I’ll probably go a cheaperelsewhere. So, Orderup^ i give you a 6.0 and say pass on the eat it.

OrderUp
9873 IH-10 W
San Antonio, TX 78230
(210) 877-0007

As these beautiful weekends keep rolling around Central Texas, I continue searching for the perfect burger place for you to enjoy these days great days at. This weekend, Babe’s Old Fashioned Food is up for debate. Located on Fredricksburg just inside the loop and across from Crossroad’s mall stands a little burger and sports place. Serving San Antonians since 1987 at this location, this establishment definitely has its roots planted in making you salivate. While entering the line you’ll be tempted by cooler with an assortment of ice creams available. Once you realize that those same ice creams are the main ingredient in a shake, well, good luck resisting a shake is all.

Now Babe’s does have quite a menu with burgers, wings, and even pizza. Also, just by mentioning the place i get many a response in the line of “great fried pickles,” ” beer specials are pretty good there,” and “ah, the onion rings are great, ya gotta git em.” So it was definitely a contender for burger bliss.

I ordered the Guacamole Cheeseburger and the guac was pretty delicious. What wasn’t delicious was all that lettuce. I mean there was a lot that i had to shovel out. Once that matter was settled though, I must say this burger was pretty darn good. The bun was buttered and greasy, the patty was pretty juicy and over all everything came together pretty well on this burger. As good as it was, it was just that, good. Nothing jumped out too big about this burger. It is big. The onion rings were pretty darn scrumptious. Thin and seasoned so well, those onion rings at times out shined the burger. Fries were also a shining point of the meal. I couldn’t resist the shake and i don’t know if i ever will be able to because it was so darn good. Creamy, thick and picturesque, i’m ready for the summer with a shake like that.

Babe’s is a good stop for burger lovers. It’s got a sports/college atmosphere and the prices are pretty good, especially if you hit some of those lunch specials. I’m givin it a 7. Although not high on the list of eateries to return to I definitely suggest you EAT IT.

Babe’s Old Fashioned Food
4535 Fredericksburg Rd
San Antonio, TX
78201
210-732-6666

I am going to introduce you, if you aren’t already familiar, with San Antonio burger royalty. Chris Madrid’s. This is a San Antonio right of passage. In this institution you won’t find a health loving, better-life burger that will leave you ready to embrace a healthy green future. What you will find is a burger that does not apologize for anything that burgers exist for. Cheese. Meat. Butter-toasted buns. Circumference. Grease. Good God the grease!

Yes, Chris Madrids was omitted from Texas Monthly’s 50 Best Burgers in Texas. Yeah, it somewhat goes against my “just right burger-size,” what am i talking about, Chris Madrids obliterates that. But what you need to understand is that there is something entirely magical about what the cheese is doing. It’s beyond sex, it is cheese globs sblobbing and drobbling all over your sweet little face. If you even make it half way through this beast, you can consider your burger-innocence completely and thoroughly BURGERED. And even if you ever do stop making out with the cheese ( i never did), there’s a patty there that never went understated. Made on a grill that has seen its share of San Antonio times, that patty wants you to want it. This place is a staple, a must, a always come back, a best memory for sure.

Originally opened as a burger and taco establishment by a University of Texas Marketing graduate in 1977, the tacos were soon phased out by the awesomeness of the burgers. The menu is pretty simple with six headlining burgers that come in two sizes: regular and MACHO. A beastly chicken sandwich, chalupas, nachos and fries round up the menu with a very inviting bar located on the other side of the restaurant.

I went for the regular Cheddar Cheesy minus the onions. While other members of the burger team pledged an undying loyalty to the Tostada Burger. As you can see, eating this burger isn’t a clean event. I was privy to witness my burger comrades eating the Tostada Burger two different ways. The successful method being an approach that treats the burger as a pizza, or perhaps that famous Latin cuisine: Tostada. Kyle Pippin, in a moment of Tostada burger completion ecstasy stated the event was definitely “Intercourse inducing” (weirdly true). While the fries are subpar, I’ve had encounters with the nachos that are other wordly.

There’s always a line. You might always have to have half your party scouting for a table while the other half waits in line and orders. There’s an atmosphere that tells you you’re eating somewhere that means something to San Antonians. And it does. The burgers do. A section on the Chris Madrid’s site allows for personal stories. There you’ll find 98 stories of testament to the institution. You need to go eat at Chris Madrids. EAT IT- because it’s a 9. Eat it ’cause your arteries want it.

Chris Madrid’s Nachos and Burgers
1900 Blanco Rd
San Antonio, TX 78212

Gourmet burgers seems almost oxymoronic.  Do i have to put a tie on for this? Is my burger putting on airs? Why is my burger of a better social class than me? My voyage to the Gourmet Burger Grill off of I-10 and Huebner  in San Antonio forced me to face the idea that my burger should be eaten by Tim Gunn and not by a plebeian such as I. However, one look at the appetizer: Fried Macaroni and Cheese Wedges, and I knew I was probably going to be okay.

