A co-worker at The Pitch turned me on to the greatest new burger shack in town: the Burger Joint at 3212 Merriam Lane in Kansas City, Kansas. I fell in love with the place the minute I walked in and saw that they mix up milkshakes -- including hard-to-find flavors such as caramel, cherry and butterscotch -- with real ice cream, and that the cheeseburgers are nearly as big as the wheel on a wheelbarrow. The Burger Joint, which opens weekdays at 7 a.m., serves breakfast, too.
Owner Chris Lang's 14-month-old diner isn't very big: there's a counter with four stools and four tables in the pint-sized "dining room." There are a few outdoor tables, too.
For nearly a century, this building was a family-owned Dairy Maid (a popular soft-serve competitor to Dairy Queen in the late 1950s and '60s). Lang rented the building out for a while, but finally decided to run his own business and spent months cleaning up the place, putting shiny corrugated steel on the walls, fixing up the old grill, figuring out exactly what kind of dishes would sell well. I tasted a few of his top sellers, including the $4 taco deal (you get four and they're very good), the double cheeseburger (which is so thick you need two hands just to hold it all together) and the beefy chili, cooked with Kansas City-made Williams seasonings. A friend of mine, a true chili fanatic, gave it a resounding thumbs up.
Lang doesn't use frozen burger patties -- each burger is made with a third of a pound of beef. I could barely finish off the double burger, so I don't know how anyone could tackle "The Works," which has two burgers and two layers of ham and bacon, plus pickles, lettuce, ketchup and onion. There's also a Monster Chili Burger.
I haven't eaten breakfast there yet, but just wait -- I'll be reporting on that shortly. Is the place hard to find? No, once you pass the House of Rocks, keep going west. You'll smell the onions about a block before you get there.
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My buddies and me eat here almost everyday. Never been disapointed. Burgers made fresh do take time to cook. Thank god their not some fast precooked stuff. The ranter from above who didnt know how to type , is totally off, must been talkin about the slop shop up the street.
Everything ive had there has been wonderful, made at time of order , BIG JUICY BURGERS , always pleasant staff , , constantl;y going out of their way to make everyone happy and well fed.
Will keep going again an again. Highly recommended. - TRY THE BREAKFAST , best in town.
If you want FAST FOOD thats premade go somewhere else , and learn to type.
Wow , Great Burgers.
Great little Place. Service was very friendly and attentive. Yes did take 5 minutes to get a FRESHLY cooked burger , but thats what i wanted ,not a mcdonalds 30 second burger.
Anyway HIGHLY recommend , glad i didnt listen to any anonymous posts who dont have the guts to put their names with a post. Probally just their competition mad at THE Burger Joints better food.
Larry and Bev
I was not impressed. The foods was only fair and was crammed into a little sack. The serivce was very poor and disorganzied. I won't be back.
Cool little place, but I was less than enamored of the burgers. Too big to be cooked as much as they were. It doesn't know what kind of burger it wants to be.
I tried it just a couple days after jchgh's post, and the fries still had the same weird coating.
THIS PLACED SUCKED. THEIR FOOD WAS AWEFUL AND THE SERVICE WAS THE WORST. AN UTTER COMPLETE WASTE OF 6.60 THE COOK HAD NO IDEA WHAT HE IS DOING AND WAITING 15 MINUTES FOR FOOD THAT I THREW AWAY ON THE SPOT. COMPLETELY UNACCEPTBLE BEHAVIOR ON THE PART OF THE STAFF...NOT EVEN AN APOLOGY FOR MAKING ME WAIT. DO GO THERE. NOT A "MOM AND POP" PLACE. ITS JUST A HYPED SLOP JOINT WITH BAD SERVICE.
I work close to there but don't eat burgers or much fried stuff. I'm glad to know they are open for breakfast. I'll try them.
I do like The Burger Joint except they changed their fries to some weird coated shiat. Why can't restaurants sell regular fries? I mean, the coating may make them stay crisp longer, but it tastes like shiat.
I haven't been over there in a few weeks. Maybe they came to their senses.
Despite the above rant, The Burger Joint is good. I too recommend going
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