Kozy's South Bay — Restaurant in Washington

2025 Review - Wanted to give this place a second chance to redeem themselves and they have not improved. In fact, I feel they've gotten a bit worse. Burger is a total grease bomb and upset my stomach. I don't think they are using 80/20 for the hamburger. 70/30 is too fatty. If they just toasted the buns with butter the bun would at least resist the grease soaking into it. Also bland--need (more) salt and pepper. On the positive side-- good fries and fry sauce. Wish I could have Kozy fries with Van's burger. Sorry Kozy's. Won't be back.

By the way... I got the burger recipe from Norma's from one of the workers before they closed down. YOU SHOULD USE IT!!

Original Classic Norma's Burger, Martin Way S. location Recipe

Ingredients: · 1/4 “ thick ground beef patties (sliders), MUST BE 80/20% lean-to-fat ratio!! · Hamburger buns, (Franz Kaiser or Sesame seed) · Burger sauce (make your own or I have a separate recipe for it) · Pre-sliced American cheese, yellow · Pre-sliced American cheese, white · Shredded lettuce · Burger pickles, sliced dill · Butter · Salt · Pepper · Optional: thinly sliced onions, four (4) SMALL pieces · Optional: sliced tomatoes

Construction/Cooking: Pre-butter your buns. Have them ready to put on second skillet Once the cast iron skillet or grill is very hot place in pattie(s). Turn down temperature to MEDIUM-HIGH. Set timer for 3 ½ min for 1/4” patties. Set to 4 ½ min. for ½ “ patties. Note Lightly salt and pepper the pattie(s). With a metal spatula unseat the patties and move them around the skillet. DO NOT FLIP! When timer goes off OR when edges become brown flip patties. Again, DO NOT FLIP THEM SOONER THAN ALLOTED TIME! reset timer to 3 min. for 1/4” patties and 3 1/2 min. for ½” patties Lightly salt and pepper other side of pattie(s). Place buttered buns onto other skillet/grill. Turn down temperature to MEDIUM. Toast buns for approx. 2-3 min. Remove buns and place on plate. OPTIONAL: Can check wellness of burger by lightly slicing top. If still red or desire more wellness leave for extra 30 sec. Once burgers are brown or some blood comes out top, burger is ready. Place cheese(s) on patties and remove from skillet. Place pattie(s) on bun. DO NOT MELT CHEESE ON BURGER WHILE IN SKILLET! Let the cheese melt on its own with patty on the bun. Dress buns with AT LEAST burger sauce, lettuce and 3 (no more than 3) dill burger pickles. This creates the basic Norma’s single w/o tomatoes and onions. Anything else added to burger is up to you.

Notes: Recommend using ¼” slider-style patties. If you have thicker patties, remove some meat and platen to ¼”. If patties are thicker than 1/4“ cooking time is longer. Increase by 1 min. each side per ¼” DO NOT recommend patty thicker than ½ “. Do not skimp on the cheese. Ensure the slices are at least 1/8” thick. Also need both kinds of American—white and yellow.

2024 Review - Kozy's prides itself as one of the best burger places around, however, although they try to compare themselves to the now-defunct great Norma's Burgers in Lacey WA... there is no comparison. Norma's is (was) better. Their burger is sloppier...so-so bun and only lightly toasted. Also a tendency to undercooked the meat. We ask the burger to be cooked well-done and it was barely cooked all the way through. Still, a solid burger with their so-called South Bay sauce but I wouldn't go out of...

Our son is here visiting from another state. Last night, we wanted to get some dinner and really couldn’t decide where to go so we told our son to search online and pick someplace new for all of us. He picked Kozy’s based on their ratings. When we arrived, the place doesn’t really look like much so we were a bit skeptical about our son’s dining selection. We went inside to check out the menu. It’s very limited in offerings but I actually like that; to me it usually implies that a place does all those things really, really well. We ordered our burgers, fries and onion rings. I tried to order mine medium rare but we were told he cook all of them to well done. Afterwards, I mentioned to the counter guy that this was our first time. He said “great, we will see you back here again tomorrow”. I laughed and said “well I heard you guys had great food so we’ll see”. We took the food and brought it back to the house to eat. WOWeeeeee...THE BURGERS WERE AWESOME! I didn’t eat any of the fries so I don’t know how those were but my onion rings were really delicious as well! To the counter guy from last night: I might not be back again today, but I will definitely be back again very soon! Can’t wait to try more menu options. We are now fans of Kozys South Bay...

I was going up to south bay vet for some pet related stuff. I then seen a family sitting outside at a table, didn't know they sold food.

Dealt with the vet for a bit then went to go to the chevron for some warm food( didn't eat all day and didn't care)

At this point more people were outside at different tables (I had to check this out)

Showed up, the workers were very friendly. They told me they were known for burger's so I got the bacon cheese with the bsb sauce.

Boy was I surprised. I didn't expect the high end burger service from this hole in the wall, next to a convenient store. I almost gave the store a review rather than kozy's as to keep the secret to myself, but the burger is to good and I pride myself on the quality burgers... reminds me of...