Who doesn’t love a good burger?
In today’s get-up-and-go world, there isn’t always enough time in the day to sit down for a proper multicourse meal. When time is tight, you need something that’s quick and easy to eat that will still fill you up.
Enter the burger, the official food of people on-the-go everywhere.
The burger is the obvious go-to option when you need a quick bite, and Concord just so happens to have a few places where you can get some. Since there are so many eateries with so many burgers, we couldn’t try them all, nor could we even get in touch with every single burger seller in the city – we only have so many hours in the week and so much money available in the expense account – so consider this more of a guide to some of the highlights.
b.good
One of the newest restaurants in the city is b.good, occupying the space on Fort Eddy Road formerly held by Boloco. b.good is all about getting good, real food, fast. Therefore, it should be no surprise that they have several interesting burger options.
Customers can order beef (from Pineland Farms in Maine), turkey, chicken or veggie patties, and the burgers come in four styles: Cousin Oliver, West-Side, Adopted Luke and Joanie, the current seasonal.
The Cousin Oliver is pretty standard fare – lettuce, tomato, onions and Chef Tony’s homemade pickles. The West-Side has a California feel, with avocado, cilantro, fresh salsa, chipotle puree and lime. The Adopted Luke has mushrooms, caramelized onions, smoked gouda and barbecue sauce, and the Joanie features avocado, sriracha and homemade spicy slaw.
If those options are too adventurous for you, you can always get a plain one – but where’s the fun in that? You can also add things like egg, bacon and an extra patty to any sandwich, so the possibilities are nearly endless.
If you’re looking for a burger that’s a little less traditional and you want to check out a new place while you’re at it, give b.good a try.
For more, go to bgood.com/concord-nh or call 227-6107.
Makris Lobster & Steak House
Makris Lobster & Steak House is, obviously, a seafood and steak joint. However, since it is still a restaurant in America, it offers plenty of burgers, too, and don’t sleep on these things just because you think this is only a lobster hut.
At Makris, the burgers are made using USDA choice ground chuck, “probably the best burger meat you can possibly buy,” said owner Greg Makris. The beef comes already ground for them, but one of the three chefs or someone else working in the kitchen portions it into half-pound patties – you don’t get cheated here.
As far as the burger options, they don’t do anything too dramatic – you’ll find mostly traditional hamburgers and cheeseburgers with different combinations of vegetables, cheeses and condiments on the menu.
Every couple weeks or so, the chefs will come up with specialty burgers, the most recent one featuring Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey whiskey bacon jam, crispy fried onions and white cheddar.
“We sell them like hot cakes,” said chef David Fraser.
Fraser also recommended a beer pairing, so we went down there (354 Sheep Davis Road) to try it, along with the Texas Burger, featuring cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato and mayonnaise. The beer was 603 Winni Amber Ale, and it really was a perfect match. The malty, toastiness of the red ale blended nicely with the rich beef.
It was a pretty basic burger, but it was very good and filling.
Go to eatalobster.com or call 225-7665.
Common Man
The Common Man is all about good old-fashioned American comfort food, and burgers fit right into that mold.
Common Man burgers are made with Aspen Ridge all-natural, certified humane, 100 percent Angus beef, which is ground in-house. They’re served on a brioche bun with lettuce, tomato, pickles and house-fried potato chips, fries or potato salad.
Among some of the more “uncommon” offerings are the Turkey Umami Burger, a ground turkey burger with essence of mushroom and tomato, served with cranberry aioli and roasted pepper-onion salad, and the Smokehouse Burger, topped with cheddar, red onion jam, peppered bacon and a smoky aioli.
“The Smokehouse Burger is very popular,” said manager Anca Muresan. “It’s doing very well right now.”
As a clever alternative, you can also get a meatloaf sandwich – think of it as a heartier version of a burger.
There’s also a veggie burger, including a “Hypocrite” version that has cheddar and bacon on it.
To keep things fresh, Common Man changes up its menu about twice a year. When the menu changes, a burger may be subtracted or added depending on its popularity.
“Our menu changes in April,” Muresan said. “So we might come up with something new, we might take something out.”
The Smokehouse was the most recent addition, and since it’s become quite the hit, don’t be afraid of it disappearing.
“I don’t think we would take that one out,” Muresan said.
You’ll have to check back to see what makes the next cut.
Go to thecman.com or call 228-3463 for more info.
Barley House
As its name implies, the Barley House is definitely a brew pub. Located right across the street from the State House in the heart of downtown, this is a pretty popular place to grab a drink – and a burger – after work.
The Barley House has plenty of offerings on the menu, but the burgers are definitely the starring attractions.
“What sets us apart is it’s ground in-house fresh every day,” chef Jonathan Frobese said. “It’s all-natural, open-prairie beef, no antibiotics, no steroids, grass-fed.”
In other words, there’s no excuse for not ordering up one of these bad boys.
There’s no particular motif to the burgers, Frobese said, but one thing is for sure: they’re all top-notch.
