Fincastles 50's Burger Diner on Elm Street
by evilbeth | Published on July 21st, 2007, 1:40 pm | Food
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So I've been wondering about this place since I spied some blog pop up on the Internet telling me about a downtown restaurant called Fincastles. It's a restaurant that tries to do a good old flashback to the 50's, a metaphorical teen burger joint with the Juke Box in the corner, and the double straw milkshakes.
Opened in 2005 by Emmett and Jody Morphis, you could literally slap "Daily Planet" on the outside of the building, and sell my DP Chili Burgers, and you'd say "OMG, it really is the Daily Planet." It's that kind of feel. It's a brick diner with steel accenting on the lunch bar. Everything says, downtown "I'm in a rush" megatropolis, except for the logo, the outdoor seating and college waitress dressed with a groovy 70's skirt and tank, anklets made from nature, and her obvious "I'm a student" motif demeanor. It's an eclectic restaurant with a unique staff that was more than friendly the day we showed up for an "Official Fincastle Burger."
This is where my first advice comes. Order the onion rings. They are down-right smashing, and the best part of our meal. The Fries were okay, but the onion rings are huge deep battered homemade onion rings with a pleasant texture and taste. You're going to want to save a couple them for my next recommendation: Put one (or two) on your burger.
Yes I've been told, that the secret to a good experience at Fincastles, is to take your burger remove the lid and plop a couple of these quarter pound onion rings on your meat... Only then can you say you've had the Fincastle experience.
The Fincastle burger by itself was fresh and tasty. It's made fresh with real beef. You can even ask the cook to see his balls of meat which sit in a cooler beside the grill. Upon you're order, they reach in and grab one of their fresh balls of ground beef, slap it on the sizzling grill, and cook it flat with a hamburger press. No frozen hamburger patties at this place.
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But the secret to any popular 50's based restaurant was the sauce. Think Big Boy's or Shoney's and their tartar sauce, or McDonald's and their Big Mac sauce. Fincastles realized they needed a proprietary sauce, that would not only make their burger patron's crave their food but also become a synonymous flagship of their establishment when a chain of Fincastles break out all along the east coast. To me it was kind of like a spicy ketchup, which isn't necessarily my forte', but for a Ketchup lover it could be "the answer" you've been looking for. What makes it even more rebellious is that most famous restaurants who have had "secret sauces" generally base them on mayonnaise. It's definitely a unique, and innovative flavor.
Here's the thing. I think Fincastles may really be onto something. The location on Elm street downtown. The ambiance of a retro fifties burger grill, and the fresh homemade burgers. But I think it lacks something, something that it's predecessors had, a product that instantaneously grabs you by the stomach and says "I don't care how much this costs, you're coming back." And that's the downside. With 2 adults and 2 kids, the cost of a meal cost over $30.00 with gratuity. That's alot of money, even for uppity Elm street. I don't mind helping a small business pay the over-priced rent of Greensboro's revitalization efforts, but to put that in perspective, when I took the whole family out to the kinda-swanky Macaroni Grill over at Friendly center the week before, the grand total was only $40.00.
The Bottom Line? Expensive but unique. The food was fresh, the service was great, and it's about the only thing on Elm street giving it a go at breaking out from the norm. I'd highly recommend it atleast once, and after that keep it to a maximum of ordering onion rings until the next paycheck.
