A Burger A Week – BurgerFi
Is it “Fast Food” or “Fast Casual”?
📝 This BurgerFi location has closed since this article was published.
If you’ve spent any time around the food and restaurant marketing scene (or even just been a consumer) in the past few years, you’ve not been able to escape the term Fast Casual.
Fast “Food” has developed a pretty bad reputation over time, and restaurant brands know that. They have been trying to re-train our brains to think about them in a different light. Let’s see how they’re doing. A little experiment…
Close your eyes and try and visualize the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the term… Fast Food. Is it a grease-spotted bag of mostly wilted French fries? Or maybe a roughly handled, under-loved, and slightly squished cheeseburger? Or possibly even a taco (or two) that has been casually tossed in a bag with a handful of hot sauce packets? All of these are pretty stereotypical “Fast Food” images.
If, instead, you’re looking for a little more “elevated” experience, then “Fast Casual” may be precisely what you’re in search of. The restaurants under this umbrella strive to bring everything up a level from the greasy fry bag we mentioned earlier.
These restaurants are, for the most part, cleaner and come with a little more personal service (although you will probably still have to order and pay at the counter). The food also steps up a rung or two. You’ll usually get higher-quality ingredients and, sometimes, even a few organic offerings.
This is the type of place that defines stop #11 on our Sarasota burger adventure. I told you at the beginning that we would feature a little bit of everything! 🍔
I had never been to a BurgerFi restaurant before, so this was really going to be new experience. And I AM READY!!
They have a super nice indoor and outdoor dining space.
And you will even get your very own personal number! 🔢
Let’s talk about how things went over at Burger Fi…
RESTAURANT: BURGERFI (257 N. Cattlemen Rd. (941) 800-1800)
DATE OF VISIT: OCTOBER 4, 2022
STOP #: 11 OF 52
BURGER TASTED: THE CEO
📒 OUR TASTING NOTES
🍔 This burger is served as listed on the menu: Double wagyu + brisket blend burger. Candied bacon-tomato jam, truffle aioli, and aged Swiss cheese ($10.97)
The Swiss cheese tasted like Swiss cheese! What I mean is, you could actually taste what type of cheese it was. Not just “cheese.”
This burger wasn’t nearly as big as I thought it would be. I thought this thing would be a monster. It is two patties. But it’s also surprisingly manageable!
It had a great “meaty” flavor. That’s one of the things that I’m always looking for. This tasted like a REAL burger.
It’s the first burger we have tasted with its very own branded burger bun. I wonder if there are any more of these lurking out there??? 🤷♂️
THE FRIES! No A Burger A Week piece is complete without talking about the fries. These fries were pretty damn close to the fries they serve at Five Guys. Natural cut and fried semi-crispy. If Five Guys fries are your style, you’ll love these. I did!
The restaurant was super clean. That’s the “Fast Casual” part shining through. Bradley, who took my order (and delivered it to table 47), could not have been friendlier or more helpful. Great service!
Why is this burger $10.97? That seems weird (there has got to be a logical explanation, right?). 📝 I have a friend up in Chicago who owns a restaurant/bar. Everything on the menu is priced in that same odd-cent way ($10.36, $12.47…). The reason he does that is to have the total, once the tax is added in, turn out to be a round number (no cents). I don’t think this is what Burger Fi is shooting for. If you know what this is all about, leave it in the comments…
This was a super solid fast-casual burger. The description makes it seem fancier than it really is. The CEO is not as “C-Suite” as you might think!
Let’s check out how all of this looked when I ordered it…
BURGER TAKEAWAYS: Comfortable and clean in/out dining spaces • Decent burger bang for the buck • They offer a Beyond Burger™ also • The bacon-tomato jam is more subtle than forward • Helpful and pleasant staff
👀 SNEAK PEEK: We’re headed to downtown Sarasota to a place that has been smoking up “prime” brisket for years. They also have a burger, and we’re going to try it out! 🍔
📝 This particular BurgerFi location closed after we published this piece. There is a Sarasota/Bradenton area BurgerFi located at: 11563 State Road 70 E.
DON’T FORGET – We’ve got an interactive BURGER MAP to help keep track of all of our burger adventures. here’s A LINK TO THE MAP. Bookmark that and check back for updates! 🗺️
We want to hear about your Sarasota burger experience. So much so, in fact, that we’ve started up a special Facebook Group just for this A Burger A Week series. So, feel free to share your Sarasota burger experiences, photos, and anything else burger related you’d like others to know about.
JOIN SARASOTA’S BEST BURGERS FACEBOOK GROUP HERE!
✅ Did you miss a week? No worries. Here’s a link to our A BURGER A WEEK SERIES ARCHIVE!🍔
I went there a few times when they first opened and the service was bad all the time. I felt it was overpriced and they wouldn’t call my number I would have to go up and ask about my order which by then was cold. I did like the shake but again really overpriced. Wouldn’t go there again