Dan R.
Yelp
"Bare trees, grey light
Oh yeah, it was a cold night"
(Fleetwood Mac)
They have over 30 locations spread across the northeast in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and one lone wolf hunkered down in Ohio.
We found them in the prestigious and highly coveted "Center of the Wheel" location in Glastonbury's fashionable Somerset Square complex. So if you can find a parking spot anywhere on the wheel's circumference, you are seconds away from one of Bareburger's two entrances.
Bareburger took over the space formerly occupied by B. Goode among other predecessors.
This is a sit-down restaurant with table service, and our first impression was that the interior of the space is gorgeous. Black and white checkerboard floor tiles, a black and white tiled bar, teal-colored booths and benches, two sleek rows of counterspace, funky pop art style spirally wallpaper, and the most bizarrely decorated bathroom (unisex, BTW) ceiling I ever saw - repeated oval portraits of the Mona Lisa.
We were greeted and seated pretty fast with a bag of complimentary popcorn and a big bottle of water for our table.
Their menu is deep, with beef, Wagyu, bison, elk, and vegan burgers, sandwiches, cheesesteaks, tacos, sides, shareable apps, salads, milkshakes and kiddie meals.
We ordered an American Smash burger ($7.49) and I accepted their option to customize my very own burger ($12.95) by choosing a black bean poblano patty, steamed collard green wrap, habanero pepperjack cheese, lettuce, tomato, alfalfa sprouts and Nashville hot sauce.
We split a side of fries that was great. A big portion of piping hot extra delicious fries.
I really enjoyed my Vegan burger patty. It had a solid texture and had plenty of flavor. And I was surprised at how tender the steamed collard green wrap was.
I want to give a shout out to Duane, the manager who was a real joy to chat with. He gave us a history of the restaurant and learned it's just been open for 20 days and just expanded their lunchtime hours to include evenings. With their outdoor patio space, and a bar, I think they'll be quite the destination when the weather warms up.
We all know that new restaurants experience growing pains, and that exposed some improvement opportunities to us.
When we were seated, we were the fourth table occupied. A fifth table was seated after us, and their order was taken before we even saw a server. At the 22-minute mark we still were waiting with menus on our table and flagged down Duane who took our order.
Our bill was a very reasonable $28.28 for a great lunch. But there was some confusion when we declined to upgrade our burgers to a combo meal (we didn't want two orders of fries and drinks) and just ordered one side of fries.
Well, that was added to the bill as a confusing single combo upgrade, which turned out to be great because it cost less than a single order of fries would have, and we ended up taking a drink to go.
But it would have been better to have explained this at the beginning because we would have split that Diet Coke at the table instead of taking it on a ride home.
Anyway, we really enjoyed the Bareburger Experience and hope to visit again when in Glastonbury.