Eating From the Trash Can: 206 Burger, An Overpriced Failure
206 Burger is located in one of the most depressing food courts I’ve ever seen in my life. At 823 Third Avenue, on the edge of the financial district and clearly catering to the white-collar crowd working there, sits a plaza that is, in essence, what a Roman atrium would be if the Soviet Union got its hands on a time machine. It’s all poured concrete where there should be marble and brick, and even the flowers in bloom have their colors muted by the terrible sight lines; on a sunny day, the sun’s blocked out by the office buildings. On a cloudy day, the effect is Moscow as viewed in a James Bond movie.
Seriously, congratulations, architect that designed Marion Plaza. You managed to create an ugly, depressing outdoor space in one of the most beautiful cities on all of planet Earth.
But still, sight line from a storefront window does not an experience make; if it did, I’d just sit in the Pioneer Square Starbucks at First and Yesler all day and watch attractive women in pencil skirts walking down the street and the pretty girls who work behind the counter there and nourish myself on coffee alone. I was here for a burger, and for the downright audacious price (like, “are you actually kidding me” reaction to the point where I nearly turned on my heels and ditched) of $10.99 plus tax (that’s $12.04 if you’re keeping score at home), you get a paltry portion of fries and a double cheeseburger that I’m pretty sure is the same price for its size as the Tavern Burger at Red Robin, which is an actual sit-down casual dining restaurant (and a vastly superior burger.)
Let’s begin with the fries. They’re brown but lifeless, what you’d expect if you were making fries at home and didn’t know how to double-fry to make them crisp (there is more to the art of fries than slice and throw in hot oil, and anyone running a hamburger restaurant who does not know this should not be running a hamburger restaurant). Trouble is, they have absolutely none of the rich potato flavor you normally expect from this cooking method. Woefully undersalted and not well-done enough to make up for texture in delicious browning, these are limp, unsatisfying, and other “that’s what she said” dick jokes of your own choosing.
For the main event, that “utterly flavorless” theme continues. The burgers are well done, but there’s no way in heaven, earth, or hell that griddle plate is hot enough to get a good sear; if it’s there, I damn sure couldn’t taste it. This is the burger you make at home if you haven’t thought to put a piece of duct tape over the sensor on your smoke alarm, cooked too long and low to work in any appreciable way. It’s the anti-Steak N’ Shake.
The veggies, as in lettuce, tomato, onion (not pictured because I do not like onions on my burger or anywhere else that doesn’t involve beer batter and/or one of those steakhouse calorie bombs), and pickles, are…well, they’re not crisp. They’re not limp, either, but they’re wilted pretty quickly by having those slabs of beef on top of them and there’s another “that’s what she said” joke.
The menu advertises something called “house sauce”. I was kind of expecting ranch or Thousand Island. I got neither. I got a coating of mayonnaise insufficient to protect the bottom bun from a greasy, runny, sloppy burger. If any flavor was added to that mayonnaise to qualify it as a “house sauce”, I damn sure wasn’t able to taste it.
If I sound like Gordon Ramsay here, that’s only because I have the same reaction he has when eating at a place that reeks of “people cook mediocre food at home and think they can open a restaurant.” This is a burger “chef” who can’t make a burger better than a national chain. This is French fries prepared with such fundamental ignorance of what makes fries any good that it insults the customer to serve them.
And these people have the unmitigated gall to charge three or four dollars more than what a customer can get a better meal from at a fast food joint, or the same price as what they’d pay at Red Robin or some other tavern-style chain?
Yelp loves this place, or at least the proprietors paid Yelp protection money. This only further serves to prove that you should never, ever, EVER ask Seattle Yelpers where the good food is, because they don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like.
I left this place wanting to go down to the airport and hop the next plane to Boston for a burger that doesn’t suck.
PROS: It’s convenient if you work in the Financial District and twelve bucks is, like, five minutes’ pay at your job.
CONS: Greasy burger, soggy bun, limp fries, way overpriced, and there is nothing that any intellectually honest person would call “flavor” anywhere in the entire meal. You might as well just walk across Third Avenue to 7-Eleven and get one of their burgers out of the hot box, or walk the third of a mile to Steak N’ Shake up the street.
THE VERDICT: 1 star out of 5. Don’t waste your money.
