Tag Archives: Hamburgers

Burgerville Does It Right

The Burgerville chain encompasses 39 quick-serve restaurants in the Pacific Northwest. Six cities in South Central and Southwest Washington have at least one. The closest location to the Seattle area is the restaurant in Centralia. We try to always stop and eat a hamburger there when we pass through.

Because the hamburgers are made from vegetarian-fed and antibiotic-free beef, they seem to taste much better than most. Add a slice of Tillamook Cheddar and you have a delicious sandwich.

Burgerville relies on local, seasonal ingredients whenever possible. Blackberries for their milkshakes, sweet onions from Walla Walla for onion rings and hazelnuts from Oregon for their Wild Smoked Salmon and Hazelnut Salad.

Not only does this chain serve high-quality, tasty food, but they also use many sustainable business practices. They purchase 100 percent renewable wind power credits equal to the energy use in all 39 locations plus their corporate headquarters. By using wind power of this magnitude, Burgerville eliminates a huge amount of greenhouse gases. This is the equivalent of taking 1,700 cars off the road.

Constantly improving and expanding their composting and recycling programs also makes Burgerville a “green” company.

And this company loves their employees. They provide healthcare insurance, which is very rare at quick-serve restaurants. Burgerville contributes more than 90 percent of the insurance costs for employees and their dependents.

If you’re in the neighborhood, I urge you to sample some of their menu items. They have hamburgers and lots more to choose from.

Do the Puyallup

 

You’ve still got plenty of time to get to the Puyallup Fair since it runs through Sunday, September 25th. If you go, there is lots to see and do including several new attractions. I like to take two days to go through everything as it’s hard for me to enjoy everything I want to in just one day.

Listed as one of the biggest and best fairs in this Mainstreet.com article by Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell, the Puyallup pretty much has it all. Livestock, a petting zoo, lots of entertainment, a beer garden and wine bistro, lots of food, famous entertainers, rides, a carnival, 4-H and Grange displays and vendors galore round out the fun at the complex known as the Puyallup Fairgrounds.

 

Some of my favorite treats from my time at the Fair this past Sunday included Danny Vernon, the best Elvis impersonator in the Pacific Northwest. And he’s phenomenal – both his singing and Elvis movements plus he has a five-piece band backing him up. But even better – watching the audience and all the people who actually remember the real Elvis and the words to every one of his songs. I don’t know if Danny is returning to the Fair, but if you have a chance to seem him perform, definitely do it.

One of the new attractions, A World of Music, is located just outside the Northwest Outdoor Barn. On display are instruments from many other countries and you can touch and play them to your heart’s content.

We also got to see a Seattle Police Officer demonstrate how his K-9 Ziva works. And, yes, she is named for the character on the TV show, NCIS. This German Shepherd is the first female K-9 to work with Seattle Police and she’s very good. She hasn’t been on the job long and has already caught quite a few bad guys.

Yummy, yummy barbecued ribs.

Foodwise, I highly recommend the new strawberry flavored ice cream in the Milk Barn, Fisher scones, of course; barbecued ribs or chicken, hamburgers, elephant ears and corn on the cob. I’ve heard that deep-fried Rocky Mountain Oysters (none for me, thank you), deep-fried bubble gum and deep-fried Kool-Aid are also available. I also have it on good authority that there’s a wine bar on the second floor of the fine arts building, but I’ll visit that on my next trip.

The News Tribune wrote a great article on how to visit the fair, if you need some help in that direction.

Maybe I’ll see you there on my return trip.

Pick-Quick No. 2 Opens

Tomorrow is the day that many of us in the South Sound have been waiting for – the day that Pick-Quick No. 2 opens in Auburn. Not only will we be able to get the high quality food and nationally renowned hamburgers already served at the sister or should I say “Mother” restaurant in Fife, but we can now enjoy them indoors and out of the rain as there’s seating for 35 people inside the restaurant.

 

I’ll let you in on a secret. Pick-Quick No. 2 opens at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow and if you’re one of the first 49 guests, you’ll receive a reusable cold drink tumbler with the Pick-Quick logo on it. To see what the tumblers look like, visit the restaurant’s Facebook page at:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/PickQuick.  The quick-service restaurant is located at 1132 Auburn Way North. The reason that 49 tumblers will be given away is because the Fife location has been operating and serving up delicious food since 1949.

 

Let’s talk a little more about the food this iconic restaurant will now be serving in two different locations. They are juice-dripping good created with flair out of 100 percent natural beef. Gastronaut Jay Friedman, creator of “Sexy Feasts,” named Pick-Quick’s hamburger the best in Washington State in a list for USA Today. Read more about his food finds and adventures at:  www.gastrolust.com.

The hand-cut fries are cut fresh throughout the day from locally-grown Russet potatoes.

My personal favorite has to be the blackberry milk shakes made with ice cream from Snoqualmie Gourmet Ice Cream and when in season, made with fresh berries. Yum.

 

No. 2 has many very sustainable components to it, also, besides the quality and genesis of the ingredients used. The building itself awaits LEED certification, hopefully of the “Gold” variety. The chairs inside are made of recycled plastic Coca-Cola bottles, the parking lot and walkways are made with pervious concrete so rain water can be collected and used to water the landscape and the employees’ restroom has a shower so that employees can bike to work. Two of the parking spaces are reserved for fuel-efficient cars.

Pick-Quick No. 2 will be open Sundays through Thursdays from 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays form 10:30 a.m.-11 p.m.