burger 21

amazing food! we had burger 101and the bacon cheese burger with a chocolate peanut butter milk shake and sweet potato fries. well worth the 30 min drive!

good service, nice decor, tasty food.. i have to say, i'm addicted to the sweet potato fries with the toasted marshmallow sauce. the burgers are good, i like the basics, the fancy specialty ones not to impressed there, i tried the black & bleu which was just okay. what i will order again and again is the messy but yummy ahi tuna burger.

the staff is very helpful and quick to bring you another drink or more napkins.

a slightly negative thing is the price for a tiny glass of red wine. almost five buck, yikes!

but hey, if the kids like, it's gotta be good.

good burger. i ate here about 3 weeks ago with the fam. the burger was very good. my wife also enjoyed hers. i don't know that i'd drive from palm harbor to westchase just for lunch or dinner but i would certainly drop in if i were in the area.

great burgers. we had takeout. black&blue burgers. i had mine rare(its hard to find a resturant that can really blacken outside
with a moooing center) but they did amazing!!
the cheese ale fries were kinda weird, but everyone here
cleaned them out with nothing left!)

sweet potato fries with toasted marshmallow sauce changed my life! burger was perhaps one of the best in tampa. burger was well cooked, juicy, bun was toasted, every element perfect. try the 8 varieties of dipping sauce for the fries. only negative to this location is the challenging lack of parking.

great tampa bay burger!. okay... okay!! we finally succumbed to the burger 21 buzz as our group - the tampa bay burger snobs (ironman don, naughty mark, bushman, the phoebster, and the willinator), decided it was time...

on the way there, everyone agreed - "all that buzz just can't be true... they just can't be that good..."

after all - the bottom line is that it really is difficult to find a great burger in tampa bay. i said great.

we are all here to report to you that every burger we tried was great - and cooked perfectly to temperature! there are some very creative burgers on the menu, and we all agreed that we will be back - many times.

they also have some delightful little surprises - various flavors of mustard's, ketchup's, and even some weird marshmallow-type sauce for the sweet potato fries!

the phoebster (soon to be an outcast if she continues to order chicken sandwiches in burger joints) had a chicken sandwich, and she said it was average at best. but come on... do you order fish at a steak house?!!

our votes were unanimous: great burgers, slightly pricey, and nice comfortable environment. there's a lot of lessons that places like burger monger should take from burger 21, and we all wish burger 21 years of success!

it's nice to have a great burger in tampa bay!

ahi tuna burger and fries. rare. delicious.

update: burger 21 scandal! ... burger 21 is so-so -- didn't live up to the hype. my husband and i made the trek out to westchase from ybor to try the much buzzed about "best burger in tampa bay" from burger 21. while the burgers were good, they weren't "the best". personally, i prefer the burgers at flemmings and grillsmith (owned by the same reastaurant group as burger 21) over burger 21's. they are juicy / greasy so if you like steak n shake type grease, burger 21 will suit you just fine. the buns and burgers seem to have so much butter in them they turned my husband's stomach -- which is unheard of (the man eats spam on occasion!) our real problem came with the fries. having read other reviews since our visit, we should have ordered their sweet potato fries. however, we selected a 1 lb. basket of bacon cheese fries and added chili. these were such a tremendous letdown. almost an insult to the good burgers. where to start? 1. the fries are thin, skinny little things that lend themselves to getting cold quickly. when your only order size option is 1lb. this means a whole mess of cold, flavorless fries about 3 mins after they get to the table. the fries themselves were not tasty at all. no meat to them, no seasoning, just boring. all i can say is picture 1lb. of cold mcdonalds fries -- but at least the mcd's fries would have some flavor. this is just the first issue with these fries. 2. the cheese sauce is bland and unremarkable. 3. the chili was very salty and tasted more like chili with beans you eat in a bowl as a meal than hot dog/french fry chili. 4.when you order bacon chili cheese fries you expect a heaping mound of delicious, messy, hot and gooey fries to be delivered. not so at burger 21. they just dump some plain skinny fries in a basket and then serve you 2 small cups of chili and cheese/bacon sauce on the side. we looked at each other, laughed, and immediately poured both all over the fries. maybe they were thinking about health-conscious people who just like to "dip" a fry? they're fries! 5. the cheese sauce is a white super-liquidy sauce. as i mentioned before it was bland. but it is also too liquidy. and the skinny cold little french fries can't support any kind of dipping in this super-liquidy sauce. we had a mess on our hands!

