Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard — Restaurant in Denver

I was avoiding any new hamburger shops. After all, I already allowed a good number of them on my “approved” list - Wendy’s, Five Guys, Smashburger - but they weren’t approved by my doctor at all. Or my wife! So, in a very minor gesture of self-control, I was at least not adding any others to my repertoire. No Bad Daddy’s, no Sonic, no Carl’s, no Freddy’s. Enough was enough.

Except then I drove past a Good Times and saw they were featuring banana shakes. Banana shakes! One of my favorites, but not so easy to find. This was the fast food equivalent of discovering Shangri-la! None of my other fast or fast-casual spots offered banana shakes.

So I pulled in. The shake was indeed wonderful, more thick and more creamy than a typical soft-serve shake. The banana flavor didn’t taste too artificial. Just a little.

The cheeseburger was good, about Smashburger-y in quality. I tried the sliders on another trip, and they were good, too. The fries come in a number of different styles, including “wild fries.” Those are spicy, of course, and they are quite tasty.

It turns out that Good Times offers a special shake flavor every month. I wonder if they carry my other much-loved but hardly-ever-found favorite? That’s cherry. Cherry! Cherry shakes are as rare as banana shakes, in my experience, and as delightful. I’ll have to keep my eyes open.

Good Times is a Colorado original, founded in 1987 in the midst of the first wave of fast-casual restaurants here. It’s often included in articles or surveys that cover the quick-service restaurant phenomenon. If you ask me, that’s stretching things. It’s just another burger joint! Then again, perhaps we can make allowances for a spot that offers...

I started out as a huge fan of this chain because of their roots and history in Denver. This chain grew out of a remarkable Denver area restaurant called Round The Corner so its always had a special place in my heart. However this chain is a blessing & a CURSE. Their food is delicious for fast food. The HUGE disappointment about Good Times however is that 95% of the time that you place an order and make a special request, they just can't get it right in the kitchen. TRY ordering a burger from their menu and request for that burger to be made any differently than how it's presented on the menu and it will RARELY EVER be handed to you even close to how you request it. This is not a minor mistake either, for example...let's say you order a cheeseburger and ask them to leave everything off but the cheese and the mustard, they will typically give you a burger made without cheese and then add thousand Island dressing and lettuce. I STOPPED using Good Times for nearly a year because these mistakes happened over and over. Finally today, I was craving one of their burgers and I drove through, placed a special order and when I got it home, my receipt showed my order as I gave it at the drive through but once again, the Burger not only was lacking one of the items I requested, they had added something I didn't even request or want.

Good-Times!!! What is the problem guys??? Why can't you just...

Good Times Didn't Bring Me Good Times: I had shreaded wheat for breakfast around 9am, then ate here for lunch around 3:30pm. I ate fried pickles plus sauce, and one of the 3 bambino burgers with bacon and cheese (which also has some sauce on it). Also had a small chocolate malt. I have eaten here before and the food is generally good, but the results have been rough from this lunch.

A few hours after eating lunch, my stomach started feeling awful. It got so bad that I had to leave work early. I felt nauseous and spent much of my time later getting extremely familiar with my bathroom (including having to visit it so often between the hours of 2:30am and 5:30am that I just layed on the bathroom floor until the next attack started). I was supposed to work today, but that wasn't hapening with the way I was feeling and with my loosing bathroom battle.

It's now about 24 hours after I ate there and I'm starting to feel a bit better. I'm exhausted from a mostly sleepless night, and I had to take off a full day of work (plus leaving early yesterday). Not sure if it was one of the sauces I ate that wasn't stored correctly or something else from there, but I won't be back for at least a good long time. Too bad since the food is pretty tasty...