Burgers from Montgomeryville, Miami and Sandy Springs

Amercian Star Diner in Montgomeryville, PA was a destination hoping to improve recent burger adventures in the Lansdale area, but proved once again disappointing.  A classic diner location with a classic menu complete with a classic burger turned out pretty boring.  Definitely edible and only just that good.  Old school iceberg lettuce, a fair patty and well melted cheese, but only to be stamped with regular and far from special.

Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in the design District in Miami, Florida presented a much better burger.  Not even in the same category as American Star or diners in general.  This burger had high expectations to meet from a recent mention in the 25 best burgers.  Presentation was right on lined by a distinct variation with it's yellow tomato slice atop crumbled and melted Vermont white cheddar cheese.  The burger is very good and ‘genuine’ none the less, but a few ounces short of award winning or chalking up on a favorite list.

The burger at 5 Seasons Brewery in Sandy Springs, GA was good.  Tasty and hit all the staple requirements of the American burger sandwich but nothing was special about it.  A meal for sure, but the beer is much more of a draw.

BURGERFI...my new favorite

Oh BURGERFI.  I have driven by your burger joint at Commercial and AIA a few times over the past few months and reserved my visit for a random day.  The day finally came.

I now wish I stopped by the last few times I saw you metal roof in my rear view.

The menu was endless.  But, this is probably the worst thing I can say about BURGERFI. 

I ordered a double with cheese, a beer, cheese fries and split onion rings with my friends.  The best thing about BURGERFI was actually not the burgers or the hot dogs or the cheese sauce.  It was actually the service.  Stellar.  I felt as if I wasn't even in south Florida.  Where did these people come from?  Someone must have one hell of a glass half full, have ready Danny Meyer's book or is just a natural.  Service this good is not just a by product of a new restaurant.  The management is really onto something here.

The ambiance was cool but modern integrating classic burger joint stuff.  Old school light bulbs hung from polished ice picks.  Stools, benches and chairs were all over for the patrons.  A list of beers and custards complimented the options.

My cheeseburger bun had the logo burned on.  I'd sum up or classify the burger as superior fast food.  No temperature asked but all the right standards, cushy, pillowy soft bun, cheese melted to perfection, patties grilled some where in between medium, Shake Shack and the burgers you remember as a child that were just what you wanted.  Awesome.

I could not resist getting more food after round one tasted so good.  I just couldn't leave without eating more.  I ordered a Chicago dog and outside of my experience at Portillo's recently I don't know how to measure up a Chicago dog, but this is now it.

BURGERFI, I'll be back.

P.S.  Please keep the service level this high.

BURGERS & SHAKES

BURGERS & SHAKES in Miami Beach, FL

 
It has many of the right ingredients but just not all there yet. The set up is right on.  The menu is great.  But, the burger needs a little more time.

 

 

I was skeptical when I wasn't asked for a cooked temperature.  You know, mid-rare, medium, well, etc...  I opted for the B&S Burger with cheese, bacon and a fried egg.  The bun was good but not the best match.  My egg was fried and not sunny side up as preferred.  The patty ended up medium well.

Overall a good lunch but not worth a drive, but maybe a step away from the beach.

Enter Stage Left. Exit Very Happy

Foods, restaurants and definitely burgers rarely live up to how good you remembered them being from the last visit.

Consistency and high quality is part of the reason that Stage Left lives up to their burger reputation. The other reasons are the meat, cheese, bacon and the bun.

Go to Stage Left in New Brunswick, New Jersey and order a medium-rare burger to get a mound of a burger perfectly seared all around with the classic seal locking all of the best juices in. The size and shape of the resulting patty conclude that no amateur is pressing these parties on the grill top. The final product comes out with a super pink tartare like center while the outer edges are a medium-well crust.

The cheese is a wonderful 3 year old Vermont Tillamook to add the perfect tart and variation in between the sirloin and crispy bacon.

Strips of salty bacon peek out from under the bun's cap as if you were supposed to pull on them or maybe that is just the charm of the salt flakes around the rim of each strip.

This perfect sandwich is all put together with lettuce, tomato, red onion and surrounded by a great bun.

Stage Left is a phenomenal stop for the burger aficionado. Make sure to sit at the bar as burgers are not served in the regular dining areas.

Milestones and Changes

200 posts and 20,000+ pageviews in my first 4 1/2 years.  Not overwhelming by any means but still chugging along.


I apologize for any broken links and trouble surfing to and around my blog for the coming weeks.  I have made a decision to realign my online digital presence by creating a new simple homepage to serve as a menu for my online profiles and activity.  This change forced me to commandeer my domain of michaelmakis.com to point to my new landing page instead of my blog.  My blog will retain its original michaelmakis.blogspot.com address for now until I can find a way to claim michaelmichael.com (owned by someone else who is not currently using it and doesn't want to sell it) or michaelmichael.blogspot.com to match my blog's title with the URL.

