BRU Burger Bar Bloomington — Restaurant in Bloomington

Normally am a huge fan of this place; delicious burgers and would have put 4 stars.

Had a poor experience this weekend however and given that it wasn’t even a busy time I am extra mad about it; feel like I completely wasted my money on this meal.

1. Instructions not followed; whether by kitchen or waiting staff.

Ie: when I ask for something to be ADDED to my burger, that does not mean to replace or remove something else from my damn burger. Because I’ve had this issue here in the past, I even took the time to specify which things I wanted to make sure stayed on my burger. Pretty sure the meaning of the word “add” is common knowledge. Instead of my requests being fulfilled, my order was missing multiple key elements. This results in a burger that doesn’t taste like what I wanted it to taste like. This has occurred on more than 1 occasion and I got mad enough to write this review since I wasted $20+ each time to not get what Iasked for. I’m usually more understanding when it’s a full house but when there are a grand total of 7 guests including myself (half of whom are already eating) I feel like there is no excuse to mess up my order.

2. obnoxiously long wait times both for someone to serve me and for my meal to arrive. In my most recent visit the restaurant was almost completely empty: perhaps 2 or 3 tables had guests and 2 other people seated at the bar side. Under these lax circumstances I sat at the bar and still had to wait about 10min just for bartender to even notice me. I then was left waiting almost 30min and received a COLD burger that did not follow my instructions and tasted nowhere nearly as good as previous times. I know for a fact it doesn’t take 30min to get the burger ready.

Given these experiences I probably won’t be spending my money here for a long time.

@ mgmt/ownwr pls fix this is actually one of my...

I know this is a burger place. I did not get a burger. I got the bread pudding. And it was absolutely smashing.

While this is still under review within the underground circle of Midwestern bread pudding aficionados, this is certainly the best I've had in Bloomington.

Many bread puddings attempt to stand on their own strength. They avoid making their plate too busy, sticking with at most some ice cream or whipped cream on the side. And there is beauty in simplicity.

Bru Burger said forget all that, we're throwing the dessert kitchen sink at this thing.

Ice cream? Check. Whipped cream? Check. Candied nuts? Check. Fruit preserve? Check. Caramel drip? Check.

What an intensive list of accoutrements.

And brother, lemme tell you, it's the A team, the prime time, the who-what-when-where, the full hallelujah chorus. Truly a fabulous experience.

Maybe I'll actually get a burger here next time, but I'll probably leave the review at a high 5 stars as long as it's still pretty good, because the bread pudding carries them...

Today was our second visit to BRU Bloomington and we had better burgers this time. The milk butter chicken tenders were so good; the batter was seasoned (to me a bit salty but my partner found it okay) but not thick nor dense. Probably the best in town. I had the bison burger which was delicious with a hint of blue cheese (no cheese curbs tho). The bison patty was a bit dry but still okay. The mayo sauce did not save the dryness; rather it made the burger just slightly greasy. He had a double bacon burger and we both liked it. In the last visit I had a lamb burger which I preferred over the bison even though the bison patty was thicker/bigger. The mushroom and Swiss burger was horrible. SO salty. We did not know if it was cooked by a different chef or they thought it should be that salty. The service was better this time; last time the waitress put the sides on the wrong plate. It's not a big deal but just a sign of lack of attention. Overall, we like this restaurant and our final verdict relies on the...