Adam & Eats: Gino’s Hamburgers

Editor’s note: Adam Brandt is a graduate from the Cobra Kai School of Culinary Callousness, where he received their highest award, the Red Apron of Merciless Eating. Aside from eating and talking about eating, he makes pots, paintings, prints, books, photographs, and generally, a big mess. He has been the studio assistant at Mudpuppy Pottery for almost nine years and is attending a local university in a desperate attempt to earn a biology degree. Feel free to give him a hard time.

For a restaurant to claim the “River Valley’s Best Hamburgers,” they had better be prepared to put their money where their mouth is. Or rather, put their hamburger where my mouth is. If you go to Gino’s Hamburgers expecting the best hamburger in the entirety of the River Valley, you will walk away let down and with a 50’s song stuck in your head.

Located ironically close to Geno’s Pizza in Van Buren is Gino’s Hamburgers (no relation). When you walk in the door you get a pleasant throwback to a 50’s Diner. Red vinyl seats, black and white photos of young celebrities, old Wurlitzer jukebox, and a menu filled with old timey malt shoppe splendor. I was pleased, and disturbed, to see that, if one were so inclined, they could order a hamburger with chili and coleslaw on it. They actually call it “slaw,” but since that term kinda gives me the itches, I will painstakingly continue to call it coleslaw.

So, you walk up to the counter and you order the #3 “best hamburger” combo with bacon and cheese from a friendly person behind said counter, pay your bill, get a handful of quarters, and head to the jukebox to kill some time until your order is ready (What to play first? Well, that’s easy. Blue Velvet by Bobby Vinton.) By the time you make your song selections and hunt up a booth, your food is ready, and you sit down preparing to bite into the “River Valley’s Best Hamburger.” You sink your teeth in, the music from the jukebox fades away, and all you here is: wah, wah, waaaaaaahhhh — the sound of the hype falling short of its mark.

The food tastes kind of like they opened a frozen bag of fries and hamburger patties from Sam’s Club and made your meal. Plain white bread buns, bland meat patty, greasy bacon, soggy generic crinkle cut fries, and almost completely tasteless onion rings. I know that Gino’s claims to offer fresh ground beef, but they also claim that their hamburger is better than that of any of the other hundreds of places that serve burgers in our area. Is this the best the River Valley has to offer? Really?!

I think the most disappointing thing was that they had tried so hard to be kitschy and charming with the whole 50’s theme and yet they failed to carry that creativity through to the menu. The food was unoriginal and uninspired. The only item on the menu that had any charm to it was the catfish sandwich. Not that a catfish sandwich screams originality, but at least it tasted good.

In my life, I try to be a man of principles. That is what my problem with Gino’s Hamburgers is. It is not that I didn’t care for the décor, or the service, or even the type of food that they serve (you all know how much I love diner food). I have a problem with a restaurant claiming that they have the best of something and not putting the effort forth to back it up. It is a matter of principle. I say this not to discourage them or to scare business away from them, but to challenge them to prove me wrong.

Please, Gino, put me in my place.

Feedback
When he’s not beating his eggs, Adam makes time to respond to e-mails that get past his hard-ass spam filter. You can try to reach him at [email protected]

Adam also has this thing called Sandwich Control.