aside from the bad bacon cheese chili fries, there was 1 more thing that turned us off. we ate outside, toward the back of the restaurant patio. it smelled bad like sour, rotten garbage. once a table cleared in the front we moved. but very unappetising. that whole little strip in the back on the patio is not fit for tables bc of the smell. just take them out.

finally, their prices are astronomical. to be expected, considering the area. i don't mind paying more for a high quality product and their burgers are decent but not enough to warrant the sky high prices.

great burgers, awful regular fries, smelly garbage = will not return. if you're in tampa proper, try square 1 burger instead.

update 9/29/2011: i just read about famed chef chris ponte's (who helped develop the burger 21 concept) split with burger 21 ... he claims he was cheated out of his promised ownership stake in the company. allegedly, the people behind burger 21, front burner brands, inc., decided to not deliver on their promise to the well-known chef for a 5% stake in ownership of burger 21. you can read all the details here:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/retail/chef-chris-ponte-says-he-was-cheated-out-of-burger-21-stock/1194176#comments


allegedly, this is not the first time front burner brands has done this to an executive chef of theirs ... some of the comments on this story sound like deja vu:

"first marty blitz, now chris ponte, this group has a history of exploiting local chefs and profiting from their brilliance only to discard them when they have gotten what they need. good luck, chef ponte there a lot of us behind you in this one! kharma" -- mikilem sep 28, 2011 9:16 pm

i don't know either side personally, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. this place had a much-hyped launch that fell short of expectations in my opinion. now the backers are at odds with the executive chef and concept creator. smells worse than their garbage problem to me ... and juicer than their burgers too!

great food, great selection. best burger joint in tampa.

great food as long as the place isn't packed...which isn't often. one of westchase's most fun and reasonable places to eat. you most likely will wait in a long line before ordering!

it is fair to say, that burger 21's burgers were the best i've ever had. in fact, they make in-n-out, based on the west coast of the u.s. look like a mediocre, half-assed operation. and that takes some doing

family friendly fun. went in on a busy friday night and the place was covered with kids and mommies. note: burger 21 is definietly not a date place. it was refreshing, though, to see a kid-friendly joint in westchase. the atmosphere is modern cool minimalist diner where customers order first at the register and then find a place to sit, be it at tables or the counter, and the food is delivered.
the burgers were handmade fresh and pretty juicy, even though there is no question of how you would like your burger cooked - it comes one way and one way only. the toppings that come on the different burgers are tasty and also fresh, although i was hoping to see more experimentation with flavor combinations from chef ponte. we've all seen the black & bleu burgers and the southwest burgers, so as far as the beef burgers went, there was nothing that most foodies haven't seen before. i didnt try the other protein burgers, such as fish or poultry (sacrilegious!!) but was surprised that there were a good number of them to choose from.
the price was typical of westchase and three of us ate for $30 with tip, which i didnt think was bad at all. the only catch? they make you purchase fries separately. overall, though, a decent hamburger spot with nothing too exciting. i'm going to give it a "like" becuse there were no flaws with the food or the experience.

not allergy friendly. my daughter and husband love the food. the tuna burger and sweet potatoe fries are amazing. i just had to watch them eat :( does not accommodate gluten and dairy allergies.

gourmet burgers and more. good burgers made to order and very reasonably priced. i had the turkey burger called "the skinny" but it was cooked just right and dressed up with avacado slices. the fries are pretty good too. thin fries with a variety of sauces. apple cider, toasted marshmellow, rajun cjun, chipotle mayo and my favorite thai ketchup. great for lunch but can get busy.

dont' bother. a burger dinner at $25 is still a burger.