YUMMY Burgers — Restaurant in Waterloo

I'll open the review with areas improvement in hopes the owner sees it. I have driven across Northfield many times since moving into the neighborhood and I see the sign for Yummy Burger and I always think to myself that I should turn in and check it out. It took me a while to actually do that though. I don't know how to make the sign better, but it probably needs improvement. I feel cheated by that sign because I could have been eating Yummy Burgers some time ago.

Anyway, on to the rest of the review. I'm coming off of a 7 year break from beef and dairy products so I've eaten at all the nearby chains, plus Yummy Burger, so I feel I have a good overview of takeout burgers in the area. Yummy wins.

I'll start with what hits your eyes first... dollars and menu items. The menu may look expensive for takeout. I think the Classic Burger was $11 on its own for example, but one thing to keep in mind is the burger patties are a decent size to begin with so you don't need a "double burger" just to have a normal amount of meat (vs a big mac let's say, which to me counts as no more than 1 patty even though there's 2). Also the food and service are better (I'm getting to that), and I'd rather support a quality local business vs an empire of mediocrity (I.e. any of the chains).

Next you'll be faced with the service/people. As I understand it, this is a father/son operation and I dealt with the father at the cash. He was quite friendly, and we had quite a good conversation while the food was being prepared. He also made recommendations, which was good, because I hadn't planned on getting "Yummy fries" but they turned out to be worthwhile.

Finally, you'll be faced with the food. I had the Classic Burger, the Yummy Fries, and apple pie. Quick ones first: the apple pie was good, perhaps not much different than other places, but to me that's like saying the Coke isn't much different than elsewhere; the Yummy Fries were awesome, basically seasoned fries with sour cream, cheese sauce, and green onion... delicious.

Now the main item: the burger. It was... yummy 🤣. But seriously... what stood out to me was the fact that when I took a bite I could taste every individual thing in the bite... there was beefy burger flavor, cheese flavor, and whatever toppings you got in that bite, and to me the onion and pickle stood out the most although all the toppings were good. This flavor business is significant to me because burgers from chains (again, let's say the big Mac) taste to me like a single thing.... a big Mac tastes like a big Mac, and it's kind of disappointing because I want a cheese burger with toppings, not a homogenous unit of burger product.

So yeah. It was worthwhile and I'll be back. Next time I plan to go hungry enough to try the...

The good: I give a 4 stars for the food. The onion rings were definitely 4.5 out of 5. I got classic burger and and it was good. I give it a 4 out of 5. In my opinion a 5 put of 5 burger is for a true gourmet burger.

The bad: I took 2 stars off for food safety health reasons.

Both the workers that were preparing the food did not wear gloves. The man that was making the burgers was touching his water bottle and other objects while waiting for the patties to cook. The lady was working the cash (touched all screens) and then went on to touch all the burger buns and topping, then touched her mask and shirt, and went back to handling the burgers... :S. Her mask also did not cover her nose.

I understand that one automatically should assume lower food safety standard when eating out, however, if I am paying for a $10+ burger, I expect the food safety measures to at least be a couple levels stronger than McDonalds? Especially during the pandemic.

I do hope that the owner and management of this joint can improve on and implement stricter safer food handling measures. That would put more customers at ease during this already stressful time.

I think I will come back in a month or 2 to see if any improvements have taken place and update my review accordingly.

update 1: I see that the owner has responded to my review and defended the food safety measures he has in place. The problem is that you may have decent food safety measures in place, but if they are not enforced and monitored then they are non- existent. I saw with my own eyes that the cashier was touching her cloth mask multiple times with her bare hand and then immediately went to touch the burger buns and toppings. So if an employee is not taking food safety seriously especially during a pandemic then I think the owner does have the responsibility to have better training and enforcement. If a customer doesn't feel safe eating the food here then that business is lost right. Of course, I may be the only customer who cares so my review and feedback can be ignored and dismissed completely, no...

I was in Waterloo today to go look at a current job my company is doing and after I got done the visit it was around lunch time and usually when I visit a job site for the first time I like to find a local shop for lunch to help stimulate the local economy a little bit. So I was craving a burger and fries so I decided to come to Yummy Burger. Let me say I don't regret my choice for lunch at all.

Customer Service was extremely polite and friendly. Got my food very quickly and they were somewhat busy. I got the Classic Burger, Yummy Fries, 2 Apple Pies and a bottle of coke.

All for $30.00. Most people may think that's expensive but realistically a Big Mac Meal will cost you $20.00 and McDonalds is overly processed and most of the time is barely warm.

I got a lot of Food and all of it was hot and fresh. The Burger was fantastic and was extremely juicy with real cheese, real bacon, and I'm pretty sure it was a handmade patty (Burger was the best burger I've had in a while and all the different flavours worked together) (Burger rating for me is 9.1 out of 10, The Yummy Fries were basically nacho style fries and they were really good (Fries weren't frozen fries and the seasoning added a nice flavour and all the topping were fresh other than the nacho cheese) (Fries rating: 8.4 out of 10), The Apple Pies were very good and made a nice sweet treat to finish the meal (Apple Pie Rating: 8.1 out of 10).

I would absolutely recommend this place for a quick lunch. The only thing that I could really see people not liking about this place is theres only 3 tables inside but personally I think burgers and fries are meant to be taken out and if you are more of a sit down person there is an option if tables are available. My overall rating of Yummy Burger is an 8.9 out of 10. Very good and will happily come back when I go back...