J Holmes
Google
Tag's latest concept felt a bit like he wanted to try making a Ruby Tuesday's. I'm not sure this one is gonna last. The restaurant felt understaffed, with a bit of a longer wait for service than I would expect from this sort of restaurant. It was also kinda dead, so maybe the staffing levels were right on? Strangely, the woodfire pizza place across the street was slammed.
The buns were fantastic, a nice bread for a burger. The burger itself was decent, with a "wider not taller" difference between the 1/4 and 1/2 lb burger. Unfortunately, this left the quarter pounder looking a bit under stuffed and the half pounder looking like someone misjudged their bun size. They referred to them as smash burgers at various places on the menu, but didn't feature any lacy, burned crunchy bits on the edges, so I'm not really sure it counts as a smash burger. The flavors they offered on the premade burgers were well balanced.
The fries were good, with a modest portion size that looked small but filled me up. Onion rings came out a bit greasier than they should be, feeling like maybe the oil temp was a bit too low or they weren't cold enough going on.
Beer prices trended about a dollar higher than I would have expected, and the menu had a nickle and dime sort of feel, with every burger option feeling just a bit more expensive than it needed to be. I've never seen a build your own burger menu that charged you a dollar for ketchup, no matter how fancy. It would have felt less like they were counting coins if they bumped the base price up by a dollar and included the first sauce free. Who buys a burger with no sauce anyway?
Kind of a bummer, I really expected a little bit more from the TAG group.