Burgers with Buck: BeetleCat

I bet you can see Lauren vibing over there. I know. Every time she's in for Joanne, I mean, we all vibe to that song. Who doesn't? Beetlecat in Inman Park is known for delicious seafood, New England-style oyster bar fare, and signature cocktails, all with the 70s Surfer Shack vibe. First, though, shout out to my man Sonny for penning that little song to get us into Burgers with Buck. All right, and while all that is beyond delicious, Burgers with Buck has one word of advice for you. Do not sleep on the Tavern Burger. All right, this week, Burgers with Buck. We're back in Inman Park, and we're back with our old friend, Ford Fry. We're hanging out at Beetlecat. How you doing, man? I'm good, you? Doing great. Good to see you again. All right, so let's talk about Beetlecat. Let's start there. How would you describe Beetlecat to someone? Beetle Cat was founded as kind of like the little sister to the Optimus. So kind of that fun neighborhood, seafood joint, a little more casual, oysters, all kinds of seafood, funky a little bit. It's kind of even like a little neighborhood joint. Yeah. That's Beetle Cat. It's got a burger and just seafood, but it's got to have a burger, right? A burger. So, you know, I was telling you this earlier. I get stopped on the street a lot. What's the best burger? What's the best burger? What's the best burger? And a go-to line for me is, have you had... Any of Ford Fry's burgers, and I think we've just about had them all on Burgers with Buck now that we have at a Beetlecat, but you take your burgers seriously at all your restaurants, whether it's a seafood restaurant or any type of restaurant. Why is that? You're a burger lover. I know what they are. No, I really don't know why. You know, I think we were talking about it earlier, and, you know, I think we need to give credit to Linton Hopkins. Linton Hopkins, when he first opened Holman & Finch, yes, there were burgers in town, But he was the one that... Really romanticized the burger. He romanticizes everything. But he made that. That burger was fantastic. And then at that point, all these people started jumping. And then we just loved burgers. So I get a little crazy when these lists of best burgers come out. Because my mind goes to, wait a minute. What are you... Do you want a smash burger? Do you want a steakhouse burger? Do you want a super smash burger? What type of burger are we talking about? I don't think we talk about that enough. So that was the whole intention of this burger, which I'll let you know if you want to know. Well, and sometimes it's comparing apples to oranges in a sense when it's a thick steak burger as opposed to a smash burger or something in between like this, which you would call a tavern burger, right? Absolutely. It's a tavern burger. There you go. You would call it and you do call it a tavern burger. Build it for us. Tell us how you put this together. Okay. So the, so the origin of this one is, is you've got smash burgers and they're lower on the lower price point. You've got Marcel, you got the Chastain, you got these steakhouse burgers, even the Chastain, but you got a steakhouse burger that are in the 34, $35 range. Now in New York, back in the day, there was these taverns, these corner taverns that were started off as butcher shops or whatever. All these guys would do is they'd just take them. Ball of meat, put it on the flat top, put a piece of onion, mayonnaise, a little bit of bun on it. It's kind of in the middle there. So for us at Beetlecat, it's like we love these tavern burgers because you're not trying to be something, you know, super expensive. And you're not the smash burger, which you get everywhere. So it's just kind of like this, hey, prop up at the bar, grab a burger, eat, get a beer, and you're out. You know, that was the whole goal for it. This one is the meat. We wanted the meat to be... It's not noticeable, you know, you want to be able to taste the meat. You can't, so this is like a $10 a pound ground beef, you know, chuck brisket, and yes, we make like aioli and all that in the restaurant, but this one is straight up Duke's mayonnaise, American cheese, a slice of onion on a potato roll, that's it. You'll see, once you eat it, it just kind of disappears and goes away and you're like, where'd that burger go? Listen, I'm going to give it a try. I think you should, too, right? I know you've had it before. But I think I should get a T-shirt if I've done all of your restaurant's burgers. So I'm working on that, all right? All right, let's do it. The Tavern Burger from Beetlecat, right? Are you going to cut it? I'm going to cut it. All right, you go in. I want to see if it's... Like, we put on the menu, serve medium rare unless... You yell at us or you tell us otherwise. I'm not going to yell. To me, it's one of those. It is a medium rare burger to me. So hopefully it's medium rare. All right. Well, listen, you cut it, but I'm going to just go ahead and just bury my face right into it right here. There we go. The Tavern Burger from Beetle Cat. Just like you said. You know what I mean?