Southern Burger Co.

Stop 7 on the burger tour:  Southern Burger Co.

Overall Score: 82(B)

	Burger	Sides	Service/Exp	Value	SCORE
John	63	9.5	1	7.5	81
Russell	70	7	7	6	90
Mark	56	7	7	5	75

Russell

Today's stop on the tour (Southern Burger) was another place I had never been.  We visited the Warehouse Row location.  They also have a food truck and they just opened up a new location in Ooltewah.  They have several specialty burgers and they also have a "build your own burger."  I got an Angus burger with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo. I particularly liked the yeast bun.  I think the bun really added a lot to the burger.  This is the second burger on the tour that I have given a perfect score.  The only bad thing about the burger is the size.  It is a small burger at a big burger price.  I have to deduct points from value for this reason.  The fries were good and they reminded me of the fries at Five Guys.

If you want a great burger but you are not very hungry, Southern Burger would be a good choice.  If you are hungry, I suggest going somewhere else.  Don't bring a big appetite here.  Overall Score: 90 (A)

Mark

Bag of Fries

The stop this week is a place many folks have told us about, Southern Burger Co.  Located in the basement of Warehouse Row, it certainly has the distinction of being the blandest atmosphere of any place on our list so far, but they really can't do much about it.   I thought the burger was pretty good, although the thing is mighty small.  The bun is actually some sort of sweet roll type bread and while it had a good taste, mine was a little hard.  Veggies were good, and the meat is really nice and tasty.  The fries were ok, but a bit too greasy for my taste.  The setup here is pretty much self serve. The sweet tea was good, they had lemon and they have the really small pellet ice I like.
We didn't have to wait very long on our food and the employees seemed friendly, but I miss the personal service we've had at the other places.  This is a pretty good burger, I will probably go back to try another one sometime.  Overall Score: 75(C)

John

This week we drew Southern Burger and my review is mixed.  Let's start with the positive.  I thought the burger was very good.  Meat was quite tasty and the veggies very good.  Not crazy about the yeast bun--seemed a bit chewy to me.  Didn't stack up to Armando's or Zarzour's because of size and the bun, but again I thought it was very good and on par with Tremont's.  So I give it a 9.   The fries were the best we've had so far.  I would have rated them above Armando's, but the ketchup was only available in the stupid little packets.  That is even worse than lemon packets and simply not acceptable.   Sides get a 9.5.

But we really go downhill from here.  The tab was something like $9.60.  That is not a good deal for no service and a niggling burger.  Value gets a 7.5.   Now for the really bad part of the meal.  I give the service/experience a 1.  There is no service and the atmosphere is just awful.  A basement is no place for a restaurant unless maybe it is some kind of man-cave type bar, which this certainly is not.  Even if it was your mission, you couldn't make a place more dreary.  I would actually rather be in Sofa King Disappointing listening to the annoying megaphone.   I would give it a goose egg, but the one thing I have learned is it can always be worse.   So either get your Southern Burger to go or from their truck and I think you will be pleased with your meal.

I'm torn over the lemon bonus.   According to the rules, the bonus is to be given if my tea is served with lemon.  As noted, there was no service.  On the other hand, they did provide very nice lemon wedges and I could get as many as I wanted.  So, to be fair and to make Mark's job more difficult, I'll give them 1.5 bonus points.

P.S.  On the way over, we ran into one of our legion of loyal readers.  I'll call him "Perry."  He said 212 Market  has a really good burger and suggested we add it to the tour.  We debated this at length and finally decided to decline.  Our motto, after all, is "Nothing fancy" and that definitely rules out 212.  Unlike Perry, we don't live on Signal Mountain and aren't used to such.     Overall Score: 81 (B)