Burger Crew meeting called to order on Saturday, October 5, 2019 @ 12:30pm.
Members in attendance: Angela, Trevor, Wayne, Innie, and DK
Slider member: Marty
Guest: Chris
I. Ordering
The menu is all business: a list of 17 or so burgers and sandwiches (ingredients not listed) in descending order of carnal attractiveness, and a pair of prices–one for the burger only and another for the combo. You want to know what the fork is inside a “jumbo cubby”? You’ve come to the right place.
Trev, Angela, and Wayne ordered the main attraction, the Jumbo Cubby, which includes lettuce, grilled onions, pickles, tomato, house sauce, beef patty, a slice of cheese, two hot dogs cut length-wise, and another slice of cheese, all between sesame buns.
I ordered the Regular Cubby. Same ingredients as above but with a slimmer patty.
Innie ordered the Double Cheeseburger (double patty, double cheese) which also had the same ingredients minus the hot dogs.
II. The burgers
These are old-school grease burgers. I mean, they’re served out of a how-do-two-people-fit-into-that-little-thing of a shack in the parking lot of a gas station… look for your glamour elsewhere!
The burgers are served on toasted sesame buns, a nice call back to a time when the burger world didn’t revolve around the brioche. Unfortunately the bottom bun had to fight its own Normandy against an onslaught of sauce and wet lettuce (more on that later…) and it wasn’t pretty. To be fair, most buns would not have fared well against all that moisture.
The patty had an average sear and lacked seasoning. It became clear mid-burger that these patties were the preformed/frozen variety—i.e. weak in terms of beefiness and the texture was dense. Most of the meaty flavor came from the hot dog, naturally. Innie thought her double cheeseburger had a good balance of toppings to meat but the beef would have been lost had it not been for the second patty.
Speaking of toppings! Thoughts from the table: the tomato was fresh and juicy, pickles added the right amount of acid, but the freaking aforementioned lettuce was pulled straight out of an ice bath and gave the burger a slip-and-slide quality (which nobody has ever asked for)!
Another comment from Trev that made me laugh but I have not confirmed: they seasoned the vegetables instead of the patty! That is a high-level technique; most cooks don’t have the courage to pull that move off in front of customers.
III. The fries/sides
The combo comes with a side of fries and they were sadly not a hit. They were on the dry side, the seasoning too light, the potatoes stale. The only member who liked the fries was Trev, and in his defense, he is the resident fry connoisseur and master of the double fry. He described them as “juuuust right” with the straightest of faces.
IV. Miscellaneous
Parking is tough with only six spots, not to mention that it’s shared with a gas station so a spot may be taken by someone there for completely different reasons than getting a burger. If you’re worried about smelling gas fumes, it’s airy and clean enough that we didn’t smell any (to Angela’s disappointment). Seating is outdoors only, the ladies crank these burgers out quick (would be neat to see if you could finish a burger while filling up the tank), and it’s cash only.
V. Value
The members were asked how much they would pay for the burger they ordered. They ranged from $6.50-$8.00 so they were about or even cheaper than what we would have paid. Only in Long Beach!
VI. The verdict
The nostalgia and novelty factors are there, but the love for burgers takes a back seat to the love of profit. Cheap ingredients translates to a cheap burger, in more than one way. The scores were 2.3, 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1. Best of luck, Dave’s Burgers!
The next Burger Crew meeting will be held Nov 9 @ Goldburger (DK’s pick).
