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I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

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Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#181

Post by tptacek »

monksy wrote: post #167
paulie_a wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's umami. Au cheval is overrated with the pretentious staff.

I'm not a fan of Small Chauval (too expensive for what you get), and I'm not going to wait 2-3hrs for a burger.

Honestly I'm not sure I'm sold on any destination burger. Google Kenji Alt's ultra-smash burger, and just make them at home.

I'm unhappy about Au Cheval because the rest of the menu is relevant to my interests, but I can't eat there because it's a destination burger restaurant now.

But, back to the point of this article: my problems != Hogsalt Restaurants problems!

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#183

Post by arprocter »

Folks probably just scroll to '#1 the country' and decide to go

I wonder if this outcome could have been avoided if the list wasn't numbered, or was categorized in some other way - would an 'x best burgers' without a ranking prevent one place getting mobbed?

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#184

Post by mabbo »

tptacek wrote: post #135

It's hard to blame Kevin Alexander for this, because Steve Stanich played ball with the review, like most restaurants would. If he wanted to, he could have asked not to be featured in the list, and Alexander probably would have complied; otherwise, he could have done other things to make it clear to his customers that he wasn't interested in fulfilling the role the ranking carved out for him. We see this effect in Ch…

> To the commenters saying Stanich should simply raise its prices: there's a price ceiling for that burger. It's not a fancy chef burger;

If you have a five hour lineup for a burger, you need to raise your prices at least a little bit. You'll make more money overall, and your customers will be happy.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#185

Post by moate »

elvinyung wrote: post #166
moate wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: there is no objectively perfect opinion (except this one :D). When it comes to anything, there will always be people who care at 100%, and people who care at 0%, and when it comes to art or cuisine or web design best practices there's going to be disagreements on it. And that's fine. It's not dismissive in a morally bad way. It's just food (full disclosure: I was a chef for over 10 years, I have a LOT o…

That's fair; I think I'm slightly more-pissed-than-usual about this just because it's very easy to dismissive of ramen, especially in North America, because all people remember are those deep-fried dehydrated brick fixtures of every college dorm. It is precisely that it doesn't look like traditional fine dining, or even New American cuisine, that I think a lot of people think it's nothing worth looking at. It's reall…

Oh GOD, you want to get me pissed bring up that cry baby Chang. I could rant. But I won't.

Listen, I get it. I spend 8 hours every few months boiling off a massive pot of bones and feet to make my own ramen broth to store in my freezer. I get that it's easy to dismiss it soup and noodles as just "some soup and noodles".

Food is usually about what you know and are familiar with. It's about comfort for most people, but other people are about finding novel or interesting experiences.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#186

Post by munificent »

chaostheory wrote: post #119
LargeWu wrote: post #79

One of the sad things about this sort of list is that it's literally just one guy's opinion. Sure, he tried all the burgers. I'm sure all the burgers in the top 100 are good burgers, but there's probably very little separating them except some personal preference. For example, I probably wouldn't have rated this place as high because I don't care for grilled onions on burgers; I would much rather have raw onions. The…

> The only reason anybody cares about that reviewer's opinions are because he has a platform and people are desperate to belong to something, anything. I disagree. It's not about "belonging to something". I agree with what the author wrote in the article. The problem is with the paradox of choice ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice ). Decisions are paralyzing when people are faced with a myriad of c…

I think it's both. Lists do practically help us navigate the overwhelming number of options we're presented with, but there is also a large social signaling factor to them. Knowing what restaurants are popular or new or exciting is a way for someone to communicate to other people that food is an important part of who they are. But in order for that signal to work, it sometimes helps to have "canonical" definitions of which restaurants are "in" and lists and critics enable that.

What I find really sad about all this, though, is that it sacrifices the value of our own personal narrative and preferences. The idea that there is a "best" restaurant implies that my experience at it is irrelevant since "best" is apparently a customer-independent property.

That in turn implies that my own stories around which meals I loved are not worth telling to others. I think that's a terrible perspective. I'd much rather read an article about the top ten meals someone had — a narrative about them experiencing the food and not about the food itself — because it's ultimately people that matter.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#187

Post by sbr464 »

torstenvl wrote: post #66
JPKab wrote: post #19

People are lemmings. Franklin's BBQ in Austin has hours long lines. It's very good brisket. The hill country of Texas is FILLED with equally good brisket joints that don't have lines. People who wait in line for 4 hours won't admit this. Cognitive dissonance kicks in, and Franklin's is unique and better than everyone else in their minds. Try telling a person that their Bose headphones are overpriced and overrated, an…

Yes. My Bose headphones are absolutely overrated and overpriced. They're 2-3x as expensive for being maybe 10%-20% better than the competition. But they're still 10% better. They're the best consumer grade noise canceling headphones available. None of the offerings from Sennheiser or the like have both a comparable comfort and the same or better noise canceling. So, for me, there just isn't anything else that solves…

I agree. I'm still an owner & fan of the Bose Quiet Comfort 35 II, but also have the latest Sony WH-1000XM3 (and XM2). I think the Sony's have better noise cancelling, enough that I pick them up daily. I typically work with them on, no music. The QC 35 travels better, being slightly less bulky.

For the above comments about Bose in general, it's untrue for this specific use case. Before the Sony model was released there wasn't a better option out there.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#189

Post by tptacek »

mabbo wrote: post #184
tptacek wrote: post #135

It's hard to blame Kevin Alexander for this, because Steve Stanich played ball with the review, like most restaurants would. If he wanted to, he could have asked not to be featured in the list, and Alexander probably would have complied; otherwise, he could have done other things to make it clear to his customers that he wasn't interested in fulfilling the role the ranking carved out for him. We see this effect in Ch…

> To the commenters saying Stanich should simply raise its prices: there's a price ceiling for that burger. It's not a fancy chef burger; If you have a five hour lineup for a burger, you need to raise your prices at least a little bit. You'll make more money overall, and your customers will be happy.

You can do that to a point, but if what you're serving is simply a well-executed diner burger, then, like I said, there's a ceiling. You can't charge $30 for that. Or, you can, but you'll create more problems than you'll solve.

This guy ate at 330 different burger restaurants. He has a finely-tuned metric for what a good burger is (his #3 is also a neighborhood place he grew up with). He's set up to appreciate what Stanich is actually accomplishing with his burger. The average foodie tourist is unlikely to arrive armed with that context; they'll pay $30 for the burger, expect a revelation, and leave unhappy.

Re: I Found the Best Burger Place in America, Then I Killed It

#190

Post by sixQuarks »

mabbo wrote: post #184
tptacek wrote: post #135

It's hard to blame Kevin Alexander for this, because Steve Stanich played ball with the review, like most restaurants would. If he wanted to, he could have asked not to be featured in the list, and Alexander probably would have complied; otherwise, he could have done other things to make it clear to his customers that he wasn't interested in fulfilling the role the ranking carved out for him. We see this effect in Ch…

> To the commenters saying Stanich should simply raise its prices: there's a price ceiling for that burger. It's not a fancy chef burger; If you have a five hour lineup for a burger, you need to raise your prices at least a little bit. You'll make more money overall, and your customers will be happy.

Solution may have been to charge very high prices, with discounts if you show drivers license with local address. Then share part of the extra revenue with employees
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