Burger Night

At the heart of every great burger joint is an interesting story.  Shake Shack started in a park.  In-N-Out conceived the drive thru to take advantage of all those new “freeway” things.  Matt’s Bar one day whimsically put cheese in a burger for jaded customer.  

So, after having my first M Burger experience last month, I went looking for its story.  I found that M Burger is part of Lettuce Entertain You(LEYE), a Chicago based restaurant group.  Since the first location opened on Michigan Ave. about two years ago, M Burger has been on fire, opening three more well received locations, most recently their Water Tower location- this one with beer and more ice cream.  That’s about all I could find of a story.  

new Water Tower location

Burger Night:  How did you come to work on M Burger?

Tim Hockett:  I’ve been with Lettuce Entertain You restaurants for going on 15 years.  Working at an assortment of their restaurants… I was a corporate test kitchen chef for a while.

In 2008, during the financial slowdown, I was working at Tru.  We had a kitchen table that used to be all the rave about 13 years ago when we opened- where you actually sit in the kitchen, watch the chef cook, and he would present the food.  But by 2008, kitchen tables were becoming kind of a dime a dozen out here.

So we were figuring, how can we repurpose this room for Tru and we just saw kind of a lack of great casual restaurants in the area.  So a burger joint came to mind.

BN:  Was that your idea?

TH:  Yeah, that was something I presented to Rich Melman, our founder, and he’s always been in a quest for the perfect burger.  Burgers have kind of been his passion.  At R.J. Grunts he’s always had an awesome burger on the menu.  So he was up for the idea and we put together a little sample menu.  In thinking out the concept, we only had about 500 sq. ft of space to work with, so we knew we’d have eight counter seats inside the space.  We wanted to keep the menu as simple as possible, and also something that could be picked up really fast.  

So me and a couple other partners travelled around the states a little bit and hit all sorts of burger places- everything from In-N-Out on the west coast to Shake Shack on the east coast and just tried to find where we wanted to head in that better burger market that’s out there right now.

BN:  Was there any particular burger joint that ended up inspiring you on the way?

TH:  In-N-Out has always been my favorite.  Burgers, for me, have always been something you eat on the go.  It’s on a bun for a reason.  Its supposed to be quick.  It was part of our culture back in the day.  We’ve never been a big fan of the 10 oz. burger that takes 15 minutes to cook and is served on a plate.

BN:  It’s a convenience food.

TH:  Yeah, and George Motz has kind of become a buddy for us.  We kind of followed his book, Hamburger America.  What we found is the griddled burger that cooks really fast on a really, really hot griddle served with minimal toppings… just trying to keep it simple.

So that’s kind of what we ended up with.  

Everyone who worked on the first M Burger kind of came out of a fine dining culture, so we wanted bring, like Danny Meyer did in New York, all the skill sets that you do in a normal kitchen into the burger world, and I think that’s something we do very well in our four locations.

BN:  Do you use a blend of different cuts of beef, like Shake Shack?  Or is it pretty straight forward?

TH:  We tried a ton of different blends, including the one they do at Shake Shack… I forget the blend…

BN:  I think they have sirloin, brisket and chuck out there…

TH:  Yeah, the guy that blends for them actually blends for a couple of our restaurants out here in Chicago, and nothing rang true like just a straight chuck.  We do kind of have our own blend and grinding method- a little bit different that most.  And that’s something we’ve been doing at R.J. Grunts for a while with the double grind secret. We took it one step further with ours.

But yeah, it’s just under a quarter of a pound for each individual patty.  I recommend doubles to most people, which is just over a quarter pound, just under half a pound.

BN:  Can you say what the exact weight is?

TH:  It differs a little bit, from like 2.6 to 2.8 or so, it’s just over 5 oz. for a double.

We found too, tasting burgers and fries and shakes around the country, and even here in Chicago there are some great places, that we preferred something that’s a little bit lighter.  The first one was in a neighborhood where Northwestern Hospital’s entire campus is located now.  And it’s off Michigan avenue, a lot of shoppers, a lot of different people dining out there.  We wanted to be quick, but we also wanted to keep people a little lighter on their feet.

BN:  I think a lot of what makes your burgers feel so light is the buns.

TH:  Well, we went with the traditional squishy bun, kind of like our favorite places.  The pretzel roll is great, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Kuma’s Corner, they made quite a bit out their pretzel roll bun.  And Shake Shack has their potato bun, which is also really tasty.  But, especially for any burger that’s so thin and griddled so fast, you need something that is going to let the meat stand out.  It doesn’t need another flavor.

BN:  Did you spend a long time developing the bun, or did you already have that established from other restaurants?

TH:  A little bit of each.  A lot of thought went into it.  We knew once we tasted our first few rounds of burgers: this is the bun we want.

Like our pickle, our pickle comes from Germany, it’s a special gherkin pickle.  We tasted sweet and dill pickles for a couple weeks and finally we found something that was just right coming out of Germany.  Its not too sweet and its not too dilly and it has enough tartness to cut the fat in our sauce, and works really well with the patty too.  

Every step of the way, a lot people on our team came from a culinary background, so we knew what we liked already, and we just kind of plugged that in and developed the menu- which originally meant only three burgers on the menu: the single, double and the chicken and a vegetarian option.  Now were up to five or six menu items.  And we have about ten off the menu that are kind of neighborhood favorites.  The Hurt Burger is one that was off the menu for about a year and a half, and we just put it on the menu in October, I think it was.  It’s spicy barbecue sauce, jalapenos, and pepper jack cheese, which is an awesome combo on there.

