Two & a half stars.
I was holed up at the Etobicoke School of the Arts for a few days auditioning divas for our 2010 spring production. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4ZVkrpUDaY Ain't nothing like being in a room full of 16 year old Divas in Waiting singing their little hearts out. By noon our ears had had a yaffle full of warbling wannabes so my Diva Auditioning Committee headed off for some lunch. We hit up Acme Burger on the corner of Royal York & Queensway. It was that or Pizza Pizza. You can tell this is a corner that caters to highschool students (there are three highschools on Royal York just north of the Queensway).
Acme, Hero, Harvey's, Lick's....different names, same damn burgers. Acme's claim to burger goodness is that they use Angus beef. Whatever. Grind that beef to a pulp, form it into one of those flat patties and flash freeze it. They turn that Angus beef into the Soylent Green of hamburgers. As usual I order up my Cheeseburger combo and for $9.75 I got a 6 ounce frisbee of beef, fries and a fountain drink. What is it with these signature sauces? Hero does that rancid Ranch crap and Acme has something similar with a dill/garlicky taste. If you ask me it's just glorified mayo with some dried up herbs tossed in, hence trying to appear to be gourmet. Uh huh. I ain't buying that. Personally I think it is just their way of trying to hide how average and mediocre that meat is.
The dividing line between Acme and the other Stepford wife hamburger chains is that the fries are fresh cut which is good. The downside to it was that either the oil needed to be changed or the heat needed to be turned up. The fries had great potential but they were soggy and somewhat oily. Being able to taste the oil on fries is the kiss of death to them.
Complaints among my Diva posse were that the burgers were inconsistently cooked. While mine was cooked my Diva sista and Musical Director, Danica gagged on her semi raw burger. Not good. The onion rings got good reviews and interestingly one comment was that the fries didn't taste like the rings which got me to thinking they cook them in separate fryers.
All in all, Acme Burger, you get no R-E-S-P-E-C-T from this burger Diva.