Blondie's: 4.3/5

Bacon Burger
$4.95
Score: 4.3

Blondie puts the "rant" in restaurant! It's a shtick and Sandy (Blondie) does comedy while her waitress plays the straight one. Tazz commented “The attitude of the owner and server was excellent! It was like eating at home! Just enough grumpy to burger ratio.“ The walls are covered with Rules for Proper Restaurant Etiquette as well as hundreds of photos of smiling diners. Nelson pointed out that the 9 lb burger looked like Mayor McCheese posing in many of the photos.

I started out by taking Sandy's parking spot so we were in trouble before even getting in the diner.  The restaurant opens at noon - no earlier – because Blondie doesn't arrive until 11:59 am. After our orders were taken and the food was cooking I started taking photos until I heard "No pictures!" shouted from the kitchen. I said, "Can I take your picture?" and when Sandy posed dramatically I realized I wasn't really in trouble. I found you had to listen carefully to catch all the cajoling from the kitchen - while the waitress apologized; “Cruella is in a bad mood today." Tazz commented "Someone at Blondie's said sorry? Here comes a guy on a white horse." We were threatened with slow service for having the audacity so show up as a group for lunch, but in fact, our waitress was very efficient taking orders and our food started coming out in a reasonable amount of time. It was about 30 minutes of sequential burgers until the twelfth and final meal was delivered. They all came as specified. Stan pointed out it was “Nice to have a real plate and real cutlery to eat with.” A lone customer came in and rather than making him wait for our large group, he was served his burger right away. Sandy told us she was serving him first as punishment for our group not pre-ordering.

I think somebody meddled with Blondie's scale a long time ago but don't tell her! The 1/8 lb burger is bigger than most single burgers we've had and at $4.95 (including bacon) it was a bargain! Our waitress called it the baby burger. The 1/4 lb is a big meal and you'd better be good and hungry to take on a 1/2 pounder. Russ (the original) tried but didn’t finish.

The patties were hand made – in fact Sandy was working from a bowl of ground beef. Even more impressive was that she did it all in high heels. The patty was cooked perfectly throughout, but still quite juicy with a crispy outside. Not a lot of seasoning - perhaps just a little salt. The buns were very soft and had a glaze, were homemade and sized to the patty. Bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato and cooked onions as well as all the usual condiments come standard! There were several leaves of iceberg lettuce on the bottom which made for a dangerously slippery burger. Russ (the other one) commented “The right balance of extras wrapped in a tasty bun.” They were all served with a steak knife so you could cut your bronto-burger into more manageable sized pieces if you wanted.

The chips were very crispy and tasty and served with a soup bowl full of gravy. The 7 scoop milkshake was impressive, served in the steel mixing vessel, but be prepared to spend $10-$12!

One kafuffle we had was Blondies adds on a 15% gratuity for groups - but a  number of people didn’t realize that and ended up tipping twice. A messed up bill can spoil an otherwise great meal.

Remember how I took Sandy’s parking spot earlier? When it was time to go, she handed me her keys and told me to move her car – she was busy making burgers!



Battle for alpha-Russ