Take the Dublin Burger, for example, the Barley House’s signature, trademarked house burger. It’s a peppercorn-charred patty with whiskey gravy, creamy bleu cheese and crispy onions.
Or if you spent a few hours at the Barley House the night before, there’s the Hangover Burger: a peppercorn charred patty with a potato cake, house-cured bacon, cheddar, fried egg and buffalo sauce – just like in college, only way better.
Apart from beef, you can also get bison burgers on the regular. They do a BBQ Bison Burger with a coffee rub, house-cured bacon, cheddar cheese and barbecue sauce.
If the eight burgers on the menu aren’t enough for you, they also do plenty of burger specials, and different burgers of the week every week. You could get beef, bison, lamb, elk – who knows what will be in store when you walk in?
While you’re there, you can, of course, choose from a plethora of beers to wash that burger down with – we hear these things go well together.
If you’re a real burger buff, you need to get over to the Barley House.
Go to thebarleyhouse.com or call 228-6363 for more.
Granite Restaurant
The Granite Restaurant at the Centennial Inn (96 Pleasant St.) is known for its high-end, classy dining experience. It’s a staple stop on any serious presidential candidate’s tour, and its reputation speaks for itself.
But don’t let that scare you away, burger fans – this place takes burgers seriously.
You’ll only find two burgers on the menu, but that’s all they really need, all things considered.
“One is just our staple Granite Burger,” said executive chef Mike Tate. “The straight-up burger that you would get probably everywhere.”
This one has an 8-ounce ground sirloin patty, pickles, red onion, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise with a choice of Vermont cheddar or Gruyere cheese. You can also add bacon or mushrooms.
“Then we have the Ultimate Burger, made from beef from Cascade Brook Farm, a farm-raised black Angus burger that’s local,” Tate said. “That comes with candied bacon, some Brookford Farm cheddar cheese – it’s like our homegrown burger.”
That candied bacon part really caught our attention. You mean you can candy bacon, then put that on a burger? Genius.
“Candied bacon is cooked like normal bacon, only you sprinkle some brown sugar and a little bit of cayenne, sometimes a little bit of cinnamon,” Tate said.
As you might expect with a fine dining restaurant like this, there are also plenty of specials.
“One of the things we’ve had before is burger and beer night on Monday nights,” Tate said. “It would be a special burger made up here paired with a beer. That’s kind of a random thing we throw in, but we have a calendar with all the events on it on our website.”
It might not be a lot, but the Granite’s two burger options are enticing enough to make us want to try some, and we bet a lot of you never even thought of this as a burger place before.
“For being sort of a fine dining restaurant, it’s kind of nice that you can come in here and get a nice burger for about 12 bucks, right around what everyone else charges,” Tate said.
For more info, go to graniterestaurant.com or call 227-9005.
Vibes Gourmet Burgers
Vibes isn’t the new kid in town anymore – this place has established itself as a legit burger house right downtown (25 S. Main St.).
Since this is a burger specialty restaurant, the menu is nearly entirely burgers – there are some other options like hot dogs, pulled pork, salads and grilled cheese, but if you’re coming here at all, you’re coming for the burgers.
It starts with a 6-ounce patty of open-prairie natural Angus (or grilled chicken, ground turkey or a veggie patty, if you prefer), and it gets wild after that.
You can try something like the Unusual – sliced apple, Vermont cheddar, applewood smoked bacon, fresh lettuce, pickled jalapeno and creamy peanut butter – or the Concord’s Own – bacon, cheddar, apple, lettuce and a maple syrup drizzle – or create your own.
If you choose to come up with your own concoction, your imagination is the only limit. There are all kinds of free add-ons like sliced garlic and dill pickles, pickled jalapenos and chipotle mayonnaise, or 75-cent extras like herbed goat cheese, prosciutto or a fried egg. With literally dozens of options for toppings and condiments, you can create a different burger every time you go.
And if you didn’t know by now, this place has nine beers on tap, so don’t be afraid to get comfortable and stay awhile.
For more info, go to vibesgourmetburgers.com or call 856-8671.
Beefside
When you see a place called Beefside, you assume they must have beef inside. You probably then assume that you must be able to get a burger there, too.
Well, in this case when you assume, you’re right.
They use Angus beef patties for all the burgers – the staff used to grind all the beef by hand, but as business picked up that method proved too time-consuming and they were able to find a product that was as good as what they had been making by hand, general manager Bob Douillette said.
The options on the menu are pretty familiar and straightforward – hamburgers and cheeseburgers available with lettuce, onion, tomato, etc. They also offer a bison burger, if you’re in the mood for that.
For more, go to beefsiderestaurant.net.
Others
Before we go, we should mention a few other places that we didn’t have time to get in touch with that offer good burgers.
Arnie’s Place is known for their burgers – there are 10 on the menu – and they just opened for the season last week. Get a spicy one to heat things up.
Five Guys is basically burgers only. You tell them what you want on it and they make it right in front of you.
Tandy’s has 10 burgers and four types of sliders on its menu, and there are always burger specials going on.
The Red Blazer offers a handful of classic burger options, all of which go perfectly with any of the 35 beers on tap.