BN:  During development was there any menu item that you wanted on the menu that just didn’t quite make the cut?

TH:  We tried a number of vegetarian options…. again, I like what In-N-Out does with their vegetarian options.  Where it’s just greens, tomato and the sauce, pickle, onion on a bun.  There’s no veggie patty.  We played around with lots of different kinds of veggie patties or, kind of a cheese patty.  In the end we found that we liked the freshest thing.  We use an avocado spread that we put on our chicken sandwich- and sauce, lettuce, pickle, onion, and pepper jack cheese.  But yeah, there were plenty of veggie options we toyed around with.

Originally we started, for about four months, with ketchup and mayo on all our burgers.  Only our M Burger came with our secret sauce.  By popular demand though, we changed, because everyone was asking for the sauce on every burger that they ordered.  So we started putting that on all of them.  Now we have ketchup and mayo as an option, it’s called the Old Fashioned on our menu.  It also comes with a slice of tomato, which normally doesn’t come with our burgers.

There have been some things that have moved around a little bit, but basically we’ve stayed true to what we pushed through in development.

BN:  Was the rapid growth part of the initial plan?

TH:  It’s something LEYE has never done with a restaurant before.  Rich has done over 180 restaurants now, and all of them kind of take on a life of their own.  Like, obviously, our fine dining restaurant, Tru, it’s going to be really hard to duplicate.  But something a little more mainstream like our Wildfire, I think we have eight units right now.  Wow Bao quick Asian, we have four, but that’s been developing over ten years.  

With M Burger, we just wanted to do each one right.  Were looking at a couple locations for the next one right now.

 BN:  Are they both in Chicago?

TH:  Were still looking at Chicago, we want to kind of use the neighborhood that we have here.  We also have restaurants within LEYE in Minnesota, D.C., and California.  So if we grow, we’ll probably grow to one of those neighborhoods first, just so we can have friends and family watch the place- keep a good eye on it.  But you know, sky’s the limit.  Right now we have the luxury of being able to take them one at a time.  That’s kind of the benefit of working with an established restaurant group like LEYE.  

BN:  So it wasn’t really envisioned any particular way, as a national chain or just a single location operation?

TH:  First off it was designed specifically to be a one location place.  It came out of a need for that space… and it was just a perfect size for five or six guys to flip burgers, serve fries and shakes.  It was in a great neighborhood that needed something kind of cheap, fast and great quality.

We knew we had something good and special on our hands, and the neighborhood really liked it, so from there we just kind of listen to the neighborhoods of Chicago.  We don’t want to fully saturate our market, we want there to be a desire for more, so we’re just taking it one step at a time.

BN:  Is there a burger joint out there you’ve never been to that you’ve wanted to try?

TH:  There’s some obscure ones from George Motz’s book for sure that I want to try.  I can’t think of any off hand.  I really like the Apple Pan out in California.

BN:  Have you been to Edzo’s?

TH:  Ed used to work for us at LEYE.  It’s actually by my house.  He found a great neighborhood, just like we did here.  He tailored to the neighborhood, he closes Saturday/Sunday, he closes at like 4 or 5 everyday, so I have a hard time actually finding out when he’s open, cause I’m working most the time he’s open… but yeah, great burger, really great fries.  Good stuff.  And also, in Chicago, if you’re ever around, Top Notch Burgers- it’s like an 80 year old spot that’s really good too.

BN:  Yeah, that’s one of my favorites anywhere.

TH:  Yeah, it’s good- old school chocolate shakes- a good burger with caramelized onions.

BN:  Well thanks Tim.  That’s all I have.  Let me know if you’re ever in town- I’ll take you around to some the Minneapolis joints.

…the Hurt Burger, 3rd degree(hottest).

In keeping with the In-N-Out fanfare, M Burger has a “secret menu”, here are the details:

1.  Chicken Hurt:  Homemade, spicy barbecue sauce, mayo, lettuce, pickle, onion, jalapenos.

2.  Chicken Mikey:  Ketchup, mayo, lettuce, pickle, onion - why?  Because that’s the way Mikey likes it…really.

3.  Dr Betty:  Nurse Betty + a burger patty.

4.  Chicken “M”:  M Burger with chicken substituted.

5.  Old Fashioned Hamburger:  Hamburger with ketchup, mayo, lettuce, pickles, onions, tomato.

6.  Old Fashioned Cheeseburger:  Cheeseburger with ketchup, mayo, lettuce, pickles, onions, tomato.

7.  Big “O” Style:  Anything with caramelized onion

8.  Lettuce Wrap/Adam and Eve:  Iceberg lettuce instead of a bun.

9.  Grilled Cheese

10.  Haberdash:  A double M Burger, but instead of a bun, substitute a grilled cheese on the top and bottom.

11.  Barn Yard:  Everything on the farm - an M Burger, plus chicken (patty, chicken, bacon).

12.  Green Chili Cheese Fries

13.  Espresso Shake

Using In-N-Out as a teacher and Hamburger America as a guide is a solid approach.  In-N-Out knows not waning popularity and Hamburger America is like the “Map of the Stars Homes” of the burger world.

In an age of blends, brioche buns and burger sauce, where ketchup and mayo are considered old fashioned, a certain degree of adaptation is a must.  But it seems the “better burger” market is taking a turn toward the simple and classic, and that the modern/gourmet hamburger interpretations are tending toward novelty. 

With the limited size of their original location, M Burger was geared to being one of those simple burger joints.  Fortunately for Chicago, simplicity makes a really good burger.