Bingo Burger in Colorado Springs!

I'm going to do a little bit of a restaurant review here. I know I blog about restaurants from time to time, but I don't actually review them, so this is kind of a different thing for me. Bingo Burger, long a local favorite in Pueblo, is new to Colorado Springs, having opened their latest location here over the summer. I've eaten at the original Bingo Burger in Pueblo (I blogged about it HERE), and loved it. I couldn't wait to try out their new location here in town!

My opinion upon dining there is mostly positive with one major and one minor complaint. The cool thing about Bingo Burger is that they use locally raised beef, and they try to use locally sourced ingredients as much as possible, including the chilis that they mix in with their burgers, giving them a distinctive kick. They also offer a wide range of Colorado microbrews, which is great! Philosophically-speaking, this restaurant is all about sustainability and watching their carbon footprint, and I am definitely on board with that. But even if you don't care about that stuff, local ingredients are always fresher, which translates to better tasting, so it's a win-win.

I have made a significant change to my own dietary habits since I dined at the Bingo Burger in Pueblo over four years ago: I became a vegetarian, which can be a bit of a problem when dining out, especially at a burger joint! No worries there though, at least in theory, because Bingo Burger offers a veggie patty. Pat ordered a "build your own" burger, a fountain drink and regular fries, and I ordered a vegetarian burger with guacamole and sweet potato fries. It all came to about $27. Pat pronounced his burger to be utterly delicious. Mine was delicious too, but there was a major problem with it: the texture. I do realize that vegetarian patties are not easy to engineer well, but this was bad. It was impossible to eat my lunch and maintain my dignity at the same time, because the veggie burger was incredibly soft and mushy. The simple act of (gingerly) holding the bun in my hands caused the patty to ooze out of the sides of it, getting all over my fingers and dropping onto my plate, my napkin and even my clothes. There was no containing it. I had to eat it very quickly, and I couldn't set it down on my plate between bites for fear that it would just completely fall apart. (The guacamole made things worse, adding another level of squishiness to the problem!) On top of that, I got a mouthful of onions with every bite. I had ordered onions thinking it would be three or four rings, but I got an entire slab and it was way too much. On the positive side, mushy texture notwithstanding, the patty itself was delicious and had a nice spicy kick to it. And the sweet potato fries were as delicious as I remembered. I just think the owner AND the chef need to actually try one of their veggie burgers so they can understand how difficult it is to eat one and not have it fall completely apart in your hands after the first bite. They need to engineer a better veggie burger!

My minor quibble about the service was this:  the woman who took our order was really nice and friendly, but she must have come to our table three or four times to ask us how our lunch was. The problem was that every time she did this, I was in the middle of a sentence and she simply talked over me, interrupting our conversation. This happens in restaurants a LOT, and it's a pet peeve of mine. I find it very annoying! I know that being a restaurant worker is a tough job (I've worked in restaurants too), and it's tempting to just go on autopilot when you're repeating the same tasks over and over during a stressful day, but please wait for a little break in the conversation before you jump in!

A final note:  if you're a carnivore, obviously my complaints about the veggie burger just don't apply. Overall it was a friendly and tasty experience. But if I eat there again I'll just order the sweet potato fries or a salad.

That's Pat's lunch on the left and mine on the right. And that's Pat's hand too, giving the thumbs up ;^)