DeRusha Eats: My Burger
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Twin Cities family's burger chain is ready to really get cooking.
My Burger started in the Minneapolis skyways almost ten years ago. Now there are three locations, with plans for even more.
John Abdo, president of My Burger, says Americans have had a love affair with the hamburger for more than 100 years.
"Everybody remembers burgers and fries as a kid," Abdo said. "When you're eating, it always harkens back to … backyard grilling."
His family's newest shop is in Stadium Village at the U of M. And besides their original restaurant downtown, there's another near Lake Calhoun.
"The downtown one we have a business lunch crowd where it's everybody's on the run, everybody's moving fast," he said. "And our Calhoun store's a lot more leisure, a lot more families, a lot of young couples. And [at the U location] we got, obviously, 50,000 students at our door step."
Abdo hopes My Burger's simple menu is a recipe for repeated success: fresh ground beef, hand formed into 4-ounce patties every day.
"What we found is we like to season them right after we finish pattying them," Abdo said. "We like the salt and the pepper and couple other spices to kind of just sit there and cure throughout the course of the day."
His parents founded the chain, while his brother Paul does marketing and real estate.
On campus, My Burger worried about competing with all the bar specials. But Abdo found that college kids' budgets have changed since my days in school.
"It's not uncommon to get, like, a $15 ticket. They'll get our double burger of the month, a side of Cajun fries or onion rings and they'll throw like a large chocolate shake on top of that, or a beer," he said.
Abdo's go-to is the original double: two burgers, American cheese and fried onions.
The Humpty is the burger of the month, topped with a fried egg.
"The burger of the months that are spicy are always our best sellers," Abdo said.
They're classic burgers in an incredibly cool space. And John hopes the My Burger story is just beginning.
"We'd like to have ten of them in the next few years total if things keep going well," he said. "And then if it works out in Minnesota, then maybe kind of expand from there."
The downtown location serves breakfast from 7 a.m. till 10 a.m. And both the Calhoun and Stadium Village locations serve beer.
