Workhorse Bar is the kind of place you’d assume could put up a good burger. Right in the heart of Austin’s 1940s North Loop neighborhood, it’s your classic dive bar and burger joint for service I dusty types and the few locals that can still afford to live in the area. They’ve got some forty (probably) or more craft beers on tap, but you wouldn’t be out of place ordering a pony of Miller High Life. In fact, you might be correct. Their small kitchen pumps out your classic bar burger, the Bastrop Burger, by the hundreds a day – small, thick patties, cooked medium rare in a classic bun with LTO, pickles, and your choice of cheese. I went with the classic cheddar and a side of sweet potato fries.
The burger comes out with the top off, and the fixings to the side. The layout is common in burger joints where they don’t want to be bothered with having a customer order a burger “without,” and streamlines the flow of orders out of the kitchen. I’m not a fan of this sort of “choose your own adventure”, as it’s wasteful if someone doesn’t want the toppings. But it does make it easy to leave off the lettuce if you’re just not feeling having to deal with a leaf three times the size of your burger – which I was not.
The burger fails on a common American, dive bar burger pitfall. The burger too tall and not wide enough. Throw on the toppings and the top bun and even after smashing it down a bit, you’ve basically got to unhinge your jaw to get a full bite, or be left with the dreaded half-bite. Worse still, even if you manage to get your mouth around it, you risk slowly pushing everything out the opposite side of the bun. And no one wants the “bunless” bite.
Overall though, Workhorse provides, well, a workhorse of a burger. It checks most of the boxes, but it’s nothing to write home about.
Passable. 5/10
