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| - This place was a lot to take in and certainly not what I was expecting. There was plenty of good to go along with plenty of bad.
First of all, the place was packed on a weeknight, but their inane ordering system can't support a crowd. You wait in line until a table is ready... but then you order at a counter anyway. It seems like an elaborate ruse to keep you standing next to their beer taps, which was a fine local selection. Food is reasonable ($8 burgers, $5 shakes) because they make it back on the $6 draughts. But the drinking aspect of the experience keeps people at their tables longer, which makes the line move slower. IT'S MADDENING!
We were starving by the time we got our food. Fries came first and they were good, but not outstanding. (We probably should have ordered the truffle fries, which looked good and have been getting rave reviews.) The burgers were flavorful on a brioche bun with a mayonaise based sauce, but they meat was too salty and too greasy for my taste. The raspberry shake was thin and unspectacular, but the nutella pretzel shake was one of the best shakes I've had in my life. Sure, the pretzels were so big that many couldn't fit through the straw, but that left a spoonable pretzel treat at the bottom of the cup.
Also, they had several housemade ketchups and sauces which were actually pretty good. Everyone from Pittsburgh considers himself a ketchup connoisseur and these actually weren't offensive to me.
The decor was nice. Happy hour prices looked really inviting, although I can only imagine the crowd. Hopdoddy did enough to bring me back, but they're still suspect in my book.
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