96th Street Steakburgers - Revisit

****THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED****
96^th Street Steakburgers is a quick place that our whole family can agree on. It’s borderline fast food, but about as close as I get on a semi-regular basis. They do cook the food to order and even the French fries are fresh.

I haven’t written about it in a few years (holy moly does time fly) and since it is a fairly regular spot for us, I figured I’d do a quick revisit. The burgers are tasty—my favorite part being the special sauce they use. It’s got a little bit of tanginess to it and gives some extra depth to the burger. I get mine with cheese pickles and the sauce—hubby usually adds lettuce and grilled onions. Both options are tasty. It’s a fairly thin burger, and they cook them all the same, but the maintain a fairly juicy inside and have some crispy edges. The burgers are around $4 for a single and around $6 if you make it a combo with a drink and fries.

Like I said, the fries are freshly cut and cooked—they can vary slightly in how crispy they are, but they have a good flavor. I love it when they’re really crisp, and the last couple of times they have been. Sometimes they can be a bit greasy though. The portions are generous with the fries (our family of four usually splits two orders). My daughter loves the milkshakes (around $3) and usually gets the chocolate. 

Anyhow, it’s a good place to get a quick bite at what is basically an independently owned fast food joint. You don’t see too many of those.  The service (counter service) can be a little gruff at times, but they’re quite fast. The place never seems very crowded though. Whenever I go I wonder how they maintain such a big place on the amount of business they have.

What do you guys think of it?

96^th Street Steakburgers

4715 East 96^th Street

Indy  46240

317/844-6351

www.96thstreetsteakburgers.com 

96th Street Steakburgers: Revisit

****THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED****
I owed a friend a lunch, and he wanted to go to 96^th Street Steakburgers (cheap date right?)so I figured it was a good time for a revisit.  This time I spent a little more time looking over the menu before ordering my usual burger and toppings and went with one of their signature styles (they call them “stylized” burgers.) I decided to go with the “monster style” which is a take off of the In ‘n  Out “animal style” if I am not mistaken.

So the monster style means the bun is grilled with mustard and the burger includes grilled onions, both things I like, although for some reason, I don’t usually order my burger with mustard.  I also had cheese and pickles and a side of fries.  The burger was really tasty and was cooked just the way I like it—thin and with nice crispy edges from the grill.  I was much more impressed with this burger than I was the first time I had one.  It probably also helped that I ate it there this time and it was piping hot.

I liked the mustard grilled on the bun—there was plenty of mustard on it, but cooking a little mellowed the flavor a bit.  The flavor of the onions was good—but the onions were a large slice out of an onion with a bunch of rings, which made them a little annoying to eat, because they would stick out of your mouth when you tried to take a bite.  I prefer them chopped up a little so you don’t have strings of onion hanging down your chin.  I pulled a few of them off so at least I wasn’t making a total mess.  The pickles are also tasty—thick cut and the not overly pickled kind (although I like both kinds).  These were more the type in which you can still recognize them as having once been a cucumber.  A good burger over all.  I liked it.

Their fries are hand cut and fried, and are pretty good. Thinner than most, although not quite shoestring thin.  They are cooked pretty dark and have a decent flavor.  They were nice and crispy (better than when I had them to go last time).  Nothing amazing in my mind, but an adequate accompaniment to the burger.

So it had been awhile since I had been, so obviously I hadn’t rushed back since my last review, but I am glad my friend suggested it, because it was tasty.

96th Street Steakburgers
4715 East 96th Street
Indy, 46240
317/844.6351www.96thstreetsteakburgers.com

96th Street Steakburgers

****THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED****
Ok, so the other day when I posted my review on Five Guys, and several of you commented that you thought that it was actually 96 Street Steakburgers that was more like In ‘n Out Burger, hubby declared that that was where we were going for lunch. So who was I to argue?

Well, there are certainly similarities in the way things are done there to In ‘n Out Burger. You order at the register, your food is made to order, and they call your number when it is ready. They serve their burgers in the little paper wrapper just like In ‘n Out (although without the Bible verses), and the fries are fresh cut potatoes which are served in nearly identically shaped containers. The menu is simple—burgers, a grilled cheese, a hot dog and I think chicken fingers (which is actually twice the stuff they have on the In ‘n Out menu) and they serve their burgers (singles or doubles) with a set grouping of toppings (lettuce, tomato, pickle, special sauce), although you are free to change and add things if you want. The burgers are made from fresh, never frozen, beef. They do, however, serve beer at 96th Street, which is something I don’t think you will ever find at an In ‘n Out. Actually it is kind of funny that the California chain is the one with the Bible verses and the Indiana restaurant in the one with beer, but hey, I am not complaining.

So as for the burgers, they are good (that one on the left is my son's plain cheeseburger with his first bite taken out--he asked me to take that picture). The meat is high quality and so are the toppings. They do have a similarity to In ‘n Out, more so than Five Guys, and I preferred the size of the 96th Street burger. It was smaller and thinner and had the crispy edges that I like on a burger. The buns are nice and soft. The “special sauce” tasted similar to thousand island dressing. I think I have told you all before that I have a preference for the thinner type burger in general, so this would be more up my alley than Five Guys.

The fries at 96th Street are also freshly made, and are thinner than the ones at Five Guys, they are cooked darker, but they are not overly crispy (and full disclosure we got this to go, just as we did with Five Guys). I tend to like thin fries, but I like them to be real crispy because they tend to go soft a lot faster than fatter fries. So on the fries aspect, I think I would choose Five Guys. They both have the fresh potato-ey taste from being freshly made, but the Five Guys fries traveled better. At some point, I need to do an in store taste of both. I think though, I would be more likely to return to 96th Street based on the burgers—even though I like the fries better elsewhere, I don’t think fries alone will get me in somewhere when the burger didn’t wow me. I don’t know that the fries particularly remind me of In ‘n Out though, other than the container that they are served in. They are lighter and a little bit fatter than 96th Street.

Overall though, 96th Street is a good find for me, and a decent alternative to my favorite burgers at Workingman’s Friend and Steak n Shake. And hey, they have beer!

96th Street Steakburgers
4715 East 96th Street
Indy, 46240
317/844.6351
www.96thstreetsteakburgers.com