Today was my last visit to AZ88 after many years. I always brought friends there when they would visit. Was a regular for years. Brought a friend there from out of town for burgers. Drove the long trip. It was a Tuesday about 5pm. The entire time I could not get the waitress to actually stand still at the table. Everything was said and done while she was running by waiting on someone else. We ordered two medium rare cheeseburgers with bacon. Both the same except my friend had tomato's. I wish I had taken photos. What arrived were very overdone fries that tasted like they had been under heat lamps. I snapped one in half and it snapped like a chip. It was that hard. The fruit was old and dried up looking. The burgers were raw. Not pink. Not rare. RAW. As in 100% completely uncooked on the inside. My friend picked up his burger and I thought he was going to be sick. They were cut down the middle so where is the quality control? Can you not see the burger is completely raw on the inside? Mine was sopping wet with blood and the bun completely falling apart. Both had three completely unmelted pieces of cheese. I flagged down the waitress and explained the situation. Again she refused to actually stand still. She asked if we wanted another. Yeah I drove nearly an hour yes I'm hungry. She put in another order albeit what seemed reluctantly. My friend asked for his medium well this time. He was completely freaked out. I asked for mine medium. What showed up was not the rather large juicy burgers they normally serve that we got the first time but two burgers half the size and clearly premade and sub par cut of of meat. Plainly they were gross. I don't even know why they would have these burgers in the kitchen unless they were some sort of emergency burger in case they ran out of meat. And they still mixed up the order. I got tomato's on mine the rarer of the two but they were both over cooked near burned now. Tasteless. Disgusting. He ate his complaining the whole time that I should have cooked at home but ate it out of being starving. We hadn't eaten half the day excited for burgers. I ate half of mine and just felt sick. The fries were better the second time but not too good. I took a bite and pushed them around the plate. Four times I asked for extra ketchup I never got. Gave up. The manager came by and was very very nice but you could tell he didn't really care and was just placating us by even listening. He asked what he could do and did I want another meal. Three times now? No I'm good. I asked if he could just comp it. He agreed absolutely. I was so bummed because we had been looking forward to it. I don't actually eat out a lot so when I do it's more of an experience than it is for many. I don't know who's ingenius idea it was to now serve the food on trays but it really adds to the cafeteria quality of food they are now serving. If you are going to charge these prices and market yourself as a swanky place at least give us some damn dishware.
He offered a desert on the house. My friend was going to decline but I made him get something. No way this was going to be totally wasted. He got the strawberry shortcake. It was fair. We split it. My stomach was doing flip flops but I was starving. It was very sugary and the topping tasted synthetic and it was covered in powdered sugar to boot. Why would you need to add powdered sugar to cake ice cream whipped cream and strawberry sauce? It was putridly sweet.
I was ready to tip the waitress when while we were still eating she comes over and plops a reserved marker on the table while we are still sitting there! We had literally just finished our last bite. That was the nail in the coffin. I was so offended by that final act I will never go back to this establishment.
We've been complaining for the past 3 hours of regret. What we got was a stomach ache and a headache from the experience. On the plus side I'm relieved that I no longer have to drive 45 minutes for my favorite burger. I'll just cook one at home.