Restaurants
Craft Burger Keeps It Simple
I think winter might just last forever this year. It honestly wouldn't surprise me the way things are going right now. But whether you're someone who either loathes or embraces that sentiment, I think there's one thing we can all agree on: a warm and hearty meal tastes about a hundred times better after coming in from a cold, windy winter's day.
So far, my favourite meal to beat the cold this year has been a Craft Burger combo. Fresh and tasty ground beef, served as simple as possible, with a side of crispy, salted fries.
I'm feeling warmer already.
So what does Craft Burger do so well you ask? Well, first of all, they choose some really good beef. Top quality Ontario AAA beef to be exact. On top of that, they make a point of sourcing their toppings and side dish ingredients from Canadian growers (always a plus in terms of sustainability and quality).
Looking at it more from a food enjoyment perspective, in my mind, there has always been two main ways to make a really great burger...
The first is a really interesting seasoning blend for the beef (more along the lines of a Utopia or Czehoski burger). The second is a super simple, lightly seasoned but incredibly fresh and locally sourced, patty of beef. Craft Burger, at its best, definitely falls into the second category and that's exactly what makes it a favourite of mine.
One main rule I tend to live by when choosing a restaurant is probably the simplest one possible: if the place is packed with locals, they're probably doing something right. This is definitely the case here. Walk by on a weekday afternoon and you'll probably find a line running right out the front door. For this particular meal though, I decided to avoid the elbow-throwing crowd by grabbing a late lunch on a Saturday afternoon.
When you walk in, you'll notice a giant chalkboard with a few different burger options. My personal favourite -- and my choice for Saturday's lunch -- was the Organic Beef Burger Combo. The organic beef comes directly from The Healthy Butcher just north on Portland along Queen, which is exactly the type of local relationship I love to see in a Toronto neighbourhood.
Apart from the Organic Burger, and straight up original Craft Burger, they also have a couple more dressed up choices, like the Craft Bleu (topped with blue cheese and avocado) as well as the Craft Spicy (with caramelized onions and spicy chipotle mayo). And of course, any of these can be ordered in a combo, which consists of either fries or onion rings (both of which are crispy and delicious), and a pop or bottle of water. For a little bit extra though, you can substitute the drinks for an old-fashioned vanilla or chocolate milkshake.
Being a sucker for a vanilla shake, I couldn't resist. Yes, you might consider the shakes a little pricey $3.95, but they're still a nice treat when you need something soothing and sweet.
Craft Burger has definitely become a local staple for myself, as well as the King Street neighbourhood that it serves.
That said, I should warn you that they do get very, very crowded for lunch on weekdays. So if you're a little claustrophobic (like I am) you might want to consider phoning in your order and picking up. They're also in the midst of setting up an online ordering system, so be sure to check back at their website for that.
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interesting to note that the owner of craft was associated with the burger shoppe and the menus read very similarly.
El Penco was much tastier, much more affordable and always had a friendly face greeting you. Too bad Craft(y) Burger took it's place!
oh well, i still love the place :) friendly people too.
its funny how petty some opinions can be ; and even funnier when people don't realize when they have found something amazing. how many places have an owner present at all times ? who worries about the quality of the meat ? who chooses to use natural pops instead of crapcola ?
Fraft burger is the best burger in the downtown area , sure it can be crowed (i don't go or trust empty places) and you pay for a premium i just hope people realize what an amazing concept and product they have . just like Hall burger did
I if you can't pay 5-6 burger, maybe you should not be eating out.
love burgers
The price of a combo meal at a fast food chain comes close to the prices at this restaurant - the BIG difference - everything is FRESH. Top notch. I hear they just opened another location across from the reference library on Yonge (Yonge and Bloor).
McDonald's tastes better and is much cheaper
If you don't like the place don't go there but you don't need to make statement like that period. I moved out of Toronto otherwise I would still be working there, great food and a great place to work very honest owner.
thank you Toronto.
And jb has to be talking out of his ass. The onion rings were crunchy and awesome.
Now though, I go there about once a week and the service has much improved. The staff have hit full stride, there are about five of them in the food prep/grill area and it's a lot of fun to watch if you're sitting on one of the swivel chairs at the counter near the end of the grill. There is also a "den mother" who really facilitates the order taking and efficiency during the lunch rush and meets people as they come in, often taking their orders as they wait in line to pay. The lunch rush is a crush of people that would make any fire marshal rub their hands together in glee. There are people standing along the walls and in every available space, waiting for their orders. The tables are always full. The orders do come quickly now though. They have about twenty burgers on the grill at any given time and I'm amazed at how much faster they have become.
Some of the food has also dramatically improved. They've started adding a very tasty seasoning to their hand-cut fries. An aioli mayo dipping sauce would be a great addition for the fries, the way that they used to make it at Insomnia on Bloor. They also put guacamole in their bleu cheese burger now instead of just avocado. The limey zest gives the burger a zing instead of it just being heavy and soggy. I will agree that sometimes the burgers are burnt or undercooked. They still have to work on that.
