Krystal — Restaurant in Tyler

Look, I’m a diehard fan. These places used to rule the midnight eats in Georgia. Since moving to Texas, I really missed getting my guilty pleasure burgers. We used to have two locations that I enjoyed in DFW that closed shortly the year after. Just last week I stumbled across the Krystal website just to check if they’re even still in business and what do you know…there’s one in Tyler!! I literally jumped in my car right then and drove the 1.5hrs to get some. I’ll still give the place 4 stars just because it exists and it’s close, but we gotta fix a few things. First, the buns weren’t even close to being steamed and soggy like it should be. The cheese wasn’t even melted. There was a severe lack of onions and they weren’t cooked into the meat patty. The fries need to be changed back to the originals…those battered(?) fries are weird. And no SWEET TEA?!?! HWHAT?!? Yall gotta skip cleaning the grill for a few weeks so we can get some flavor in those burgers. Yall ain’t gonna last until that changes. I did take some back to DFW and streamed them in a dumpling steamer and they came out near perfect short of the lack of onions. Again, thanks for existing….please hang on until the grill is at least seasoned before closing down. I’ll be back in 4 weeks…

Update: I drove back this past weekend, 9/30 and tried the burgers again. Asked the awesome manager to just keep my burgers under the steam dome a bit longer to get them nice and soft and greasy. Man, they came out perfect! The onions cooked into the bread and beef was absolutely ON POINT. And…they had sweet tea!! No fries this time as they still need to be changed back to the old ones. Updating my rating as this location is progressing pretty well. Staff was super nice, too. Lots of patrons there, so that’s a great sign! Going...

I tried chili cheese tots and the cheese krystals. My kids (2 and 3) approved, and my wife liked hers. The food was a good temperature, properly cooked, and well prepared. It was also served in a timely fashion, tasted good, and the facility was clean. My only wish is that it had a stand-alone facility with a serve-yourself soda machine, but that's a minor issue.

Just to give a bit more information: Krystal is similar in nature to White Castle. The burger (called a krystal) is a small, slider-like burger with little moist buns. The bag comes filled with the burgers in individual small sized cardboard sleeves. If you're unfamiliar, it may be best to not think of them as "hamburgers," but rather a cousin of them in the burger-hotdog-sandwitch family.

In that sense, it's a breath of fresh-air, because the area has plenty of burger joints. However, I think it could be accidentally off-putting because they're "weird little burgers" served out of a gas-station. If you go in without any clue that these are similar in nature to White Castle, they might be a bit shocking. If Whataburger is a Pit Bull, these are Chihuahuas. But so long as you know what you're getting yourself into, they're actually delicious for...

Drove all the way from 31 east towards Kilgore to get some Krystal’s. I’ve enjoyed it when I pass through states that have it. But was very disappointed when I got there. Krystal’s chili cheese fry’s with the burgers is always the best. I was excited to finally try a long awaited local Krystal’s only to be disappointed when I’m told they don’t have any chili. I have went to Krystal’s for years when visiting family out of state and have never had a time where they were out of chili. I wasted my time driving all the way across town only to be disappointed. Sadly I probably won’t be going back it’s too far out of town to waste my time driving there to not know if they actually stock the food they should have. The chili cheese fries are my favorite thing from Krystal’s and the Chili cheese pups are my wife’s fav. Neither one of us could get what we wanted. If this is how the brand new location is going to be then I don’t see them lasting. I’ve been recommending everyone who hasn’t tried Krystal’s to get their chili cheese fries. I will stop recommended people to...