Hat Creek Burger Company — Restaurant in Round Rock

Don't support businesses who take advantage of people in our communities.

Several of the fired employees had out in prior notice they would be out for the day so it's only like they no call no showed. They were fired for Rsvp'ing including the ones who still showed up for their shift.

They tried to pull some shady stuff with an out of the blue employee appreciation day and when that did not work they went straight to termination despite earlier guidance that they would just be written up.

Remember, not fighting for all of our rights is how we lose them.

Last week, management at Hat Creek Burger Company in Dripping Springs fired eight employees following their participation in the Day Without Immigrants on Monday, Feb. 3, former employees told us. The protest encouraged people to stay home from work to elucidate how important immigrants are to the U.S.

Francisco Perez, an assistant general manager who showed up for his shift at the Belterra Village eatery that day, was also nonetheless terminated – accused of instigating workers to skip their shift, which he denies.

Perez didn’t think Hat Creek should have necessarily closed for the day in solidarity with its foreign-born workforce,“but they should have been honest with us and said this is what might happen to you,” he told the Chronicle.

Hat Creek did not respond to our requests for comment.

He says the manager initially stated that participating workers would merely lose their hours that day, and she asked Perez to procure a tally of those planning to miss.

Yet when he furnished the list, he says management changed its tune.

That Sunday evening, Feb. 2, the manager dispatched a flurry of text messages to employees, suddenly christening Monday a “Día de agradecimiento al equipo!” (team appreciation day) – offering a free meal and $25 Amazon gift card for anyone who showed.

Gudelia Calderon told the Chronicle, “In the four-and-a-half years that I worked for Hat Creek, there had never been an Employee Appreciation Day. They didn’t even give us anything for Christmas.”

“If families mattered to Hat Creek, they wouldn’t have fired my husband and me. They know our children depend on us two. And they terminated us without a worry,” she said.

Calderon, like other employees, had informed Hat Creek prior to her shift that she would not be coming in.

Although she has a work visa – thereby less vulnerable than undocumented workers to Trump’s pledge of mass deportation – Calderon said that upon learning of the nationwide protest she resolved she “would be supporting the Latino community 100%” so she gave the manager a heads-up on her planned absence.

“She texted me that I would be written up for missing work; she never said I would be fired. I worked for that company for four-and-a-half years,” Calderon said. “This is a...

I had a terrible experience here on Sunday 1/28 and I'm still awaiting a resolution. In the drive through, I ordered The Classic and made it a meal with tots and a sweet tea. I also ordered a Little Hat and made it a meal with fries and a Sprite, as well as ordering a bacon cheese fry. I got to the window, it was about 4:10pm so not super busy, and waited about 10 minutes for the food and drink. I was then asked to pull forward to wait for the bacon cheese fries. During that time I checked my bag and noticed the fries were cold, but the tots were way overcooked. I figured I would wait for someone who would be bringing the bacon cheese fries out, which the employee did. Before I could tell him the issues, he was gone. I checked the bacon cheese fries only to see it was more overcooked tots with very little cheese and bacon as usual. I grabbed the tots, fries, and incorrect bacon cheese order and went inside. The employee who brought out the incorrect order saw me and asked what happened, so I told him, this should be bacon cheese fries not tots. He said he would remake the order. By this time, it is 4:37. I waited quite a bit, no tea and very little condiments in the lobby, and asked them to refill my tea while waiting. I was then brought and order of cold fries, with un-melted grated cheese on top! Then bacon. There was another employee standing there and I asked both of them, do you not normally melt the cheese? The female employee said she too would never accept those, that they're not made correctly. By this time, it's is 4:50 and I am done. I asked for a full refund and gave all the food back, which was tossed of course. The employee said he would process a refund and had me insert the card. I am not fully convinced it was done correctly and see nothing pending to my card in terms of a refund. I have called the location twice with no response and they never answer, just straight to auto-prompt. I have left voicemails both times.

Please work with your staff. This is not an acceptable experience. Those around me were having a similar experience and the frustration with the patrons was very apparent. I would like my...

Good food and a great place to take the family for lunch or dinner.

My five-year-old daughter had just passed a reading milestone and to celebrate we took her to ice cream, then we thought we could spice it up a little more by trying out Hat Creek, which has a large kids play area and is not too far from our house. The first thing we noticed was how happy everyone was; kids were playing, families were smiling, and the atmosphere was very positive. When we made our order, I was surprised that they have beer on draft, and it was actually good! I tried the IPA which I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend to others if you like that sort of thing. For our meal, my wife had the Fried Chicken sandwich, and I had The Big Hat burger. The food was very good, but I think what will keep us coming back is the play area for the kids.

With everything that went on with the pandemic we went ahead and decided to homeschool our children and so we jump at the opportunity to get them some play time with other children. On both occasions of us coming to Hat Creek the play area was bustling with children playing, and our kids LOVED it.

What is also nice is the portions and price. I mean, the prices are about what you would expect at Whataburgur, but the quality is what you would expect at a sit-down restaurant. We enjoy sit down restaurants but these days with tip you usually are not getting out of there for less than seventy or eighty dollars after tip, this place costs thirty, less than half.

You might be asking yourself, if you like this place so much, why not five stars? The answer is that I was torn and almost did give five stars except for the fact that the menu is a bit small. When my family finds a new place we like we tend to go all the time. The problem is with a small menu you end up getting the same things repeatedly, which gets old fast. If they had a larger menu this would be five stars easily.

So, if you’re looking for a fun place to take your kids that has yummy food at a reasonable price I’d give Hat Creek a try, you might end up loving it as...