I've only had one really memorable bad service experience there, where a friend and I ordered a couple of combos for takeout because there wasn't any room to sit. When our bags-o-burgers were ready we saw two open seats at the bar and grabbed them. One of the owners(?), a guy with glasses and short dark shaved curly hair came up to us from the grill and addressed us sternly saying that if we wanted to eat there we should not have ordered takeout. I told him that we took seats when we saw them and ordered takeout because there was no room to sit. He scowled and walked away. Not the best guy to have out front for customer service and he's conspicuously absent most of the time now. Hopefully he was just having a bad day, but my friend likes to joke and say "No buhrrrger for you, ONE YEAR!" whenever we talk about that experience.
The girls on the counter are great, and very smiley now that they're relaxed and in the groove. Overall, it went from a disappointment to a favourite work hangout. Over 15 bucks for a burger and shake combo is pretty steep, but if you're in the mood and they do it right, it's worth it.
Raved about it to a couple of buddies last night and we placed a phone order for pickup.
I am pretty embarrassed I told my friends about it. They told us it would be ready in 10-15 minutes. We got there exactly at 15 minutes and had to wait another 10 minutes because the order was not ready. They provided 2 complimentary cans of pop as an apology.
I am a 5 minute drive away. When we got home, the fries and poutine were stone cold. They must have made them and then had them sit for 10-15 minutes while they tried to catch up on the burgers. The burgers were definitely not as good as I remember.
The veggie burger did however get a thumbs up from one friend. But he 2 regular burgers were not very good...for that price point anyways.
Maybe just the ordering out is risky. When you eat there, I guess you can easily complain and get hotter food. When you pick up and find out at home, there is not much you can do about it without maybe waiting another hour to eat.
We had 2 combos, mine was the spicy with fries. Cooked perfectly.
Best burgers in the city. We will be back.
Their fries, on the other hand, are great. Love the texture and taste.
I will accept that what makes a great burger will vary based on personal preference BUT complaining that the onion rings were too hot, that the burger took 10 min longer than I was told (and I was ONLY given free drinks), comparing the price of a Craft Burger to that of MacDonalds Cheeseburger, or that that fries were cold by the time you drove home with them is RIDICULOUS.
Personally I think that Craft is the best in the city. I dream of these burgers. I've brought dozens of friends there and they have almost always loved the burgers to the point of saying "best ever" and most have become regular customers. I personally have never been disappointed. There is almost always a (short) line and the line is often filled with repeat customers that I recognized from my numerous previous visits.
If you don't think that this is the best burger around that's cool - everyone has their own preferences - but at least base your criticism on something remotely valid.
Sheesh
2 times now myself and 4 co-workers were all sick after eating there? we all had burgers.
we didn't realize it till we compared notes after it happened again when eating lunch there.
too bad because we really liked the food.most people in our office now won't chance eating there.
do you weigh 300 LB ? ever hear of a thing called SALAD?
I ate there once this past summer, terrible service and bad food and over priced. Will never go back.
After a miscommunication on their end, I had to wait 20 minutes for my burgers and they were cold. Apparently, they were sitting around because the workers couldn't find me. If you know the Bloor location, that place is tiny. How can you not find me? After venting with a friend, I take a bite into my burger and find it completely pink in the middle. I go back to get a refund and I was told by the manager that it's the store policy to not get refunds. This place is ridiculous. I love the King East location but the Bloor one was definitely Crap.
Ha! Like I'd ever recommend this place to a friend. Maybe an enemy so they can get sick on the undercooked meat! GAH! I'm so mad right now.
It should be mentioned that they don't serve bacon due to the owner's religious beliefs. I tried Craft Burger once and it was very delicious. But imho a burger needs bacon. Not having that choice means I won't be going back, despite how good it was. I went to the Yonge and Bloor location.
did you meet the owner and he told you he's Muslim, and thats why!
Or the fact that their original location King W is so small that there is no where to cook bacon, that the reason why the don't do bacon. I would suggest you ask the people that work there first before you start telling lies. I have been a long time regular, and they have the best burgers in the city.
I did not speak to the owner directly, but I did speak to an employee at the Yonge Street location, and she told me they don't serve bacon due to the owner's religious beliefs.
I would suggest you don't make assumptions in the future. It makes you look like a donkey.
Brad,
I'm sorry my friend but you are wrong. I do like the "donkey' comment though.
Most of the time I go there I get a good burger. Moist, with just the right amount of pink. But every once and a while I get a dry, boring, overdone burger from them. It must be the inconsistency of their cooks that's causing such different reviews.
It's extremely likely that the bad reviews got dry burgers and the good reviews got properly done ones.
I will say one lady who works at the yonge/bloor location is downright miserable, while a few of the other people there are rather friendly, so it wouldn't surprise me to hear different reviews of the service depending on which day you go!
Out of the 20ish burgers I've had, they've only screwed up my order twice. Once bringing me another guy's burger, and once they thought I asked for everything on the burger except lettuce, onion, ketchup, and mustard, when I had actually asked for only those toppings. Just miscommunication there. I tend to mumble.haha
Sure, they may not be the most amazing, mind-blowing burgers in the world, but I've eaten at several of the "best" burger places listed here on blogto and the only one I continually come back to is big smoke.
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