Burger Theory — Restaurant in Virginia

We have frequented your establishment many times over the past couple years and always had a good experience with great food and decent service. Last night we decided to meet there after not having eaten there for a couple months. Our experience was beyond disappointing.

Other than the two people who only had salads the food was absolutely horrible. The queso was cold and the chips were stale. The French Fries, I’m not sure what brand they were, but they were terrible. The chicken tenders are not actually breaded chicken tenders, they were like blackened & grilled, and they were burnt tasting. The piece of fish on the fish sandwich was tiny, tasted ok though. The burgers themselves were fine for the most part, but they absolutely destroyed everyone on of the buns by grilling them until they were black & burnt tasting. The child’s pizza was worse than a great value frozen pizza, a tombstone frozen pizza would have been an improvement.

The Mixed Drinks were expensive and watered down with a garden hose. My Cpt Morgans & Coke was nearly as see thru as a plain glass of water, and tasted like nothing but water. My friend ordered a Jameson & ginger double, it was definitely not a double, it was barely a single. Surprisingly they did get the Green Tea Shooters right. They have multiple beer taps, but no beers were on tap, so just there for looks I supposed.

The waitress was very nice, no issues with her attitude or demeanor, her service on the other hand was not very good, she would just disappear for long periods of time, couldn’t remember who had ordered what, and was slow to respond to request. And the place was not very busy.

But the real kicker was the “Large Party SrvChg” which said it was 20%. Mind you we had Seven Adults, and One Toddler, so not exactly a “Large Party”, and they were split bills. But OK, problem was it absolutely was Not 20%. The charge on my bill worked out to 49.30%, and several others in the group their charges worked out to well over 30%.

So, you provided less than stealer Service, horrible food, weak drinks, and then add your own Tip of anywhere between 30-50%. Absolutely ridiculous.

I don’t know what’s happened in the last 6 months, but you need to fix it. Your just lucky that you have a built-in client base from the hotel, because if you had to stand on repeat locals you’d be out of business in 6 months. We won’t be back until we see something stating new management because whoever is managing now is failing miserably.

If I could give it Zero Stars I...

This place was trash. If looks like a pretty chill place but if you want to wait an extremely long time before you get any service AND food then be my guest... we got there took us 10mins for somone to come greet us... to get drinks took another 20 mins... we ordered our food took literature 45mins.... the server was nice enough to give us a discount because we obviously waited an extremely long time. If your hungry and ready to eat DO NOT go here. My boyfriend seriously got a sweet tea and from the moment we finally got our drinks until our food finally got out and we were practically already finished eating they finally offered a refill..... it was long gone before then and they kept passing by and passing by with a empty glass. Look I get it I used to serve and there's nothing the server can do to make the food come out faster but service in general, the slow cooks in the back.. it was generally just bad..... I will never return. The food was decent but not worth waiting and 1hr & 1/2 and the place already looked fairly dead and slow.... by the time we left people were barely starting to trickle in... felt so bad for them all because we were there long before more people showed up and we knew they were going to be waiting a long while more. Even a few of the tables near by who had kids younger or more older kept question why they were taking so long.... that's telling you something. There needs to be some serious changes is all I'm saying... horrible horrible horrible. If I could give 0 ☆'s...

Update: We went here for the fourth of July and I've decided to raise my review from 4 to 5 stars because of how awesome the experience was. Unfortunately I can't remember our server's name, but he was a long-haired dude who was one of the most attentive and conducive front-of-house staff I've had in a long time. The burger flavor profile is really good here and look forward to coming in again!

We were the only two guests in the entire restaurant today around 2 pm. Suspect. The server was attentive, ordered our drinks, then followed up with two of their Classic burger options, both medium temp. I always test the signature/original/this-is-what-what-us item of whatever the establishment is known for, especially with it in their brand name. The burgers arrived, and we did our analyses. They were good! Also teetering between medium well-well done, but good! The bun/burger patty ratio was pleasantly balanced, and there was a decently loud flavor inside their KGB sauce slapped inside. Also, the fries were their personal take on boardwalk fries that hosted a mild seasoning and had a good crunch; came out fairly hot too. While the server was nice, and the food was worth coming back for more, there was nothing notably spectacular about Burger Theory's flagship burgers or fries in the increasing competitive hamburger market.

P.S. If we were the only two guests for 75% of our time there, please do not ask us for burger temperature options if they can not be...