burger 21

good!. the burgers were nicely prepared and not too greasy. the recipes were fairly standard but the ingredients spoke for themselves. the shakes were also quite delicious making for a nice compliment to the meal. the most interesting aspect i found were the condiments. they ranged from the mundane (ketchup, mustard, mayo), the intriguing (apple cider sauce, and ancho chile ketchup), to the down right weird (marshmallow sauce?). i rather liked the apple cidersaucebut by the end of the meal i was adamant on the notion that the marshmallowsaucesimply shouldn't be. overall an excellent place to grab a good burger, but if you aren't a fan of kids stay away because this place was loaded with them.

deliciously saucy.. yum! that's the adjective i would use to best describe burger 21. they are a very creative and worthwhile addition to the tampa restaurant scene.

along with having arguably the best burgersin the tampa area, their real standout is the sauces! almost a dozen of those bad boys lined up and ready to flavor your burgers, 'dogs fries, and whatever else (shakes? fingers?).

my favorite is the toasted marshmallow, even better on sweet potato fries. the thai ketchup, which tastes like a blend of sweet chilisauceand good ol' heinz is a close second. the chipotle mayo is great on a burger, or even fries a la belgian style.

the shakes here, though a bit spendy, are awesome as well. the whole shebang is wrapped up in a clever diner style quick service format.

i have been to 3 different locations so far, and have never had a bad experience or a bad burger. note to mcdonalds, this is what the future of fast food looks like!

best shakes ever. we loved the burgers. the sweet potato fries with marshmallowsaucewere awesome. but the shakes were
over the top good. my mother in law commented that these are like she used to get in the drugstore as a little girl. well worth the 45 minute drive - i wish one would open in tampa/brandon area.

skip dessert. burger 21 in tampa was unassuming and small walking in. no hostess to greet you, we sort of wandered around the booths looking for a place to sit. you have your choice of tiny, low to the ground tables, or huge booths that could probably sit a family of 6. because it wasn't busy, we chose the spacious booths. comfort for the decadent meal we were about to indulge in. we started off with an appetizer of the bbq and blue cheese chips. sounded odd to me, but the tangy bbqsauceand soft, complementary blue cheese really worked well together. the chips themselves seemed right out of a bag, not fresh, crispy or hot, as one would think being advertised as "fried to order". we ordered the skinny turkey burger, the chopped cobb salad, and a side of fried jalapenos. everything was delicious. the turkey burger was juicy and the avocado added a delicious creamy fattiness. the cobb salad wasn't overdressed and there were toppings aplenty. the jalapenos were the star to me. i've had many friend foods over the years and this place really does it right. the jalapenos weren't mushy, but still had a texture all their own. not too spicy, but definitely had a heat. the batter wasn't greasy, but lightly crispy. having had such a delicious meal, we decided to try to red velvet cupcake desert. we asked for a small, but the waiter brought us a full size. the cupcakes were very dry and all the chocolate syrup, candied hearts, and whipped cream made me choke on the sweetness of it. the only saving grace was the ice cream which i assume is store bought. overall, on the burger front, very impressed.

sweet potato fries with toasted marshmallowsaucechanged 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 dippingsaucefor 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-typesaucefor 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!

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 cheesesauceis 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/baconsauceon 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 cheesesauceis 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!

we ate lunch at burger 21 in westchase today. this is definitely not your average burger joint and we neither of us ordered an average burger either. loren went for the ahi tuna burger and fries. it was lightly fried, but still rare enough in the middle. it had avocado, pickled cucumbers, lettuce and tomato on it. i might have to get one for myself next time, it was pretty tasty. the fries were crispy and yummy too. i opted for the special this month which was the gyro burger and i'm never one to pass up sweet potato fries. the lamb burger was very juicy and flavorful. it had a tzatziki sauce, plus lettuce and tomato on it. the sweet potato fries were cut very thin and were wonderful dipped in the apple cider sauce. they had a bunch of different sauces on theirsaucebar; the thai ketchup and honeycomb mustard were good too. and on the way out, i couldn't help but get a chocolate cherry bomb milkshake to go. it was a little thin for a milkshake, but the chocolate cherry flavors were ta