Josh Spencer
Google
This place is just down the street from my apartment in East End, so I decided to walk over for a quick and easy dinner. A small operation located inside a shipping container, it 's the first thing you pass on the Esplanade. Food is counter-serve with a patio outside for dining.
As the name suggests, there are a variety of burgers and hotdogs on offer in addition to wings. I went with the Diablo burger (traditional burger with house-made spicy sauce) and made it a combo, adding fries and a beer. There was a beer in the refrigerator that I wasn't familiar with - Midnight, an IPA from Danish brewery Jai Ho - which my server said they were currently promoting and so gave to me for free in addition to the Karbach Love Street I had selected with the combo.
Upon digging in, I ultimately found the burger to be a bit underwhelming with the patty not being overly juicy and the hyped diablo sauce to not really be anything special. The fries were hot and fresh, but again nothing to really write home about. The aforementioned MIdnight beer did, however, prove to be a decent IPA.
As for the restaurant environment, unfortunately while I was seated on the patio, there happened to be a few ants, which made their way on to my legs and left me with a few bites (though not really painful). That minor annoyance, though, was overriden by the overall patio experience. When I first sat down, late 90s and 2000s music was playing over the speakers, which then eventually changed to some great Norteno tracks. A group of Hispanic gentleman in jeans and cowboy hats were seated at another table, speaking in Spanish, and sipping Modelos while enjoying the Friday evening in the glow of the neon sign of the nearby Merida Tex-Mex restaurant. Thus, while the food might have been just okay, I loved the vibe surrounding it which seemed to be perfectly Houston and East End.
For these reasons, while I wouldn't recommend one travel specifically to eat at Buns & Drafts, if you are in the East End and looking for a meal that can be enjoyed with some patio sitting on the esplanade, B&D is not a bad choice.