Restaurant Review: Five Star Burgers

Fry me a river

By: Rob DeWalt
Published online: Friday, September 07, 2012
Appeared in: Pasateimpo

“When you talk burgers in New Mexico,” begins a Great American Bites article on USA Today’s online travel page, “you’re talking green chile cheese burgers. But what distinguishes Five Star Burgers ... is quality.”

Published before the Santa Fe Five Star Burgers location opened earlier this summer, the article failed to mention that Santa Fe diners, who are used to paying a little more than folks in Albuquerque for the same meal, also tend to want fries and other sides to be of equal quality, especially for the higher tourist-economy spend. Unfortunately, that expectation isn’t always met at the chain’s newest New Mexico link (there are also stores in Taos, Albuquerque, Missouri, and Colorado).

Painted purple and gold accents in the dining room and bar area brighten the mood. Televisions are generally tuned to sporting events. An issue with flies in damp weather will dissipate as it gets colder, but for now, a few fly strips near the patio may be in order.

There’s a cafeteria-meets-sports-bar atmosphere at Five Star, which finds football and baseball fans huddled at the bar while families with small children grab a bite in the usually-packed dining room or on the open patio before or after taking in a movie at nearby Regal DeVargas. The owner of the Five Star mini empire, Bob Guntram, grew up watching his father feed people in an industrial-cafeteria setting, and for better or for worse, he brings a certain assembly-line aesthetic to his own food-service venture. But don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s “fast” food.

Service on three visits was friendly, if a bit slow, inattentive, and clumsy. Once, a server lost hold of some ketchup, and it wound up on my dining companion and on the floor by his chair. On two occasions, drinks were forgotten entirely until a staff member was reminded. Five Star does a tremendous takeout business, and sometimes, those call-in orders find the staff scrambling to keep up with sit-down diners’ needs. On one visit, I watched a local restaurateur wait 30 minutes for a burger to go. He handled it better than I would have.

And about those burgers: Five Star serves up some delicious varieties that range from the classic beef-plus-bun garnished with tomato, onion, pickle, lettuce, and your choice of condiments, to a veggie burger, lamb burger, and portobello burger. Five Star’s beef patties are all fashioned from hormone- and antibiotic-free Black Angus beef from California’s sprawling Harris Ranch, and the meat is ground fresh daily at the restaurant site. Note: burgers here are marked on a grill and then finished on a griddle. They are not char-grilled.

It would be nice to see Five Star using additive-free, grass-finished beef from New Mexico ranchers, but with properties and investments outside the state, perhaps that’s cost-prohibitive for Guntram. With at least one eye toward sustainability, the restaurant chain recycles frying oil for biofuel, sources a few local products, and uses bio-degradable and recycled paper products.

Juicy is the name of the game for the beef and bison burgers, cooked perfectly to order on separate visits. Bread for the burgers hails from Albuquerque’s Fano Bread Co., which whips up soft brioche buns especially for Five Star. A light toast on the bun completes the package nicely.

A Taos burger included made-in-house “crispy green chile” — julienned roasted green-chile strips deep-fried in a crusty breading instead of a tempura-style batter. Sadly, the chile flavor got lost in a sea of institutional-tasting barbecue sauce and a heavy hand of cheddar cheese. The 5 Star burger with Gorgonzola and applewood smoked bacon was an exercise in perfect burger balance; a symmetry of salty and smoky that, were it not for some super-cold beer, would have lingered like a jealous lover.

Two grilled Colorado-bison burgers with grilled onions — one with smoked provolone and bacon — were also juicy and memorable, and went down easy with a couple of hand- whipped milkshakes, one vanilla, one Bananas Foster. It was disconcerting to hear the bartender say, “I’ve never made this banana shake before. This’ll be interesting.” Someone, it seems, missed a training day. Luckily, it was delicious, as was my vanilla shake.

The major letdowns here are the fried side items, all of which are, according to the hostess and a server, pre-frozen products. French fries and sweet-potato fries will cost you extra— they don’t come automatically with a $9 to $11 standard burger — and on two occasions they arrived greasy and underdone. Fried pickles and fried green beans sounded nice, but they suffered the same fate as the fries: frozen, floppy failure.

I’ll definitely return to Five Star to try some of their other burger variations, but I’ll forego the fries and other side items. “But Rob,” you say, “why not just order a salad?” If I wanted a salad, I wouldn’t be at a burger joint to begin with.