Public Burger — Restaurant in Zurich

I am writing this to the owner and manager(s) of Public Burger. I have been the CEO and owner of a restaurant group, including a burger restaurant, and I find it to be VERY hard work. Please consider this feedback to be constructive criticism, and also understand that I wanted to handle this quietly with your team but that the private route did not work at all. In short: it was expensive food, not very good, and your team CHARGED US FOR FOOD THAT WAS NOT DELIVERED, REFUSED A REFUND, REFUSED TO MAKE US THE FOOD, AND REFUSED TO MAKE IT RIGHT IN ANY MEANINGFUL WAY.

On 5/19/23 I went to Public Burger at about 20:45. The prices were very high (a burger at the steakhouse we later ate at was cheaper AND came with fries) but, if you can get them, I say good for you. We got our food to go, and the bill was over 34 CHF per person. I had the Swiss Mountain burger and it wasn't very good but it wasn't terrible, either. The fries were OK. One of us, a native german speaker, ordered a vegan burger. She said vegan at least 3 times and also pointed at the vegan option on the menu. I also pointed and explained in English it was a vegan order. The waiter repeated it.

We took the food to our hotel, started to eat, and the person who ordered the.vegan burger screamed. Her burger was beef. All of our burgers were beef. She couldn't eat her dinner despite having been hungry all night. We immediately called the restaurant and explained the situation. It was confirmed that the order was put in for beef. We were told that because the restaurant was closing soon, they could not remake it (we didn't ask them to). We were further told that they "could not" do a refund, but that they could give us a vegan burger the next day.

We didn't order a vegan burger "the next day." We ordered a vegan burger for dinner. A dinner my friend never got. She went to bed hungry. Your restaurant took our money, didn't deliver, fed a vegetarian her first beef in forever, said it couldn't make us a new burger, said it could not do a refund (this is DEMONSTRABLY false. A refund is something any restaurant/store/person can do if they want), and only offered to make us a new burger if we came back on a day we had no desire to come back on. We leave Zurich tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy the 20 CHF we paid for the vegan burger we didn't and couldn't receive. I don't care at all about the 20 CHF, but the way your team acted after screwing up and leaving someone hungry is totally unacceptable, and that's why I am leaving you this review. I hope you can do better...

Was out with my husband and decided to grab a bite. The interior is wonderfully artdeco and is reminiscent of an oldschool speak-easy. The decision to have regular music running in the background instead of a proper, suitable spotify playlist does put a damper on the ambience. The place was not very crowded when we arrived, so it was surprising when it took the staff a good minute to notice us standing at the entrance. Over time it become clear that the staff prioritized chatting privately over giving the few customers they did have a great dining experience. We asked to be seated on the other end of the restaurant of two families with horribly loud, small children. To our great displeasure, our request was not only denied, we were also seated directly between said table and a table of loud, chatty young women showing eachother videos at full volume. The food was alright, but not worth the price. Farm to table is just not enough to justify a 70+ CHF bill for two people, especially if the food is not certified organic. Now to the plating: if I order a burger with avocado, that I was not informed I would have to assemble myself, why WHY would you not slice the half avocado for me! The plates my food came in were so tiny that it was impossible to cut the avocado anywhere other than the table itself, leaving me to resort to eating the damn thing seperately. All in all, the place is too gimmicky, the staff is inattentive and definitely overpriced. Would not recommend even when drunk or hoping to score cheap...

For me the most important thing is clean. It seems like they wish customers adding sauce by themself, so they put several bottles on the table. But every customer can grasp the sauce bottles, so they are very oil. I hate that feeling, it is horrible. Please stop doing this... and it is hard to control the sauce amount.

Speaking to the enviroment, I can also accept to eat in burgerking, but if you just adding some can-not-be-worse plates, knifes, cups, why offer them at all. It is not worthy.

The public burger itself has good meat quality, but as a whole it is too dry. And I have some stomachs pain after the eating.

I would rather pay more to have a better experience, the point that can make me exited to sit inside a restaurant is what I can have from that experience. Either delicious, or clean&beautiful with fair enough food taste, or everything is good. Anyone of the 3 will motivate me to give a 5...