Sideshow Burgers Rosanna — Restaurant in Melbourne

I've eaten at the owners previous establishments, where they've experimented with 'burger night's previously. I was excited to hear they were doing a dedicated burger joint, and hoped I liked what they offered.

I'm pretty critical of burgers - I like what I like - but also realise each place makes 'their' burger, and while I may not like one, I respect the fact that others will.

The 'Sideshow' is obviously this joint's burger in that it's the simple meat, cheese, sauce, onions, pickle and lettuce kinda burger. At most places, this is the burger I order both to be able to compare, and because if you do it right, you shouldn't need much else.

The combination of a not-too-sweet, soft, brioche bun, well-cooked good quality tasty meat pattie, a really tasty sliced pickle & onions, and the combination of mustard, ketchup and kewpie mayo ... it all works splendidly. The size is good - slightly larger than a lot of boutique modern burger joints, and the chips - while nothing out of the ordinary - are a good accompaniment.

I occasionally do the Sideshow with bacon, which is great that you can choose to do so if you're in a bacon-y mood. Plus I've had the Ringmaster (southern fried chicken) a few times, and it's also delicious and the chicken is super tender.

The secret sauce (both a chip-dip option, and it's on the Ringmaster) is delicious. I was kinda disappointed when one of the staff proceeded to tell me what was in it - I liked it being a secret.

The fitout is sparse, and I would say 'hip' because I'm older, but I really dig the artwork. I haven't eaten there - this is normally our 'too tired to cook after putting the kids to bed' food. But it's pretty damn awesome food to sit on the couch and trawl Netflix while eating.

Admittedly, I've had a few 'off' orders (a super-chewy pattie, wrong burger, really small small chips). But it's a new place - these things happen. I worked in hospitality for nearly a decade and starting something like this from scratch is quite difficult. But ... their consistency is ever-improving, and I'm working my way towards fasting for a whole day so I can build my own tower of burger like they keep putting pictures of on their FB page.

Update: a few months on and they've added more burgers. The Smokey Joe is my new favourite burger ever. BBQ sauce, onion rings, bacon etc .... man, it's super tasty. I also tried the Snake Charmer, which had a really nice chipotle flavour with a bit of a kick. Every single order we've had in the last few months (over a dozen) has been super fresh, super tasty and always...

I was in Rosanna as a once off so decided to get a burger. I saw the ratings on Google were high for this place so I gave it a try. Oh, they were wrong.

You have to be a little nervous when a burger joint doesn't have salt and pepper anywhere to be seen.

The store was a bit sorry, and they have an open kitchen so it's not good to leave wrappers and ingredients on the floor. Place seemed a bit dirty for my liking.

Burger: meat was very bland and was like mush. Chicken was okay, a bit dry but not terrible. The pickles in the burger tasted horrible and like bootleg MacDonald's pickles. The burger was pretty tasteless overall and I felt the ingredients were very cheaply sourced, more than other restaurants. 2/10

Loaded chips: not salted at all, and definitely not loaded. The combination of sauce on top wasn't my thing but I can see how someone would like it. But to call fries 'loaded' and then just have two bits of spring onion and a scarce portion of two different bottled sauces, and no salt?!... C'mon, i guess the joke goes with the attempted carnival theme. 1/10

Shake: it was all air and milk with a vanilla taste. Better off buying vanilla milk at the super market, better taste and value. 1/10

Overall, I wouldn't go back and I'd recommend to not waste your time and money here. Even with the 25% off from EatClub, I don't think it's worth it and although it is edible, definitely a low quality restaurant.

Worst burger, chips AND shake I've had in a long time, they hit the trio. But it's not that bad as so say there isn't...

Burgers were good as ever in the past but read on…. sweet potato chips was undercooked a week ago from this post and room temperature. Had food poisoning woke up at 4am! Uber doesn’t care and spoke to restaurant. Be careful ordering chips!

I can not respond to the owners response I have a sensitive gut that due to previous experiences my body can easily detect food. According to many websites “ symptoms can start any time from 30 minutes to 3 weeks after eating contaminated food“ and for me lying down I get nauseous, stuff goes up my esophagus and then I throw up. It is fine if you don’t believe me. Also it was room temperature upon arrival so according to the food standards it was concerning hard to know how hot it was after leaving the shop as Uber eats handled the food.

I thought I give the burgers ago due to my previous experience. So I made another order recently which is of 2 sideshow burgers and normal chips. I clearly had no kewpie mayo, no onions and ketchup on the Uber order and it is on the receipt too. They had mayo! I got refunded. But unfortunately that did end there. So I wiped off the mayo and ate the burger as is tasted ok noticed the paddies were a little red didn’t think much of it until this morning I woke up with food poisoning vomiting up undercooked/medium rare burger paddies. Will ring up regarding this up too. You guys disappoint me at...