Burgers Archives - Gil's Thrilling (And Filling) Blog

JewBoy Burgers – Austin, Texas

Gil GardunoFebruary 22, 2025February 28, 202512:01 AM

With hordes of eager eaters forming lines around select restaurants–if not the block–you’d think those diners were gum-snapping Swifties clamoring to enter the venue of a Taylor Swift concert That’s the case not only in barbecue joints anointed with Michelin star and James Beard Foundation honors, not to mention restaurants featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Queues for ‘cue, lines for lasagna, cavalcades for calamari…that’s pretty much the way it is at all the time in Austin. It is a foodie city after my own heart. I loathe lines so much, I’d rather arrive half an hour early than to stand in a line for more than ten minutes. Alas, on a day in which drizzle spritzed city streets, I…

American Dog Friendly New Mexican New Mexico Santa Fe

The Pantry Dos – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil GardunoFebruary 10, 2025February 11, 202512:01 AM

There’s no annual event I enjoy more than the Roadrunner Food Bank’s Souper Bowl which takes place one week before some ballyhooed football game. That game is the National Football League’s Super Bowl, a star-studded event in which the celebrity with the best name (Taylor Swift) doesn’t even play football. Celebrities abound at the Souper Bowl, too, but they’re real people, the type of which you would enjoy sharing a meal with. During my twelvth year of serving as a judge at the Souper Bowl, I had the privilege and pleasure of spending time with several of those local celebrities. I wouldn’t trade a minute with them for an hour with Kendrick Lamar (whoever he is) or Taylor Swift. For…

American Burgers Closed in 2025 Gone But Not Forgotten New Mexico Rio Rancho

Upscale Rio – Rio Rancho, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil GardunoOctober 5, 2024December 12, 202512:01 AM

NOTE: Upscale Rio shuttered its doors for good on 4 December 2025. My friend Schuyler used to joke that every meal we enjoyed together was “upscale” because “up” was the direction his scale climbed when we finished our marathon meals. We were quite the trenchermen in our youth, bona fide threats to any all-you-can-eat buffet in town. Back then–as impoverished junior noncommissioned officers in the Air Force–ten dollar meals were near the upper end of we could afford with an occasional fifteen dollar splurge. Back then, some thirty years ago, you could get quite a bit of food for ten dollars. Fast forward a few decades and the term “upscale” has a different meaning for both of us. We have…

Albuquerque American Brewery-Pub Closed in 2025 Dog Friendly Gone But Not Forgotten New Mexico Tacos

Sobremesa Restaurant & Brewery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil GardunoSeptember 11, 2024October 16, 202512:01 AM

In June, 2021, Eater.com published a list of “the 21 Essential Restaurants in Albuquerque.” Unlike so many “clickbait” articles from national publications purporting to tell New Mexicans which restaurants across the Land of Enchantment serve the “best this” and the “best that,” the Eater feature was penned by Justin De La Rosa who actually knows this state very well. In fact, in 2015 Justin earned a “Local Hero Award” from Edible New Mexico as “best food writer.” If you’re wondering what constitutes an “Essential Restaurant,” Eater’s erstwhile national critic Bill Addison defined the term to mean “indispensable to their neighborhoods, and eventually to their towns and whole regions,” to “ultimately become vital to how we understand ourselves, and others, at…

American Bar & Grill Burgers Dog Friendly New Mexico Rio Rancho Sandwich

Slate Street Billiards Bar & Grille – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil GardunoMarch 2, 2024March 3, 202412:01 AM

Discovering a bubbling crude…Texas tea, black gold, oil that is, transformed Jed Clampett from poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed to a millionaire residing in a Beverly (Hills that is, swimming pools, movie stars) mansion. Moving from a tiny ramshackle hovel to a luxurious and palatial dwelling brought with it one surprise after another for Jed and his family. Among them was “a good strong eatin’ table” upon which “you could serve up a whole barbecued steer.” Jed’s nephew Jethro who graduated at the top of his glass…”by a good foot” found out from a friend that the room in which the fancy eatin’ table was centered was called a “billy-yard room.” Ergo, the table was a “billy-yard…

American Arizona Diners Drive-Ins and Dives Dog Friendly Farm to Table United States