The array of options, burger artistry, and plethora of ingredients definitely help you realize what burger ball-game you’re in.  They also make you double-take the prices and realize these special ingredients are worth more than your dollar menu burger. Honestly though, Gourmet Burger Grill creates an atmosphere in which guests can be ready to truly enjoy their burger any which way they choose.  Beverage choices include a line-up of some pretty fine beers and some pretty ritzy wines as well as a self-serve soda fountain and tea.

While i did wander in on a pretty easy lull on a Saturday the staff took this as an opportunity to shine! Every member was more than ready to assist us and Chef Mike Davis was on site helping us with a pride that was exciting to see in the man behind my burger.

A quick note before the burger: I was impressed with the the macaroni wedges. Love. Love. Love. Dip em in ketchup, or ranch, or honeymustard, or don’t. Just definitely give em a try if you’re feeling extra chubby! Also the crinkle cut fries were a pretty spectacular tasty and they also offer the healthier and sweeter option of sweet potato fries.

I decided on the Caprese Burger, coincidentally, the same burger as The San Antonio Burger Blogger.  However, our point of view is at odds. I can see how the simplicity of the burger, the somewhat delicateness of the olive oil, fresh basil, and thickly cut and amazingly fresh tomato are an asset.  Simple enough composition to completely compliment the amazing quality of the patty, composed of Certified Angus Beef and fire grilled. Chef Davis did inform us that when ordering at the Gourmet Burger Grill, a well done patty will often lose it’s juices, making devourers miss the quality and care in the meat. I had a medium well that was cooked to perfection, juicy and seasoned so well I definitely felt the passion put towards this creation. However, the burger selection I chose, Caprese, was a little too bland for my taste.  The cheese, tomatoes, and basil were fresh and spectacular, but I expect a burger to have a little more attitude.  This burger was a little too uptown new yorker sipping on a cape cod and not enough spizzazz! Other menu items definitely bent the burger norms such as a Crab Cake Burger and an Ahi Tuna Burger. However I must say, my choice, perhaps wrong for myself, left me wishing I had ordered one of those delicious fellows.

I do recommend you give it a try if you have the bank. I trust and believe in what Chef Davis is doing. While I can’t wait to return, I definitely have to give the Caprese burger a slightly boring 6.5. With that said Eat It when you feel fancy.

Gourmet Burger Grill
11224 Huebner Rd Suite 206
San Antonio, TX 78230
Phone: 210 558 9200 Fax: 210 558 9203
Hours: Sun-Thurs. 11-9 Fri-Sat 11-10

This post is hot and fresh just like the newest Smashburger in San Antonio on Potranco near 151. Opening to the masses today, I was luckily invited to a sneak peak lunch yesterday and sized the spanking new burger place up.

I’ve definity heard some of the buzz around Smashburger, a clever franchise that has the support of a well made marketing campaign that is hip and exciting. But all the hype could be another false fame to claim. I needed to see if the burger fulfilled the design. So yesterday for lunch i went to smash me some tasty, and I was not disappointed.

Ordering the BBQ bacon and cheese burger on an egg bun, and deviously adding a fried egg on it, I stared the cashier in the eye and added a Rootbeer float to my order. This was going to be a big lunch. Smash fries on the side and all I had to do was wait patiently for my order to arrive. The general manager, Toby, was kind enough to help with any burger questions and informed me of the reasoning behind the egg bun. Apparently, the burgers are so delectably juicy that the egg bun is necessary to help embrace those juices and insure that guests are able to savor every flavor these burgers have to offer.

My rootbeer float was a scrumptious old school concoction that featured bottled IBC rootbeer and a pretty creamy and smooth vanilla ice cream. Comrads at the table who ordered the chocolate shake on the menu were slightly disappointed in the stingy use of the chocolate syrup in said shakes. Some beer and burger people will be pleased to know that Smash serves beer and wine with a bucket of 4 beers coming in at $9.99, pretty fair deal if I do say so myself. But now the main event.

My BBQ burger did not disappoint the hype. The egg was perfectly fried, the crispy onion straws swimming in the BBQ sauce, and that extra sexy applewood bacon all contributed to an amazing combination. Although, if you prefer your bacon crispy I suggest you request that at the register. Also, the BBQ sauce on their burgers is nothing short of amazing. I definitely recommend this burger to everyone! I cannot wait to go back and try any of the other exciting burgers on the menu. I will say that the smashfries are pretty tasty, however are seasoned a little too heavy in some areas. The regular fries are a safer bet, lightly salted and a better quality version of America’s favorite fry. Beside those small details, the patty, the bun and the BBQ sauce make an incredible experience for your taste buds. The excitement and energy of the hosts make this place a new establishment that wants to please their guests. Although perhaps a little too eager, I’m sure that was a first day jitters kind of deal and will ease up.

Smashburger I give you an impressive 8.5 and can’t wait to return to you soon. Thanks everyone for a great experience and the free meal! Hugs, kisses, and all my <3, EAT IT!

SmashBurger
Potranco Rd. & 151 Access Rd
8802 Potranco Road
San Antonio, Texas 78245