Welcome to the Rox

The search for an affordable stuffed burger

by Trey Popp

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Published: Jul 22, 2008

I had come to Roxburger in search of a good stuffed hamburger, but one look at the Roxborough establishment's menu was enough to throw me off my game. At the bottom of the list of french fries, onion rings and mozzarella sticks, my attention was stolen by an item pumped up in a large font, complete with ampersand and all-caps: "Fried Mac & CHEESE." Perhaps my hunt for a cheaper alternative to the glorious stuffed burgers at Good Dog was about to land an unexpected quarry.

"Tell me about this fried mac and cheese," I said to the waitress, with the eagerness of a man dining completely unsupervised.

"We're boycotting them," she replied. "No one who works here likes them. Customers, either. So we're boycotting making them. When we have it, it's homemade macaroni and cheese rolled up into a ball, battered and deep-fried. But we don't have any today."

They were also out of stuffed brownies and cookies — in fact, every dessert but ice cream. And the ice cream had something in common with the fries and rings, in that they are both frozen — "but top-of-the-line frozen," I was assured.

"The burgers are never frozen, though," she quickly added. "Every one of those is made and stuffed by hand." So that's what I stuck with, along with sweet potato fries and a root beer float.

Roxburger occupies a corner lot on Ridge Avenue not far from Gorgas Park. Inside, everything that's not shiny metal is hot pink — the tabletops, seat cushions, barstools and counter. A hodgepodge of old record covers and celebrity headshots covers much of the back wall, running from Jan & Dean to Audrey Hepburn. It's kind of like Johnny Rockets, except that Simpsons reruns trump canned oldies.

The staff seem distracted by minor workplace drama — a drawn-out conversation over shift scheduling took precedence over my inquiries — but my 9 ounces of ground beef stuffed with blue cheese and Cajun dust emerged from the kitchen in a timely manner.

It could have used a garnish — even just a few sliced onions would have beat the empty bun (turns out such toppings are available if you ask) — but the meat itself was moist, done exactly as I requested it, and the tasty filling somehow didn't ooze all over the place, a hazard I've come to expect from the $10 jobs at Good Dog. For $5.75, doctored with a squirt of spicy brown mustard, it's as good a deal as you're likely to find.

Of course, depending on supply snafus and kitchen boycotts, it could also be the only one Roxburger has to offer.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

Roxburger | 6190 Ridge Ave., 215-508-1551 | Hours: Mon.-Sat., 8 a.m.-9 p.m.; closed Sun. | Burgers, sandwiches, snacks, $1.25-$6.95 | Delivery available

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