I’ll put 11 burgers from those places I listed in front of you. You tell me which restaurant they came from.
Ground beef.
Across those 11 (real) restaurants, I’d be surprised if you found 3 different suppliers.
Are any of these places actually making a burger that you should pay for. . .as in actually grinding up chuck and sirloin and round on the premises, or are they buying ground meat from processing plants?
Under the heading “fresh” at the website, they indicate the ground beef is “pattied each day”. Lack of claiming that they grind it there is not evidence that they don’t but I suspect it supports that claim.
I sure do love a tasty burger, and I can tell the cynical Trunk that you can’t get a better burger than at Fuddrucker’s. The sit-down “T.G.I. McScratchy’s” places can’t compare. Five Guys can’t compare. A “nicer” restaurant like Houston’s makes a damn fine burger, but still can’t compare. If you like a perfect patty of fresh-ground red meat inside of a fresh-baked, soft, crispy bun, and the chance to dress it however you want with your choice of toppings and condiments, that’s where Fuddrucker’s excels against every other chain, and local restaurants, too. Best onion rings and some of the best fries around, as well, and be sure to check out their bakery. I’m so glad we have one in Orlando, but the long-standing one in Miami is one of my lifelong favorite restaurants.
EDIT: I’ve seen them grind their own meat at Fuddrucker’s. They used to have a window into the “butcher shop” part of the kitchen, where you could see the giant sides of beef hanging from the ceiling. Most people didn’t care to see this, so they got rid of the windows.
I can’t exactly get excited about a Fuddrucker’s (we’ve had them forever here), but I will say this. A month ago I went there for the first time in about ten years, and I was pleasantly surprised. The meat appeared to be hand-formed and fresh, not frozen, and they actually made the burger to my specifications. I asked for medium rare, and, by golly, I actually got medium rare.
So, Trunk, I have to go with silenus and Big Bad Voodoo Lou on this one. Fuddrucker’s definitely makes a better burger than all of those chains. It still doesn’t live up to (in my opinion) places like In 'N Out and Fatburger (oh, to have one of those here), but it’s a damn fresh, tasty burger and a place that actually knows how to cook to varying degrees of doneness. Everytime I’ve ordered a medium rare burger at Applebee’s or TGIF, I invariably get medium well, at best.
See? We’ll swap you. I have an In 'N Out and a Fatburger within an easy drive from home, but the Fuddrucker’s around here went out of business about 6 years ago. Since then, the location has held at least 5 different restaurants, all of them inferior.
I’ll trade every Pollo Tropical in Florida and throw in all our Krystals and Waffle Houses if we could get In ‘n’ Out Burger and Fatburger from the West Coast, and Portillo’s and Lou Malnati’s Pizza from Chicago. Hell, you can have all the Winn-Dixies if we could get a damn Trader Joe’s too.
Well, to be fair, I’ve actually never eaten at a Senor Frogs, and I’ve never heard of Ground Round. It’s your typical hipster attitude that bothers me. That is the attitude that popularity is inversely proportional to quality and “coolness”. Of course what you don’t realize is that places like Fuddruckers, Johnny Rocket’s, Chili’s, Friday’s, and Red Robin all started as gasp local businesses. The difference being that they were local businesses where people other than family members and pathetic hipsters actually wanted to eat, so they became a success and were able to expand. You also fail to realize that most of the restaurants you listed are locally owned franchises, that’s right, they are also owned and operated by people in your very own community, though since they chose to open a restaurant that is a proven success rather than open a pathetic local coffee house you think they shouldn’t be able to put their kids through school I guess.
You can’t have ever eaten at a Fuddruckers if you honestly think that a person couldn’t tell the difference between a Fuddruckers burger and one from another restaurant. There is a great and immediately noticeable difference. The buns are made like yeast rolls rather than like bread, and are baked fresh on the premises. Its true that Fuddruckers no longer butchers sides of beef anymore at most of their restaurants ( they still do at some), but they do all their own grinding and parttying on premises.
You remind me of my parents-in-law, who love to talk about how they only eat at local restaurants because they so despise the frozen commercialized “McFood” of big chain restaurants. Meanwhile, while eating at their favorite local dive they are shocked when I point out the Sysco truck making its weekly delivery around back.
Right there you tell me you havn't eaten at Fuddruckers. The one in Pittsburgh (and i assume all of them) has not only beef but ostrich, buffalo, and turkey burgers as well as cow. That, to me, is what sets them apart.
I love Fuddruckers ostrich burgers, just try getting one of those at any of the other chains mentioned.
If you don't like their food, hey that's your thing, but I really can't put them in the same catagory as Applebees or TGIFridays, the only thing they have in comon is that they are sit-down chains that serve food that includes burgers.
They just opened a Chick-Fil-A down the road from us, right across the driveway from the new Famous Dave’s. It appears that they are going for penetration in the SoCal market before expanding north. There are almost a dozen of them down here now.
Yes, keep your chin up. We just got a Chick Fil-A in San Diego and my parents go to a new one in Irvine. (Although my mother insists on calling it Chick-A-Fil.)
ummmm… Chipotle. As to answer the OP - Freebirds World Burrito. I had it in Austin and wished upon a star for one to come to my area of Houston, the next month one opened up down the street, with lines out the door for the first few weeks, so I musn’t have been wishing alone.
As a Freebird’s devotee, I’ve never been to Chipotle, despite there being about 100 locations around here (North Dallas). Is it any good compared to the Bird? The only other burrito place I tried was called Qdoba, and that sucked horribly.
We have Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, Chilis, and Hooters out of that list.
I miss places like Olive Garden, Sonic, Fuddruckers, Famous Dave’s, and Steak N Shake. And especially Target*.
I’ll pre-empt your responses “Shut up, you live in Hawaii”
*In an LOL-moment, I actually took a side trip to Jersey City to go to Target when we went to NYC last week. We took a boat and I got great skyline shots, so I could obstensively say I went over there to sightsee.
It’s good, but it’s a different selection. More meat choices than FB, but fewer tortilla, sauce, and filling choices. Your first visit, you’ll probably be disappointed you can’t duplicate your favorite bird, but at the same time, until freebirds starts carrying barbacoa and carnitas, i have a slight preference for Chipotle.
I like Fuddrucker’s too, and their burgers are definitely different. I love being able to put on my own fixin’s. I always go for the liquid cheese, A-1, lettuce, pickles, etc. The buffalo burgers are good, and the veggie patties are very tasty. I always get a side order of frings – half fries (the perfect vehicle for more liquid cheese), half delicious, beer-battered onion rings.
I may insist on a trip to Fuddrucker’s this weekend.
If you get lucky at Fuddrucker’s, it’s one of the places that still has that marvelous red pepper relish. Sadly, most of the ones we’ve been to lately have switched to regular pickle relish instead. The pepper relish was wonderful on cheese fries.
In general I prefer Freebirds, but like aktep I really enjoy some good carnitas which is what I get most of the time at Chipotle. Their carnitas are really quite good, better even than many of the “finer” or “more authentic” mexican restaurants in town.
We were talking about Fuddruckers at lunch today! My co-worker was lamenting the fact that the Fuddruckers near her house was gone. Now we know where it went.
[obscure reference] You do know that they’re planning on changing the name of the place to Buttfucker’s, don’t you? [/or]
All the ones around here went out of business years ago, and it’s been so long since I’ve eaten there that I don’t remember anything about the place, other than a friend of mine thought that they had heavily sedated cows in the windows and that your meat was cut off the cow while you waited.
