A Promising Burger Joint

Daddy Macky's Burgers and Beer
1725 Blanco Road

(just north of the new traffic circle, in  Beacon Hill)

Surrounded by well-known competitors, Daddy Macky's Burgers has its work cut out for it. It shares the line of shops with Casbeer's, a venue rightly known more for its music than its greasy-spoon food. (I haven't been there in quite a few years myself; I know another place opened in Southtown with the name Casbeer's, but didn't really follow the dust-up. Maybe they don't have music anymore; I know they still have food.) Across the street is a classic Tex-Mex restaurant, the quintessential Blanco Café. And just a block or two down the street is the burger joint that Daddy Macky's aspires to be, in fiscal if not culinary terms: Chris Madrid's, the perennial list-topper for burgers in S.A. 

After two and a half years, Macky's still has work to do, but the fact that it's survived that long, so close to such competitors, and in a location with little in the way of parking, is a sign of promise. It deserves to survive, and even prosper. The burgers are already better than the ones for sale down the street, and the steak fries and onion rings are top notch. The grilled chicken sandwich was pretty good, maybe a little greasy, but people seem to be okay with that; go figure. My only gripe with the food, in fact, was the overwhelming flavour of mustard on a burger ordered without mayo. If the cook is going to use such a heavy hand with the yellow mustard, the management would be much better off putting yellow squeeze bottles of the stuff out on the tables, à la Timbo's and the Armadillo. If I put too much on my own burger, I can't complain.

Gilette Stadium, Foxboro, Mass.,
during an important soccer match

The area where Macky's really suffers is the ambience; or the total lack of it. The place is large, too large for the furnishings; a corner near the front is given over to a stage area, so they probably have live music on occasion, or plan to anyway. Maybe they rearrange the tables to provide an area for dancing; if so, they'd do well to leave the tables in that configuration, rather than looking like Gillette Stadium during a New England Revs match. The kitchen area at the back of the room looks spotlessly clean, as does most of the oddly-mixed items lined around the walls: mounted deer trophies, a juke box, a salad bar, a front door from Home Depot (?), and some things I couldn't identify. The bathroom was recently cleaned and reasonably well maintained as well.

No city inspection on record.

The strong point is the service. This is particularly remarkable in that there was only one person working the entire room. Not that there were that many guests, just five or six tables, but they were so widely separated in the huge room that the young man was getting enough exercise for both of us, plus my dog. He was barely able to keep up with the workload, yet he did so, and I even noted that, when he cleaned a recently vacated table, he actually wiped the entire tabletop, and the seat cushions, and the bottoms of all the containers kept on the table. This is a man who takes pride in doing his job well. He should look into cloning.