Hat Creek Burger Company

I find myself frequently on west 6th street. So tonight, while walking down west 6th I stumbled upon Hat Creek Hamburger Company, tucked away in a trailer hiding behind Star Bar since October, I felt that I had been missing out on some great meals. I must have walked by Star Bar a hundred times since last October wanting something to eat. Inevitably I probably stopped by Katz’ or Opal Divine’s and ate something average to disgusting. Boy, was I missing out. These little edible pieces of heaven in a bun are worth peaking behind Star Bar for.

The Hat Creek Hamburger Company model is based on providing 100% fresh and organic meat. Every morning fresh meat arrives, is pounded into patties and thrown in to the refrigerator awaiting the grille. At the end of the day, unsold patties are tossed or taken home by Ben for a wonderful spaghetti feast. They are never frozen, though I suggested they should freeze them and sell them to McDonald’s. Secondly, all meat is dated and date of origin can be verified. I found this idea to be really interesting and I immediately wanted to know the astrological sign of my hamburger. What if it turns out that a certain signs meat is the best meat, like Sagittarian dates of origin are the best? Or maybe it is Aquarius? This requires further research, an idea I like as it means my hamburger habit will be in the name of furthering science.

As to the burger itself, you are allowed to build it yourself. I went with a double meat with cheddar, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise with thin cut fries on the side and a Dr. Pepper. A huge added plus for Hat Creek is their milkshakes are made with Blue Bell Ice Cream, by far the best ice cream on planet earth. In fact, we noticed that on the menu, the word Blue Bell Ice Cream uses the second biggest font after “100% Fresh.” Hat Creek knows this is a selling point.

As to the taste of the burger, I must admit first that I was a little biased. I have been in Australia and New Zealand the past few weeks which are wonderful places with fun people but their food sucks. Seriously, the only decent meal I had in the two countries was at a Thai restaurant at Coogee beach outside of Sydney. I of course ordered some hamburgers in Australia land and these too sucked. They were so bad they should rename them “Something that should not be ordered.” I do have to give it to the Aussies for bringing some creativity to their burgers, which often have a fried egg, sometimes pineapple, and sometimes beet root. These are weird, but I like the creativity. However, where their burgers fail is their meat. I don’t know if they are using dingo or wallaby meat, but whatever it is is pretty far from cow. So, after a few weeks down under, any Texas burger would have put me into bliss and Hat Creek did the trick. I think I ate it in the time it takes an Aussie to drink a beer, about 17 seconds.

You are going to have to visit Hat Creek soon to experience its original location as there are plans to move it to a more visible location. But see it soon, for when there are Hat Creeks scattered across the city, you can be one of those who can say you ate there when it was hard to find. I am looking forward to the new location up on Burnett hopefully opening soon.