MTBW: Bob’s Downtown Diner

“BOB’S MULE BURGER” – 8oz ground beef patty, pineapple, blue cheese crumbles, Pico de Gallo, lettuce, and seasoning.

Bob’s Downtown Diner is know for their fantastic breakfasts and I feel like an opportunity was missed by not creating a breakfast burger, but none-the-less the burger they came up with had great opportunity, but ultimately fell short on the delivery and quality. Let’s first start with the positives. The 8oz patty was well seasoned and cooked to a perfect medium and the blue cheese crumbles added the right bit of funky flavor. From there the quality starts to decline though. The Pico de Gallo was barely there and what little was put on lacked any real flavor and freshness. The pineapple was the most disappointing part of the whole burger. It was not a fresh cut of pineapple that one would assume would be on a burger during a week devoted to bringing the best possible burgers to the people. It lacked any color and had a grade school cafeteria fruit cup kind of vibe. It was clearly scooped from a can of pre-sliced pineapples soaked in its own juices of sadness and disappointment. The bun added little to the burger as well being a generic, plain white bread bun which was not buttered or toasted. There was chopped lettuce thrown on the burger, but was plain and boring, lacking in taste and texture. The presentation was also given little to no thought. The burger had a steak knife sticking out of the top as if it were pretending to be of higher quality or letting us know it was dead before ever entering our mouths. The French fries had decent color and okay seasoning, but were clearly frozen and had a mealy texture on the inside. They were just tossed on the plate with no regard to presentation, like a person with long hair getting all dressed for work and forgetting to fix his or her tangled mess of hair from the night before. There was a mayonnaise packet tossed on the plate and it was accompanied by a generic bottle of ketchup, but no amount of either could fix the mess that was placed before us. The burger cost $12.50 and at that price one would expect a lot more (at least grill the pineapple). Overall we rate this burger 2 patties for service, taste, and originality, but only 1 patty for presentation, condiments, accoutrements, and value for an overall score of 1.5 patties out of 5. It is an average burger trying to pass as more than it can deliver on. Hopefully next year they lean into their strengths and create a breakfast burger like no one has seen before.