Thanks for reading!

Putting a new stamp on the Post Office

Here are two ways to fix the out of date floundering United States Postal Service (USPS).

It's disappointing to hear the gloom in the news about the Postal Service, a service that we expect as a right in the United States of America, and how it is failing and making decisions on which local branch offices to close, which days to stop delivering mail on or how much to raise the price of a stamp.  These are not the best options and will only extend their problem and continue to destroy the brand.

Americans have been proud of the Post Office brand for years.  With few exceptions, someone can pay a minimal amount (+/-44¢) and have an envelope or small package delivered in less than 3 days to someone within the 50 states.  With all of the labor and fuel involved this is a good deal relatively speaking.  As most people know, technology advancements like email, blogging, micro-blogging, discussion forums and online bill payment compounded with social media and social networking explosions have made a significant blow to the traditional communication and financial transactions previously reserved for traditional mail.  Regardless of significant changes and improvements, the Post Office's brand is still the same.  They get important messages and packages to recipients quickly (relatively speaking) consistently.

Companies need to change just like people.  Small, medium and large companies change all the time.  They adapt by creating better products and delivering new services every day or end up going out of business when their products and services are no longer needed.  Why should this be any different for the Post Office?  There is no need for the Post Office to die off nor should the great people of the United States let it.

USPS made the necessary changes to stay competitive with shippers like UPS, FedEx and DHL over the past couple of decades.   But USPS has failed to stay competitive now that communication has gone so much more digital.

Here are the answers:  email and file transfer.

If you have the least bit of technically savvy, you are probably thinking, how would this work?  These aren't new products?

Email
The Post Office needs to get into the business of email.  Email is the communication vehicle that people have been choosing and will continue to trend into for at least a few years to come.  The use of blogging, micro-blogging and discussion forums are definitely increasing, but email is something most people need in today's society.  There is money to be made off of the (regulated) advertisements parked on the side of email web based applications.  And who better to provide email security than the government?  People are born everyday that will need new email accounts and if they don't want to wait there are students in public schools that could benefit from their first email accounts.

File Transfer
The second part of the coupled fix is file transfer.  People need to get large digital files to recipients immediately every day in today's business world.  The Post Office's current best option is overnight or express mail, which just doesn't cut it for most.  They need to get into the file transfer business.  The quantity, size and frequency of transferred files is increasing all the time.  Eventually the infrastructure (application servers, server disk space, bandwidth, associated databases, etc...) of existing vendors will not be able to provide free services for transferring files and will either charge outright per file, per license or by term; or trade free file transfer services for advertisement ridden applications.  Again, there are several companies already in this space but this is consistent with the USPS brand, a lot of opportunity remains and would be easy for them to transition in customers as well as convince those advanced in the technology spectrum into digital transactions.

Innovation doesn't always come from brand new ideas as it can also come from a different application of what exists already.  Altering the USPS's product landscape with these new directions would make them drastically more applicable to today's instant communication consumer.  It's time for the Post Office to start acting outside of their proverbial box and instead of making cuts looks to redefine a well known brand.  Good Luck USPS.

3F’s for U

False Frequent Flyers

Why is it that there are so many airline frequent flyer credit card programs available now?  Road warriors and regular travelers have forged their brand allegiances grinding out weekly cross country commutes and regular airport journeys to ascend in their club’s frequent flyer statuses, only to now be trumped by business owners and heavy spenders beating the original system.  The goal of ascending to the upper medallion tiers or airline clubs to finally have a chance at a seat where you can actually get some rest, be provided with some snacks, check bags for free or imbibe in the provided spirits is diminishing in value.  The definition of an actual frequent flyer is going out the proverbial window as 'status' is now achieved in other ways.

 

The airlines have stretched their methods to increase revenues far and wide and have embarked upon partnerships with financial institutions to get the less frequent travelers to pay annual banking fees in order to be rewarded with tradeoffs of short domestic tickets for annual fees and jump the true frequent flyers to get the last few upgrade seats available.  This is only going to increase over time as these airline companies continue to penetrate the credit card industry.  If they want to give away free trips that’s up to them and I'm all about companies leveraging new ways to generate revenue, but to count them in the same groups as true frequent flyers is a tough blow to take. Why not rename all of the programs to 'points clubs' as they are no longer frequent flyer programs.

  The frequent flyer system has always been tough with annual renewal goals and miles expirations, but it is becoming much more of a mirage at this point.  With the intensity of in-flight, online and tv advertising to subscribe to all of the airlines' credit cards the days of true frequent flyer upgrades are doomed.  The opportunity for upgrades and the perks for frequent travelers is really changing.

Sad days are ahead for the frequent flyer.

 

 

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