Always wondering about this at sit-down casual restaurants, if I order a burger and literally get it within 3 minutes, that just means they’re giving me something that’s been sitting on the warmer all day right?
I know at fast food places have it down to a science in terms of constantly cooking burgers and having them ready for orders at a moments notice, but is there something wrong if I order a single burger and then literally get it within a minute as well?
It depends. At a ski lodge I have seen them fill the grill with burgers during the weekend lunch rush. They are selling them so fast that they are out as soon as their ready. So if that’s the case then you are getting a fresh burger. If it’s a ghost town in there then something like you said may be happening.
I’ve worked at places where I could start cooking a bunch of burgers and sell all of them without any of them getting old. Also, sometimes if somebody changes or cancels an order I can simply move every other order up which may bring yours up quicker.
I used to be amazed at how fucking hot the burgers at Dairy Queen were. I also found it odd that even the ketchup was hot, hell sometimes the bun was so hot I couldn’t even hold it. This never made sense to me until I noticed that they’re premade (at least to a point) and microwaved when you order them.
But for a 99¢ burger that I can get at a drive through, they’re not bad.
As for the time, it’s going to depend. As you noted, they worked out how to get them to the customer fast enough, but don’t forget, if it’s a really thin burger, a hot grill and no option to ask for it any less than well done, it’s not going to take very long.
Fast food restaurant are understand that people would rather get mediocre food really fast and really cheap than good food that’ll be a little more expensive and involve waiting for more than a few minutes.
There are plenty of short order/greasy spoon type places that fall somewhere in the middle. And I’m not talking about diners, just places that have good food at a decent price, but you may have to wait a bit. There’s a place I go to regularly, I get a burger and a shake for $10 and about 10 minutes later I’m back in my car eating.
Souv vide cooked burgers could be held for a few hours and given a quick sear to order.
Since it’s unlikely any place will match their customer arrival patterns 100%, so that the exact food is cooked and queued up, food will have sat and been warmed by lights or even microwaved or otherwise heated to make it perceptively ‘hot’ at times.
Considering how thin the patties are, I’d bet they could go from frozen to well done in a matter of 2-3 minutes at most, if the griddle was hot enough. Meanwhile, the burger maker could have already put the condiments and vegetables on the bun, so that when the patty’s done, they could just slap it on, wrap it and serve it, all inside of 5 minutes tops.
I bet most places probably do a hybrid, and cook burger patties ahead of time, keep them warm, and just assemble burgers, rather than cook them.
During a busy time, they are going to probably have more burgers on the grill than is currently needed to fulfill orders. That just means that your burger went on the grill before the order was rang in, it doesn’t mean that the burger was sitting around afterwards.
There could also be someone that changed their order or it could be a minor error. If they put mayo on the burger, and realized that it was ordered no mayo, they could have gone down the list and given it to the next person who did order mayo.
This is speculation, obviously, as I know nothing about the particulars of your visit. Your patty may have been cooked by velociraptors and kept warm in the tar pits, for all I know.
But just getting a burger faster than it can be cooked does not necessarily mean that there was some sort of shenanigans that would lower its quality.
The fact that they thought it was ever appropriate to put shudder nasty white goop on a burger would give me pause.
Ever been to Tommy’s in Los Angeles. Line around the block, you place your order and they *throw it at you *before you can even pay for it!
I feel you. I’m the opposite of a picky eater. I’ll try just about anything that is safe for human consumption, and most of the things I’ve tried, I’ve liked.
But mayonnaise? hurk, I do not understand how anyone can stand that crap, but it is a popular condiment among quite a number of people. I have to admit that I almost was sick once when a co-worker sat down next to me in a break room, and started eating french fries by dredging them through it.
Which is why I’d be happy for someone else to get that one while I wait on a new one that has never been corrupted by its touch.