By the size of the crowd at yesterday's BurgerFi friends and family event in Aventura (18139 Biscayne Boulevard), you would think the burgers were made of gold bullion instead of free-range, grass-fed beef.
The Aventura BurgerFi is the sixth restaurant in the chain, which itself is just over a year old. This is the first location in Miami-Dade county, with the other BurgerFi's located to the north in Broward, Palm Beach, and Orange counties. The company's motto is to "burgerfi" America, and the chain seems to mean business with additional restaurants coming soon to California, Texas, Connecticut, North Carolina, Connecticut, Virginia, and Massachusetts.
The restaurant is decorated with sustainable, recycled materials and promises to hold a low carbon footprint.
Chandeliers are styled from industrial meat hooks and Edison lamps give
the room a soft glow. The Aventura location, inside a strip mall, loses a
bit of the seaside burger joint charm of the free-standing BurgerFi's,
but an outside patio is inviting enough.
In the rapidly growing field of fast casual restaurants, BurgerFi
plans to stand out by offering clean, high quality ingredients like
hormone-free beef, Kobe-style hot dogs, and quinoa burgers at a
reasonable price. A BBB (Build a Better
Burger) starts out at a budget-friendly $3.97. Free toppings include the
standard lettuce, tomato, pickles, jalapenos, and sauce. Add a buck
each for cheese, a fried egg, an onion ring, cherry peppers, or Peter
Luger steak sauce. Hickory smoked bacon costs $1.57.
Shakes are $4.47,
small fries are $2.77, and the 100 percent Wagyu Kobe-style hot dog is a mere
$4.97. A cry and fry (ring and potato combo) is $4.97 for a portion easily sharable by a hungry couple. BurgerFi also sells a smallish selection of beers ($3.97 to $4.97) and
wines in a cool plastic stemless "glass" ($4.97). Typical brands like
Heineken, Miller Light, Blue Moon, and Brooklyn Lager for beer, and Rex
Goliath, Mondavi, and Beringer for wine aren't earth shattering, but
they're serviceable.
In other words, you can get a burger, fries, and a beer for well under $20 which, in Miami, is a pretty good deal. If you want to try for yourself, BurgerFi in Aventura is open daily from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., starting today.
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