BRGR Bar — Restaurant in Portsmouth

I have recently returned from a social distancing driven “vacation” to a fellow “safe state” and have a lot to say about several restaurants and venues. This review will be specific to BRGR Bar in Portsmouth New Hampshire. When you are in a town full of amazing restaurants how do you ensure you are seen. Take a old format from the last few generations and give it a new spin for the next few. The BRGR bar hits the nail right on the head. This review has a part two because we returned a day later to Sample the “Adult” milkshakes.

We dropped in for a snack and drinks while exploring Portsmouth shops on a Tuesday. As it turns out several of the area restaurants take this day off including our intended destination, Row 34. Lucky for us the BRGR bar was right down the street and OPEN!

One of my Sons, two of my daughters and myself were seated immediately outside under an umbrella. We started with cocktails because it was 5pm somewhere. We tried BRGR BAR Sour and the Sippin on Gin and Spice, both delicious, but the Sour was picked again for round two. It is their spin on the New York Sour which is a traditional whiskey sour (less egg white) with a red wine floater. If your looking for a bite of bite in your glass try “Gin & Spice” which is most certainly Margarita inspired.

For food to share we decided on the house made fried pickles and the Philly Cheese Steak egg rolls from the appetizer menu and the poutine from the main menu. None of these choices disappointed. I am a fan of fried pickles and their offering is in the top ten. The Philly Cheese Steak Rolls were hot and delicious, but the filling was greasy, so much so that my first bite resulted in a splatter that stained my pants. The poutine was one of the better versions we sampled over the course of our week in Portsmouth. The further north you get the more you will see this regional Canadian dish on the menus.

My vegan daughter had the Caesar Salad which comes with a vegan Caesar dressing. I have a hard time fathoming how you can leave out Anchovies, Mayo, and Parmigiano-Reggiano and still claim its Caesar, but she said it was delicious. She did have to pass on the fried crispy garbanzo beans they use instead of croutons because of cross contamination issues in the restaurant deep fryers. She is allergic to meat proteins.

All in all, the food was good, the service was excellent, and we made plans to return with the rest of the family in a day or so to take advantage of the extensive milkshake menu. But to be fair and balanced with the other restaurant reviews I have written BRGR bar did not quite make the five-star rating in my book. That kind of praise I reserve for a truly mind-blowing experience. That being said it is absolutely worth the visit for great service and the gourmet spin on the Burger Joint!

PART II will have to wait until Google allows...

I have wanted to go here for a while. My family showed up around 3:30. There was no other customers so we thought it would be quick service since we had plans that evening. Waitress sat us at a table without saying a word. We ordered quickly but ended up sitting there for 30 minutes waiting for our food. There was a shift change while we were waiting and our waitress just put her coat on and left. She never apologized for the wait on anything, just left. I ended up getting up and walking through the empty restaurant to the bartender and told her we we're leaving if our food didn't come out in the next 5 minutes. She gave me a rude look and walked outback. The food finally came out and at least if it was good the wait would have been worth it but it was awful. For a "burger bar" none of our burgers were cooked right, they were all well done even though the menu said "all burgers are cooked medium unless otherwise specified". I got a bison burger which was so dry and could have been made into dog food. My husbands burger was so well done it was hard to swallow. My sons turned out like a gray brick of meat. I also asked for buffalo sauce and ended up with a chili sauce which was spicy and hard to swallow. I ended up dumping it on my burger thinking it was buffalo (because that's what I ordered) and it made my over cooked burger even worse. The cherry on top was all of our fries werent even warm. It's like they had been just sitting back there in the kitchen leftover from lunch. The whole experience was awful and so disappointing. Everyone told me to try the Portland location because the waitresses are nicer and the cooks there know how to actually cook a burger but I'm just not willing to drop another $60 if it sucks again. We will stick to the Black Cow in Portland because they make an amazing burger. My take back from this experience was don't believe...

My husband and I had a great experience at BRGR bar a month ago, so I thought I would return with my sister and our sons. We went after a show at Portsmouth Music Hall and arrive mid-afternoon (3pm-ish) - it wasn't busy and the gentleman at the door said we would be seated in 10 minutes. I noticed he didn't write our name down, so I approached him about this and he told us not to worry and that he wouldn't forget us. He offered to let us wait at the bar, so we did...

Meanwhile, another host/waiter ended up seating a party our size that came in after us. I approached this other host/waiter as he was clearing off a 2nd table for yet another party that came in after us and let him know we had been waiting...he responded that the wait would be 20 minutes (after we'd already been waiting 15-20 minutes) and then proceeded to seat the 2nd party. I approached the host/waiter whom we initially spoke to upon our arrival and he threw his hands up and gave me attitude.

The only saving grace was the female bartender who was nice and asked if there was anything they could do to make it right and ended up comping my sister's beverage...Unfortunately, they'd given away the last empty table for a party our size and we had two hungry 10-year-old boys and were not going to wait around for the extended amount of time it would take for a table to open up.

The host we spoke to initially should have at least taken ownership for the mishap and apologized, but the fact that he gave us attitude instead was appalling an unprofessional. He made BRGR bar look bad. It's too bad that this happened in a highly competitive area, as there are plenty of other places to eat...we ended up going to British Beer Co. instead and had a better experience.

Just make sure they put you on the list when you get there and don't...