Mystik
Google
I almost never leave reviews, but I had a truly unfortunate experience with Hilo Burger Joint, and even more unfortunate, this isn’t the first time.
I ordered 4 burgers on a slow Tuesday night: A garden burger, a bacon cheeseburger, a cheeseburger, and a #5 Big Island Burger - all medium cooked (all 3 beef patties). I ordered takeout, and they said 15-20 minutes, which it was. I picked it up, paid ~$82 for it and rounded to $90 with a tip.
It was dinner time, but they were relatively slow - around 4pm ish. I then drove 1.5 hours back home, mainly because traffic was horrendous, so we were not expecting warm fresh burgers, but all good, we were hungry lol.
Finally got home, and set everyone up at the table, took my first bite, and it was not warm or fresh, it was cold and uncooked. And I don’t mean “oh this is more medium rare than medium”, it was raw, like it must’ve touched the grill, seared for half a second, and then tossed on the buns. What’s more, is that the cheeseburger was similar, albeit slightly more cooked. And to top it off, this was BOTH patty’s in the #5 burger, both were as raw as they could get aside from the edges of the outside.
What most likely happened was that they were frozen in the center, or other patties in line on the grill were grabbed instead of the ones going up. But that’s why I pretensed this with “it was a slow Tuesday night”. So, a full day a work, $90 spent, and hour + of driving, and I have two raw meat patties and some left over fries.
At the end of the day, this is most likely an honest mistake, but this is the first time in years my family and I have been to Hilo Burger Joint specifically because this happened 2 years ago and was a small reason we never went back.
I can’t imagine it happens often, and take it with a grain of salt that this could be a “one-off”, but it definitely ruined the night….and we were all really craving burgers.