Joe’s Farm Grill – Gilbert, Arizona

Gil GardunoDecember 31, 2023January 10, 202412:01 AM

When primitive men, women and asgender people crossed the Bering Straits to escape global freezing, they eventually made their way to the Phoenix area. Ever since, their progeny has been trying to figure out how to escape global scorching which transpires on most summer days (seven or eight months a year). They built Biosphere 2, the world’s largest controlled environment. They built a swimming pool in Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. When compelled to leave the air conditioned confines of their homes, Phoenicians risk third-degree burns from their car doors and flee to their summer homes in Prescott and Heber where instead of 130, the temperature is only 99. They also join hordes of tourists in a utopian…

Arizona Burgers Dog Friendly United States

The Chuck Box – Tempe, Arizona

Gil GardunoDecember 28, 2023January 10, 202412:01 AM

“I’ll have the great big one,” the barrel-chested behemoth behind me chortled. One of his companions, a bookish nerd followed up with “I’ll have the big one.” Not to be outdone, several male Arizona State University (ASU) students took turns ordering either the “great big one” or the “big one.” Each order was followed by raucous laughter as if they were the first students ever to place their orders for burgers named for their respective sizes (the burgers, not the students’ manhood). Not one of them dared ask for “the little one” for fear of being humiliated or even ostracized by their fellows. “What a brilliant marketing strategy!,” I thought as I, too, ordered a “great big one” even though…

Albuquerque American Burgers New Mexico

On The Flip – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoDecember 8, 2023September 13, 202412:01 AM

Though I pride myself on having a sesquipedalian vocabulary, very often pop culture vernacular escapes me. Even food memes borne of pop culture are well over my head. If you’re familiar with or use such terms as “good soup,” “cheugy,” “phone eats first,” “glizzy” and “caviar bump,” you must be from the Gen Z generation. Were I to use these terms, it would make me seem like a patronizing old fossil trying to be cool. During a December, 2023 visit to the Tin Can Alley, my Kim and I came a restaurant with a curious name neither of us could comprehend. We quickly dismissed the notion that “On The Flip” had something to do with Albuquerque drivers extending their middle…

Bar & Grill Dog Friendly New Mexico New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail: 2009 Pizza Rio Rancho

Turtle Mountain Brewing Company – Rio Rancho, New Mexico

Gil GardunoOctober 25, 2023November 2, 20233:27 PM

The Tewa name “Oku Pin” which translates in English to “Turtle Mountain” has three meanings of significance to the people of Okay Owingeh, one of New Mexico’s great Tewa speaking Northern New Mexico Pueblos. “Oku Pin” was the the Indian name given to Dr. Alfonso Ortiz who obtained worldwide prominence as an anthropologist and ethnologist until his death in 1998. Ortiz was born and raised in San Juan Pueblo which in 2006 officially changed its name to Okay Owingeh. “Oku Pin” is also the Tewa name for Sandia Peak, the 10,678-feet high mountain which provides a spectacular backdrop for Albuquerque, Bernalillo and Rio Rancho. When Nico Ortiz, son of the famous anthropologist launched his inaugural restaurant and microbrewery in 1997,…

Dog Friendly Fusion New Mexican New Mexico Tacos

The Skillet – Las Vegas, New Mexico

Gil GardunoSeptember 8, 2023October 2, 202312:01 AM

A man comes home after a long day. His wife then hits him in the back of the head with a frying pan. He clutches his head in pain asking her, “Honey why? Why did you do that?” She answers, “When I was doing your laundry I found a receipt in your pocket with a woman’s name on it.” He responds, “That’s why you hit me? Honey, Mary-Ann is a horse I bet on. That’s the receipt for my bet.” She accepts that and apologizes and they make up. Next week the same thing happens. He comes home and is struck in the back of his head with a frying pan. The husband asks, “AGAIN? You hit me in the…

Albuquerque American Breakfast Brunch Burgers

66 Diner – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil GardunoApril 16, 2023April 20, 20233:56 AM

Known as “America’s Highway” and celebrated by author John Steinbeck as the “Mother Road,” the legendary Route 66 meandered across 2,448 miles of the fruited plain, crossing three time zones and eight states as it traversed from Chicago to Los Angeles. For many—especially destitute sharecroppers fleeing Oklahoma’s devastating Dust Bowl—Route 66 held the promise of a better life. For others, Route 66 brought a sense of connectedness with parts of America previously considered difficult to reach. For them, Route 66 engendered a frontier spirit of adventure, greatly expanding their vacation options and travel opportunities. For hundreds of communities strewn along the two-lane blacktop, Route 66 was also an engine of economic prosperity, creating tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs large and small.…