Many people claim Jake's Burgers is a legend in the North Texas area. Supposedly the Lake Highlands location is consistently full of SMU coeds out for a good meal. Jake's claims a number of local awards for best burger and was a "must go" according to many people around here.
I ordered the Jake's Special which has been the favorite for 25 years. The Jake's Special is a double meat hamburger with cheese, lettuce, tomato, and thousand island dressing. Sounds great! The meat was thin, so you need to go double meat. The double meat gave me what was an essentially regular burger everywhere else. The meat seemed to be a frozen patty, I believe this is right due to the taste and excessive grease.
I left off the tomato, because they are evil. But I was also disappointing to see the lack of onions on the Jake's Special. With that, the lettuce was shredded. And if you've read my other posts, you'll know that shredded lettuce does not give you the crisp bite that counters the soft bun and meat.
Upon receiving my order, I found two additional problems. The first was the bun. It's a poppy-seed bun, and as I know many people like this type of bun, poppy-seed buns are gritty when you bite the burger. It feels like a crouton for a bun. The second was that apparently they didn't notice that cheese was supposed to come with the order. I tried to block that out of my mind for the review, but I couldn't...it seriously needed cheese.
Eating the burger was also a chore in that the burger was smothered in Thousand Island...no...seriously smothered...covered. Through that, the bun was a bit soggy due to the wrapping in foil, as the heat from the burger tends to steam the bun when it's wrapped this way.
I had an order of Cajun Fries, which were definitely frozen and not fresh. But seasoned well and were good. I really think this is an atmosphere place. If I went to the Lake Highlands location when it's full of shorts and penny loafers, I might find it a different place...but this was definitely not a great burger.
1 out of 5
So we get our first 1, yeah, this was a hard one. I really cannot recommend Jake's to anyone if they want a good burger. If my order was correct and quite a bit less Thousand Island, I really think I'd be willing to give it a 2. But I have to go with what I was dealt...and it wasn't great.
What's your experience at Jake's? Same as mine? Let me know in the comments.