Hold the cheese
Cheeburger Cheeburger Location: 5362 W. Genesee St., CamillusPrice: Entrees from $4.99 to $10Rate: 1 of 4 peppers
For a restaurant with the tagline ‘Big is Better,’ I expected everything about Cheeburger Cheeburger to be bigger and, well, a whole lot better.
The latest branch of the national burger chain opened mid-September in Camillus, about a 20-minute drive from campus. It is named after the ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit featuring John Belushi as the Greek cook at a greasy spoon diner, whose famous exclamation sounded more like it would be spelled ‘cheezborger’ than ‘cheeburger’ (check Hulu if you don’t believe me). Cheeburger Cheeburger now prides itself in its big burgers and customizable milkshakes, along with the restaurant’s other classic diner-style fare.
While the burgers may be big, the Camillus location itself is tiny. Tucked into a small plaza across from a Super Wal-Mart, Cheeburger Cheeburger seats about 40 people. With its pink fluorescent lighting and faux-’50s decor, Cheeburger Cheeburger looks like the restaurant version of Barbie and Johnny Rockets’ lovechild. But unlike the mall-staple Johnny Rockets, Cheeburger Cheeburger’s interior is more gaudy hype than nostalgic kitsch, and it has the cardboard Elvis cutouts to prove it.
While the menu features wraps, salads, onion rings and fries, Cheeburger Cheeburger’s burgers and milkshakes are the restaurant’s obvious focus.
Milkshakes ($3.23 for half-size, $4.74 for full), are made with Edy’s ice cream, and diners can choose from more than 60 far-out mix-ins to invent their own shakes and malts.
According to the menu, there are more than 378,000 possible combinations. While all of the ingredients sound delicious, some, logistically speaking, just have no place in a milkshake. Case in point: Have you ever tried sucking a macadamia nut through a straw?
The burgers range in price from $4.99 for the 5.5-ounce ‘Classic’ to $9.99 for the 20-ounce ‘Famous Pounder,’ with 7- and 10-ounce options in between.
For those of you who, like me, can’t immediately do burger math and draw a mental picture of a burger’s size when given only its weight, 5.5 ounces is small – about the size of a hockey puck, which is, unfortunately, a fitting comparison. Despite ordering my ‘Classic’ medium rare, it was hard, cold and dry enough to toss onto the ice at a Crunch game.
And although the ‘Pounder’ my dining partner ordered was juicier, the amount of toppings was less than generous. In the words of my date, who chose coleslaw as his topping, it looked like one of the line cooks was clumsily snacking on coleslaw over the flat top, i.e. ‘Oops! Ah well, send this one out anyway.’
But what Cheeburger’s ‘Pounder’ lacks in coleslaw, it makes up for in pure, unadulterated fanfare. Finish the 20-ounce burger, and your server immediately descends on your table with a giant stuffed burger, a digital camera and a loud speech to the entire restaurant that begins with ‘MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE?’ Your picture is then added to the ‘Wall of Fame’ at the restaurant’s entrance, much to your chagrin.
That’s another thing: At the risk of sounding like an American stereotype, is a one-pound burger really so big? Is the so-called ‘monster’ really that hard to finish? Judging by the dozens of pictures already on the wall of fame, most of which are of little kids who still look like they could hit the McDonald’s for a McFlurry on the way home, finishing the ‘Pounder’ doesn’t really deserve all the fame and glory.
Choking down the overcooked ‘Classic,’ however, now that’s an accomplishment.
The final verdict: With its cheesy atmosphere, overcooked burgers and stingy toppings, Cheeburger Cheeburger lacks more than a couple letters in its name.
Published on November 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm
