Review #60: Elevation Burger (Raleigh)

January 31, 2015 cward

ELEVATION: THE SOY LATTE OF HAMBURGERS

Do you drive a Prius? Do you own a recumbent bike? Have you ever organized a protest? If you answered yes to any one of these, have we got a burger place for you!

Do you love hamburgers? Well…

Elevation Burger, one of the latest boutique burger chains to tackle the Triangle, talks a lot about sustainability, about organic and grass fed and free range. What it doesn’t talk much about is the delicious flavor of its burgers. There’s a reason for that.

An Elevation burger is a burger you eat on principle. Because you want to feel good about where your food comes from. Because you like companies that respect the environment. Because it’s the right thing to do. And because if you find yourself thinking, “Gee, this isn’t very good,” you can always console yourself with the printed menu, which depicts—in cheery graphics—how other burger chains hate cows and the Earth and are doing their best to destroy them.

Free-range, grass-fed beef can be a wonderful thing. However, in its zeal to appeal to the suburban soy-latte demographic, Elevation Burger placed fat—and hence flavor—too low on its checklist.

Elevation Burger’s vision is to be “much more than just a burger restaurant.” However, it might need to tackle the “burger” part before striving for the “much more.” That’s what we’d call sustainable.

“You going to eat that?” “No.” “Me neither.”

Chad’s Review: 2.25 (though the fries are truly excellent)

The aftermath tells the tale. Four hungry and adventurous burger eaters sat down at the table. Three of us left our burgers unfinished. I picked through the remains of mine trying to salvage a dab of mustard or a leftover pickle, desperate for anything with some moisture or flavor.

Don’s Review: 2.25

What I appreciate about Elevation Burger is that they know what’s best for you. If you order grilled onions and they don’t put them on the burger, as was the case with mine, it’s because you don’t need them. To me, it’s the burger you order on principle, and the one you don’t finish—on principle.

Michael’s Review: 2.50

I’m guessing that the calorie count on the menu assumes—correctly—that you’ll leave a quarter of the burger on your plate.

Scott’s Review: 3.25

My overall review was more positive than that of my colleagues. Though I did use an obscene amount of ketchup. (Seriously, Scott was nearly wrist-deep in ketchup by the time he finished his burger.)