Once home to the nation's second-largest livestock area, this is a serious beef town - it even won the barbecue category this year. The city's best gourmet burger option may be at Blanc Burgers + Bottles, which offers watercress and truffle butter as toppings. Kids and trainspotters, however, might prefer Fritz's Railroad Restaurant, dating back to the 1950s, where the burgers are delivered by way of miniature train.
Tops on the list of 35 "major metropolitan areas" was Providence, Rhode Island, which someone once told me was the best pound-for-pound eating city in America. So for now, Kansas City's greatest burgers will be just for Kansas Citians, and if that means I always have a booth at Town Topic, that's fine by me.
Midwest Living tested 130 burgers en route to naming its 25 best burgers in the Midwest. Two Kansas City establishments made the list: the Westport Flea Market and Blanc Burgers + Bottles.
Jesse Mack believes in the theory that if you build it — in this case, a fabulous cheeseburger — the people will come. It's a theory that doesn't always fly in Lee's Summit, where burger baron Ernesto Peralto — the big cheese behind the Blanc Burgers + Bottles empire — learned the hard way that boutique snack shacks can be tough sells in Lee's Summit.
But Unk's Burgers, which Mack and his wife, Faye, opened in the former Holy Smoke Barbecue space in the Summit Shopping Center last November, isn't serving gourmet burgers. Jesse Mack is proud of the simplicity of his menu: There are four burger choices as well as a grilled turkey burger, a grilled or crispy fried chicken sandwich, and fried chicken tenders. You want sides with that? There are six choices: seasoned fries, sweet-potato fries, beer-battered onion rings, peppercorn-battered onion rings, fried pickles and "Auntie's baked beans" (prepared with ground turkey and Mack's own mix of seasonings).
Well the two get together and, seeing how many burger chains the market currently supports, decide that KC could probably get behind one more burger stand. So Out-&-In Burgers (Mr. Out has put in more of the capital) gets ready to open in the Chiefs' colors of red and gold.
The only problem is that In-N-Out Burgers could easily see this as infringement and be compelled, as they recently were in Shanghai, to open a one-day pop-up shop to show Kansas City what true In-N-Out burgers taste like. Wouldn't that just be terrible?
I get that you don't want to come right out and say you're moving here. That's probably why Jeff Russell, your real-estate manager, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that a potential regional distribution center "would support expansion into Texas and possibly into neighboring states."
But we're about as easy a burger-eating town as you're going to find. We don't want frills. We don't want gimmicks. We just want a proper burger, the way you've been making them for more than 60 years.
With, thanks to Jesus and a woman openly weeping about the beauty of her burger, In-N-Out opened two restaurants in Frisco and Allen, Texas, yesterday. The burger joint out of California took the Dallas area by storm with die-hards camping out in tents overnight, just to be the first to get their hands on a Double-Double.
Over at The Dallas Observer's City of Ate, former Pitch editor Joe Tone shared five tips "for enjoying your maiden meat voyage." To see tears of joy and one man's determination to "knock 'em out," click through for a video of the Frisco opening from The Dallas Morning News.
My alma mater, Butler University, didn't fare so well in the NCAA championship game on Monday night, but Kansas City's Blanc Burgers + Bottles -- owned by chef Josh Eans and Ernesto Peralta Jr. -- scored all the right points: For the second year in a row, the upscale burger bistro won the burgerbusiness.com Burger Bracket competition.
Fans of individual restaurants and national chains voted on the burgerbusiness.com website. Blanc Burgers + Bottles, which has two locations in the metro, received more votes than such national chains as Red Robin, Hardee's and Wendy's. A year ago, Fat City's Jonathan Bender reported how Blanc also had won the 2010 Burger Brackets competition.
If you can't beat them, co-brand them. Carl's Jr. and Hardee's rolled out a new line of under-500-calorie turkey burgers this week designed through a partnership with Men's Health. The perennial (unintentional) star of the magazine's Eat This, Not That, is looking to offer a healthier option for men. The problem is that in comes with the same packaging and a tired concept. And so here are the top five reasons that you won't remember that Carl's Jr. once sold turkey burgers.
Custard and burgers might have been the original nose-to-tail concept, and Custard's Last Stand is hoping to get a boost to its bottom line from the popular combination.
The Kansas City Business Journal reports that the Lee's Summit custard shop is test-marketing burgers at its original location at 308 S.E. Missouri Hwy. 291. Custard's Last Stand has been serving hot dogs (including coneys), popcorn, ice cream and custard there since 1989.
If at first a burger joint doesn't succeed, then it's up to another to try again. Joyce Smith of The Kansas City Star is reporting that Smashburger will be taking over the space of the former B:2 A Burger Boutique (860-W N.W. Blue Pkwy.), the scaled-down less-expensive option from the Circle Restaurant Group.
The sister restaurant to Blanc Burgers + Bottles closed in January, which led to a firestorm of comments on Fat City earlier this year about whether Lee's Summit was ready for the concept. According to Smith, the new Smashburger could open at the Summit Fair development as soon as mid-April.
Milk & Honey has the best I've had in KC. http://milkandhoneykc.com/
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