Minutes before the FDA announced the largest recall of hamburger in the nation’s history, Clyde and I stopped in for a bite at Hamburger Mary’s in Palm Springs.
I know what you’re thinking. “Mark and Clyde? Eating in a chain?” Yes, encouraged by locals, we made an exception to our “eat only in local restaurants” rule. And yes … like most exceptions made to most rules, making this exception was a mistake.
Hamburger Mary’s sounds promising. It’s essentially the Johnny Rockets concept, but with bingo night, gay-interest movies playing on big screens, and the occasional drag queen thrown in for good measure. The joint is jumping, too — we were there around 6:30, and you’ve never seen so much blue hair in your life.
The food, unfortunately, is mediocre. My pizza burger was served up nice and chilly, with the meat so poorly heated, the mozz cheese was still in its grated (as in, “not melted”) form. The much-touted pizza sauce was so stingily applied, I had to add ketchup.
Clyde’s ostrich burger was tastier, but even he abandoned the eye-popping but totally inedible bun. Neither of us ate many of our “fresh seasoned fries,” which were neither fresh nor seasoned on this particular night.
The ultimate insult, though, was the service. Our waitress plunked water down on our table, took our orders, and was never seen again. Someone else brought our burgers (about forty minutes after they were ordered), but our server neither checked in with us nor refilled our water glasses.
After we sat elbow-deep in dirty dishes for twenty more minutes, I finally got up, went to the bar, and asked for our check. Our waitress then reappeared, dropped off the check in a ruby slipper, and acted as though we had received royal treatment.
If you’re looking for a floor show with tons of manufactured gay atmosphere, Hamburger Mary’s will be a hit … but if you’re after a satisfying burger — or satisfying service — run, run, run away to just about any other of Palm Spring’s many hamburger-related haunts.
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