Burgär — Restaurant in Spartanburg

I used to work here about two years ago, and left to move for a job after graduating college and almost everytime I'm back in Spartanburg I come back here to eat. I like everything on the menu here, but my favorite is the crispy spring, cooked medium-rare, with the house side salad (I love the house made dressing on it). It pairs really well with the mojito, and they always make it with fresh mint. I know they're known for their margaritas, but my favorite drink here is the red sangria and that goes well with just about any burger. I like to sit at the bar or outside, but the atmosphere is always good. They haven't been playing rock music recently, but thats something I always liked about this place and it's a great place to get a night out in Spartanburg started.

One long complaint below - I just have it to say it after all these years. I just want to address the negative reviews personally - I've been living like over an hour a way and don't have much contact with my former management or coworkers here so this is just coming from me, and does not reflect the views of Burgär:

As a former server here, a lot the times that I did not like my job was because of customers already showing up with a bad attitude, running me around, demanding refunds left and right, complaining about prices and things out of my control so I just knew they were not going to tip me by the time I got their food out to them. I gave all my customers a lot of attention when it was slow, even the rude ones but use common sense, if you look around and the place is packed because the food and drinks are good, just give a little grace to your server.

Apparently a lot of you (not all, but a lot) leaving negative reviews have never worked in the restaurant industry, maybe never in customer service. The standard to tip is 15% for servers that do their job and are decently pleasant towards you. A lot of these kids working here are living on their own putting themselves through college. They need the money. If you come on a Friday, Saturday night or any other time and it's packed and you see servers busting their butts to check in on guests, get refills, get orders and food out, then expect a little bit of a wait. Use common sense. If the food was good and you weren't pleased with the service but the server wasn't rude and still did his/her job, then just leave 10% tip and come back for happy hour and try it again before leaving a negative review.

And if you're a good customer, who gives grace when needed, and especially my former regulars, yeah, I gave these people more attention because they deserved it. They were happy to be there enjoying good food and drinks, and that made me happy, and they usually tipped well. And I actually ran into a former regular as a customer myself and we chatted it was great.

So yeah, before you go leaving a bad review about service or not leaving any tip at all, ask yourself, "was this out of the server's control?" "Was there a wait because it was really busy?" "Did the server make an effort to make things right?" "Was I a rude customer?"

Thank you and...

I don’t leave reviews often, and when i do its not typically negative. However I’ve eaten at Burgär ~10 times now and I’ve noticed the same problems just about every time without fail.

Firstly I’d like to say i think the food is great, never had a bad meal here, which is why I’ve continued to comeback. However the service is absolutely atrocious. Ive never once been greeted at the door, i always walk in and go to the host stand to just be starred at by the FOH staff. Then after sitting and being given the menu, they take our order and never check on us again. I never get asked for refills, or to have dirty empty plates/glasses to be removed from the table. It’s like the server staff just doesn’t care about the guest’s experience. As far as atmosphere goes, it’s usually quite nice but the last 2 times I’ve been i noticed there was no music playing, which is unusual for this spot cause i normally enjoy the music they play on the radio. And the fact the restaurant was just about empty when there was no music didn’t help, felt like i was in a library. The restaurant itself if very chill and i love the decor a lot but, the front area is always dirty and needs a good mopping.

The most recent visit i had is the reason I’m leaving this review. Me and my girlfriend went to eat lunch today (Saturday). I went inside and saw the restaurant was empty apart from 1 waitress and a cook. The waitress did the classic, stared at me instead of greeting us at the door. Then sat us at a 4 person table, then took our drink order, 2 soft drinks, 2 cocktails. Then took our food 1 southwest burger Medium, one American Burger Well. When taking the order we had to repeat everything we said at least twice cause she wasn’t catching it the first time. While waiting they sat a 4 top (1 woman and her 3 toddlers) right beside us, all that room in the restaurant and they put them directly beside us. So now we are waiting for our cocktails in dead silence due to the lack of music. Kids start screaming and jumping around all over the place. Took about 25 minutes to get the burgers. Which is fine i guess even tho we were the only people in the place. And took 30 minutes to get our cocktails which is absolutely ridiculous. I was watching our waitress make our drink and im sure she was high or something cause theres just no way someone sober could move that slow. To top it all off the cocktails were like 70% ice, and my burger was over cooked to well, not burnt, but well. We ate about half our food then decided to take the rest home and leave due to our experience so far. Took about another 10 minutes for our server to check on us even so she’s standing about 10ft away eating wings in the expo window. Got the check and it was almost $70, apparently the mojitos were $10, ice must be expensive nowadays. Didn’t leave a tip cause i felt like i didn’t even have a waitress.

Also there was a 2% hospitality tax or something along those lines. FOR WHAT? What hospitality?

Once again food is always great but this place needs to do a complete reset on front house staff...

The service at Burgar was great for us! We had a very kind server and were welcomed/seated promptly. Possibly due to us being a white family. I noticed some other tables during our dinner, and it seemed the tables with black customers had a very different experience than our white experience. It seemed service was slower to the black customers sitting near us though they were seated before us, food and drinks came to them at a slower delayed rate. Another customer table I noticed was one black family that had been seated in the back of the restaurant out of site unless you used the bathroom. There were plenty of indoor tables available in the front of the restaurant near other customers, only a couple of other other tables were occupied inside, by white customers. So this family was sat in an area that looked like it should have been closed to guests, no one else was seated near them - the back room they were in just felt unfinished and forgotten. I figured they were owners of the restaurant or having an important meeting and asked for space but I believe the person who wrote the review before me was in this party so they too we’re paying for the same experience I was and getting a completely different experience because they are black.

Our food and drinks came out quickly and patio seating was so cute on a beautiful fall day.

Beyond the great service we had it all stopped there, the food was not good - prices are fair given inflation, but the quality and flavor of the food was bad. The kid’s meals are reasonably priced but the their food tasted awful! My son was unable to eat his chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese so I gave him my chicken bowl salad with pineapple. The salad bowl was ok, I would not order it again. I tried eating his chicken fingers but they were so bad I couldn’t. The macaroni and cheese was just awful- like really bad. I ate it as I was super hungry and didn’t want to pay for more food. Being a niche restaurant for burgers, fries mac and cheese etc it was very subpar and disappointing. Beyond the poor tasting food, the racism displayed here was overt and...