First and foremost, JL Beers is a burger place. ... A dang ... good ... burger place.
But, it's also a cool local business story for those of us in the Fargo-Moorhead area.
The very first JL Beers found itself in a sliver of a downtown historic building in Fargo, N.D. And I got to watch the transformation of this burger place happen because I've worked the past 13 years at Forum Communications Co., which is located catty-corner from the original JL Beers.
If you're not familiar with the former-local-but-now-a-chain burger place, JL Beers was founded in 2009 on a concept that would be simple to operate: Build a small location, offer a large selection of craft beers, and a menu of freshly made burgers, fresh cut fries, and fresh cut potato chips. In fact, their slogan is: "Seating for a 1,000...24 at a time!"
A local architectural firm designed the building concept for JL Beers sites and describes it as "a unique layout and concept that promotes quick customer turnaround with limited amount of seating. Their restaurants are limited to about 45 seats—on purpose. The idea behind this is to create an intimate, fun atmosphere that customers can appropriate for lunch, after work, or during happy hour."
Well, the concept turned out to be a hit, and from that first store in downtown Fargo, there are now 11 restaurants in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota.
Shelley and I had been hankering for a JL Beers burger for some time. And after a day of thrifting, we had no obligations this afternoon so we thought we'd catch a burger and try a new beer before going home.
While I generally hit up the downtown JL Beers, both because it's directly across from my workplace and also because I know one of the servers well, today we went to our hometown Moorhead branch to support the good ol' 56560.
I ordered my usual The Humpty Dumpty® Burger that comes with a patty, fried egg and cheese. For another $1.79 you can add some bacon. And I ordered my fries with their cajun seasoning on them. ... Straight up: This is always my "go-to" order.
Shelley shook thing up, diverged from her usual and ordered the Not Just A Nutter Burger®, with fresh peanut butter, red pepper jelly, diced jalapeños, pepperjack cheese and cottage bacon. Shelley ordered the fries naked, but with a side of the Best Beer Cheese Dip Ever.
My burger, as usual, was spot on. The egg is cooked to perfection, with a just barely hard egg yolk, and the maple wood bacon is delicious. And the JL Beers buns are always fresh and tender. ... And while normally, my fries burst with cajun seasoning, tonight, unfortunately the seasoning was so subtle, it seemed they had forgotten it.
Shelley reports that the Not Just A Nutter Burger was fine, but didn't bring the heat she had expected with diced jalapeños and pepperjack cheese as fixings. Next time, she'll stick to her favorite, the Mt. Mushmore®. ... However, her Best Beer Cheese Dip Ever didn't disappoint, and I ended up stealing some to juice up my fries.
Shelley had two beers, the Boulevard Tequila Barrel Lime Gose and the Brau Brothers Blackberry Kettle Sour, with her burger, and she reports loving both of them. Shelley prefers the tarter beers, whereas my taste buds run toward IPAs. But, I have to admit that I would even drink each of these for a change of pace!
I tried two IPAs, the Bent Paddle Pordij Juicy and the Fargo Brewing Boom Goes The Dynamite, and while I've enjoyed a Pordij before, unfortunately both of my beers tonight were flat.
Overall, the visit was average, but we'll be back. The burgers simply are never a let down, but I might be sticking closer to the downtown Fargo location where I know they'll deliver on my cajun fries!
Comments