Being born and raised in Miami (and having dined from Michelin Star restaurants to college dining halls and impoverished street grub worldwide) means that… I know what food I like and what good food SHOULD taste like. So, I am on a mission to find the Boston restaurants that are worth your time, effort, and money.
There’s literally nothing special here.
If your For You Page has been anything like mine, then you’ve seen the hundreds of influencer videos flying around regarding 7th Street Burger’s grand opening on Newbury Street here in Boston. Given how much I love smashburgers and how promising it looked, I had to go over and check it out!
Before fully diving into this, it is best that I quickly outline what qualifies as the best possible smashburger for me.
A smashburger must:
- Have paper-thin patties with crispy edges
- Have melted cheese
- Come with a toasted bun
- Include a respectable amount of toppings (especially if I paid extra for them)
- And be accompanied by the best possible thin yet crunchy and crispy fries
7th Street Burger met exactly none of those qualifications, even though they advertise them.
The Ambiance:
I went the first weekend after opening, so I will disregard the 35-minute-long line just to get to the cashier, but I do feel obligated to warn you- the lines on weekends just to get to order are insane.
I was so excited once I got inside because the inside looked really similar to my favorite smashburger place in the entire world, which is located in London, and I went to all the time for the year I lived there. Unfortunately, that shot my expectations even higher into the sky.
The staff was swamped but totally unapologetic and borderline rude. I asked for my sauce on the side (which comes with the burger anyway), and instead the cashier made me pay $1 for a full side of sauce rather than just moving the burger sauce on the side, which I already was paying for anyway, and that right off the bat rubbed me the wrong way.
Starting at the couple right behind me, the same cashier then went along to warn them it would be 30+ minutes for their food- something she didn’t tell me or anyone in front of me, and given how exhausted and overwhelmed I was from how packed the inside of this small restaurant was, I’m not sure I would have ordered anything at all. Speaking of packed, the whole restaurant was full of people, there was barely any room to move, and it was beyond overwhelming.
Regardless, I found a wall to wedge myself between while I waited and started my timer for food. As more and more food was coming out, they were just handing out the sauces… I was FORCED to pay an extra dollar for. No restaurant should be aiming to make their customers starving, pissed off, and annoyed while waiting for their order, and yet I was just hit after hit while waiting.
It turned out to be an hour (a full 60 minutes and 37 seconds) until my order was ready, and they couldn’t even be bothered to apologize.
With my bag of food in hand, I managed to find a single standing spot to eat.
What I Ordered:
The Burger
If you thought that after a full hour of waiting, my food would be hot, you would be wrong. My burger came out warm at best. The bun was completely burnt on top and bottom. The burger itself had zero crispy edges, was NOT smashed, crisp, and thin. Had only a singular piece of cheese and a small amount of onions. Oh, and the pickles? My FAVORITE part of burger toppings? They included one. One pickle slice on a double smashburger was the icing on the cake. I sat there laughing at my own stupidity for thinking I was in for a treat. I won’t name other restaurants, but fast-food burger places in the area have burgers that beat this one any and every day of the week.
I can’t tell you the last time I was so disappointed in a smash burger. It was the overwhelming sadness that I felt because I waited for so long for something to be so mediocre when everyone was busy hyping it up so hard, and it looked like the kind of place I would love.
The Fries (and Sauce)
I love getting my sauce on the side because I like being able to control the amount of sauce on my burger and fries, but this sauce, however? It was Thousand Island with pickles- aka every single ‘secret house sauce’ at every overrated burger place I’ve ever been to. I had to pay a dollar for this Thousand Island Pickle sauce that they were handing out for free to anyone who asked, because the cashier couldn’t just figure out how to just put my sauce on the side.
The fries are what upset me the most about this entire meal. If they had been served to me hot and crispy, I would have cried tears of joy. My fries were lukewarm. As a reminder, this was after an hour of waiting. The fries that I got that were crispy were fantastic and would have been amazing if they were hot and fresh. However, the fries were completely inconsistent; some were lukewarm, some were raw, some were undercooked, and then you had the crispy ones that might be the only reason I’d ever consider trying this place again sometime, and only on a weekday.
Closing Thoughts:
I got Newbury baited again. I have a long-standing run of hit or miss spots on Newbury Street. A lot have ended up being overhyped tourist aimed misses- this now goes onto that list.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I went on the first week of their opening. They could be having an off day, and the fries that I had that were crispy were yummy, and I would love to get a batch that are hot and crispy. I can see- and practically taste the potential there.
But the burger? It was a joke. I don’t know how a burger place can keep its head up and proud serving a singular pickle and piece of cheese on a warm (not hot), painfully average burger.
If you see a line here? Don’t go in. If you see no line and you are 100% sure it’s no line? Give it a very iffy maybe. The prices weren’t horrible, especially for Newbury. It’s just nothing here stood out, and I had bad experience after bad experience, only to be met with mid food at the end of it.
For full transparency, I would love to give this place another try and hope I just hit them on a horrible day. But with a burger place- how on Earth do you have such a horrible day when you only serve two items?