Coast Burger

Empire State Burger: The Classic + cheddar, american, bleu, swiss, or pepperjack

Our burgers are fresh (never frozen) 100% natural beef & cooked medium well done. Served with shredded iceberg lettuce, tomato, onions, sliced pickles, sweet relish, ketchup & mayo. substitute veggie or turkey on any burger.

Cooking Style/Temp: griddled, medium +

Additions/Subtractions: american cheese, no relish

Burger: 3.5

The meat was surprisingly good, and cooked to more medium than medium well which was great. I could taste the freshness and it had a nice griddled crust.  6oz is the perfect size for a fast food style burger.

Bun: 3

Standard sesame seed commercial style bun. Tasted fresh, and was perfectly toasted.  

Toppings: 4

I got the basic burger topping selection, but they were all executed perfectly. Shredded lettuce, krinkle cut pickles, perfectly sliced tomato, just the right amount of ketchup and mayo, the onions weren’t overpowering and the cheese was perfectly melted.

Accoutrements: 3.5

Exactly what a simple burger stand should be. The fries were ok, nothing special. I wish I had seen the onion rings, I would’ve gotten those. Good fountain selection, even coke zero. The variety of different kinds of burgers you can get are solid.

Atmosphere: 3

Technically, its a mall food court, but it’s the second fanciest mall food court I’ve ever eaten at with only a couple of upscale chain places, the rest of the food stands seem like one offs. There was one place that sells whole roast turkeys. Fancy indeed! They also have music videos playing on flat screen TV’s that you can pick the next video by sending a text. And the music selection wasn’t completely terrible. Neat.

 Overall: 3.4

This was an unexpected Burgerquest. I was just starving after a long night on the town in Chicago and none of the other food court options were appealing to me, so what the heck, burgers are a solid hangover cure. I was pleasantly surprised with the whole thing. The burger was a near perfect execution of a fast-food style burger. I could’ve gone for maybe an 8oz patty, but that’s a small detail, as the price was decent, especially for the quality of burger that I got. Coast Burger serves its station perfectly as a quick burger spot with just enough twists on the menu to make it worth going back a couple of times if you’re downtown and need a fix.

When evaluating, comparing and contrasting cheeseburgers, it’s important to have something to fall back on, as sort of a control, to be able base your judgements on. Often people will ask me what my favorite burger in town is, and it’s hard to say precisely because there’s all kinds of different burgers and it just depends on what you’re looking for.

This is a good place to start. It has good descriptions of different types of burgers and a good way to tell which kind you’re scarfing down. I don’t necessarily agree with everything they lay out here, I think it gets a little too fine with it’s descriptions, but it still does a very good jorb.