Burger Liquor — Restaurant in Wellington

I'm sure many Americans have eaten here, but as one myself, I can definitely say that they make a great burger. Seriously, it may be one of best burgers I have ever had (at least in my personal top three,) and I've eaten a lot of burgers back home all over the US.

New Zealand obviously takes a lot of pride in their beef, and Burger Liquor only uses New Zealand beef (like many other places here.)

The service was incredible and though this is not a fast food place, they do get your food out to you very quickly.

The decor is kitschy and fun. The menu has witty and pun-filled items like the "Mariah Curry" burger. They play great music...a mix of 1990's and 2000's pop, dance, and lighter hip-hop, with some local New Zealand artists that I had to Google so I could listen to more of later.

As their name suggests, they also have a full bar and they have a lot of very creative milkshakes and sundaes (optionally) incorporating their full bar with a separate menu for mixed drinks with a great deal of inventiveness.

For our food, we had a Bernie Mac (their version of a Big Mac but much better) and the Smokey (with BBQ sauce, but not standard bottled American style corn syrup based sauce. Think homemade and more like a smokey and slightly sweet aioli. Very good.) We paired it with the Punjabi Poutine, which is french fries (the hand-cut style) with Indian Tikka Masala (butter sauce) and cheese on top. Surprisingly good combination!

Though we only had one day in Wellington, we plan on eating there again before we leave.

In short, just go there. You'll have a fun time and...

A bit upset about the statement put out in favor of the government decision of suppressing WFH entitlements. I love BL and go there regularly… I’m not a public servant, so I won’t be affected by this decision, but I’m now rethinking my lunch habit due to your lack of respect for workers rights… by the way, are your employees unionized? Do they have a collective agreement? Do you offer living wage for them? Do they earn enough money they can go to other hospitality places in their free time?

Maybe if the govt hadn’t fired more than 6K workers businesses wouldn’t be struggling as much? If people had money they would be going to restaurants more?

We are in the 21st century, there are things like delivery, you don’t need people actually at the office to eat at your restaurant. There’s also nights, weekends. As a business maybe you should think about what you are offering to people that make they want to go there. I would suggest chairs with back support for us with back issues, for example. Maybe more comfort and less noise would drive people to your business?

Improving your ordering system is a good idea too. I have tried a few times to order from your website but it didn’t work. So maybe improving customer experience and expanding revenues by adopting easier ways of ordering?

From a loyal customer I really felt bad about the statement. Undermining other people’s rights it’s not a way to remedy...

I'm not from Wellington so I've only been here twice. First time - incredible. I was telling everyone and anyone that they must go here. Tonight however the patty was smashed (I thought smashed was only on request? I did not request) and it was smashed so thin that all the edges were burnt to a bitter crisp. It was not pleasant to eat, but eat it I did because its late and I'm not from here and I have long covid and already did so much walking today. They did mention they were very short in the kitchen which absolutely sucks, but I would have rather waited a bit longer for a non-smashed non-burnt patty (I'm assuming they smashed it to cook it faster). The wait wasn't long anyway. The servers however were excellent, bringing water, drinks menu, checking back to see if I was ok for drinks - although they didn't do a meal check. "Give feedback at the time, don't post a review" you say. Well when I went to pay, I said the burger wasn't great and the guy just pretended I didn't say anything. I ate it, I was still going to pay. I did get a passive aggressive goodbye though. Yay

EDIT: ok so I just looked at other recent reviews and the photos are all of super smashed patties with burnt edges so guess that's just how they are doing burgers now, not just a bad night. Don't know what to say about that really, it doesn't taste nice and I...