Enough With The Hamburgers!
Taste of Westerville: In Search of a Burger Worth the Napkins
The Blue Plate Special Kitchen Restaurant Review by Gary Gardiner
One in a series from The Taste of Westerville Restaurants
I started my Taste of Westerville burger search with unfair expectations.
At my age, that is not unusual.
After eight decades of eating hamburgers in diners, kitchens, backyards, drive-ins, roadside stops, bars, fairs, and at my own table, I no longer come to a burger as a blank slate. I bring memory with me. I bring standards. I bring the knowledge that a truly good hamburger is not complicated, but it is also not accidental.
It has to look like someone cared.
On my pantry door hangs a photo of a smashburger, which may be the root of the problem. It has a glossy bun, melted cheeses, bacon, tomato, pickles, lettuce, sauces, and the kind of sloppy confidence I want from a burger. It is not polite nor restrained. It looks like lunch made by someone who understood the assignment.
Because it was. That was me.
The most recent Blue Plate Special Kitchen burger I made at home, see it below, did not help my objectivity. Strictly from the visuals, those burgers are the most appealing of the bunch I recently ate. They were striking, piled thick with the necessary fixings, and near the top of the scale in both taste and looks. They looked like burgers with purpose. Something worth leaning over the plate for.
That matters.
A hamburger requires attention. It should make you reach for extra napkins before you take the first bite. It should make you think that lunch has turned into an event.
So when I sampled hamburgers from three restaurants from this year’s Taste of Westerville, I kept waiting for one of them to give me that feeling.
None did.
They were fine, which may be the most disappointing word in food writing. Fine means edible. That nothing went terribly wrong. That the meal passed through the room without causing an incident. But fine is not why anyone orders a hamburger with hope.
And yes, I still order hamburgers with hope.
The first restaurant burger came from BRU Burger, a place I’ve eaten before. This one had bacon and a small scattering of blue cheese, which sounded promising. Bacon and blue cheese should bring salt, fat, smoke, sharpness, and a little swagger.
Instead, the burger remained mostly polite.
It looked like a solid restaurant burger and tasted like one too, but it never quite made the leap from competent to memorable. The patty did its job. The bun did its job. The toppings were just there. Still, no single bite made me stop, nod, and think, yes, that’s it.
After enough years of eating, you learn to recognize that moment without needing to name it. A good burger is defined by just enough mess to make the napkins matter. For a few bites, it gets you out of your head and makes you forget you were supposed to be judging it.
The BRU Burger did not do that.
The best thing on the plate may have been the ketchup.
That sounds like an insult, but it isn’t meant as one. The ketchup was thick, pungent, and saucy, served in a cup too small for its own good. The fries gave it purpose, and the ketchup returned the favor. By the end, I was less interested in the burger than in whatever was left to drag through that little cup.
Next time at BRU Burger, I may order ketchup with fries and let the burger sit it out.
The flattened, cheese-drenched burger came from Smash Park, where the food has a built-in advantage. A meal there can be improved by the endorphins of sports success, whether from active participation or from watching a televised event with a beer close at hand.
Even with that advantage, the burger did not have much going for it.
It was visually unappealing and equally ordinary in taste and texture. The cheese covered more than it enhanced. The patty was flat without delivering the browned edges or concentrated beef flavor that make a smashburger worth ordering. It was soft, salty, warm, and forgettable.
A smashburger should have a little crackle to it. It should taste like the griddle had something to say. The edges should carry the flavor. The meat should be thin, yes, but not anonymous. This one disappeared before it ever had a chance to make a case for itself.
The chips were another matter.
They were the best part of the meal, crisp and salty in the direct way bar food should be. They made more sense in the setting than the burger did. If I ever go back to Smash Park intending to order food, I know what I’m getting: chips and a beer. Maybe that was the right order all along.
The most appetizing of the three restaurant burgers came from High Bank Brewing: a double smashburger with special sauce on a standard bun.
It looked more intentional than the others. The double patties gave it some presence, and the special sauce gave it needed personality. Of the three, this was the burger that came closest to understanding what a burger is supposed to do.
A double smashburger should offer browned edges, salt, fat, softness, and a little mess. High Bank’s version had more of that spirit than the others, even if it still landed in familiar territory. The standard bun did not help it much, but it did its job. The sauce helped. The burger held together. I was willing to keep eating after I had already learned what it was.
That sounds like faint praise, and it is. But in a field of ordinary burgers, being the most appetizing ordinary burger still counts for something.
After three restaurants, I am giving up on the hamburger portion of this project. Not out of anger. Out of boredom.
That may sound harsh, but boredom is a real failure in food. A bad meal can at least give you something to talk about. A great meal gives you something to remember. An ordinary meal asks only that you move on.
The Taste of Westerville burger tour did teach me something, though. It just did not teach me where to buy the best burger.
It taught me what to bring home.
The next time I make a Blue Plate Special Kitchen burger, I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’ll start with my burger: thick, sloppy, colorful, fully dressed, and built with intent. Then I’ll borrow from the best parts of the meals that did not quite get there.
Special sauce from High Bank.
Ketchup from BRU Burger.
Chips from Smash Park.
That may be the best burger to come out of the whole search.
And after all these years, that is still what keeps me eating: not the certainty that the next burger will be great, but the stubborn belief that it might be.
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The Westerville News is a reader-supported publication by Gary Gardiner, a lifelong journalist who believes hyper-local reporting is the future of news. This publication focuses exclusively on Westerville—its local news, influence on Central Ohio, and how surrounding areas shape the community.
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