Where You Least Expect It

After a particularly rough week in the salt mines, The Babbler’s Wife and I were heading up to the cabin.


We have found that eating on Friday evenings (as this was) can be challenging. For one thing, once we are at the cabin and have the dogs settled in, there just are not that many places nearby to eat at. There are six restaurants within a 15 minute drive. Two are really expensive (one insanely so). One I got horrible food poisoning in on New Year’s Eve Eve of ’09. That leaves three, that over the last seven years we’ve kind of burned out on.

Sometimes we will eat in Poway around 3:30PM. That has the advantage of us still being local while the kid level goes down at school.

If we grab a bite to eat in Ramona, it has to be fast-food, since we can’t leave the dogs in the car.

I was commenting about different places I wanted to stop at for my “Burger Wars” blog posts. Mj suggested we stop at a little trailer on the far east side of Ramona (the last thing before you leave town) that appears to be a hot dog stand. She thought maybe that would be some good fodder for my pen. I laughed and said, “I want to do reviews of places with good food. Not some rickety dump. But, I guess with the dogs in the car it will be easy at least.”

The property where this little “burger stand” was located at used to have an Italian Restaurant on it. I had always meant to stop in. The place looked like it was falling down in disrepair, but I had heard from more than one person that the food was incredible. Well, they closed (another victim of the recession) before I had ever stopped in.

The property sat dormant for about 4-6 months, and then I began to notice some activity. Somebody appeared to be fixing the place up. Not long after that, what appeared to be a single-wide trailer was dropped off out front.

Well, fast-forward to the Memorial Weekend Friday. We pulled up to the trailer. I was impressed with how well they had fixed up the property. Up close and at a stand-still, you notice it better than when flying by it at 55 mph.

I went up to the counter while Mrs. Babblings stayed in the car with the little Babblets. The name of the joint was The 3rd St. Grill. I guess it was lucky for them that they were able to find a place on the corner of 3rd & Main. Otherwise, that name wouldn’t have made sense.

A couple of cute young ladies were there, which is always a plus in Mr. Lew’s world (one was just leaving, actually). A fellow who I guessed (correctly) might have been the owner was also in the trailer.

The menu was straight-forward. (http://www.3rdstgrill.com/)

I ordered two of the “Not Your Mama’s Bacon Cheeseburgers”, a ½ order of shoestring fries and a ½ order of sweet potato fries.

They had a cooler out front with canned sodas, Snapple, that sort of thing. I grabbed a couple of Coca-Cola Zero’s. (Boy the wonders of modern technology, it tastes just like regular Coke.  Amazing.)

Did you know if you made a sugar water drink for your hummingbird feeder but used artificial sweetener, it would kill the hummingbirds? Yup. They would drink it, but their little hummy bodies would not process the stuff, and they would starve to death. Just another of the tid-bits of useless knowledge that swims around in my head.

But I digress.

So while I was waiting for the burgers, I chatted with Jim, the owner. He was about my age. And like me, he seemed to be all over the spectrum of different life experiences. I would love to sit down with this guy sometime and just chat.

One thing Jim said, and I agreed with, is that the “Gourmet Burger” market is exploding right now. Folks are trying to cut back, but still want something nice. The Gourmet Burger fits that need. It’s much cheaper than a fancy sit down meal, but still delicious and a cut above traditional “factory-style” fast-food.

The total cost of our meal was $21.73. A few years ago I might have though that was a tad high for 2 burgers, two small sides, and 2 beverages. Nowadays it seems to be the average.

So I took the food back to my waiting family.

The shoestrings and sweet potato fries were served with a side of Ranch Dressing. Nothing unusual to report there.

As I got our burgers out of the bag, I pleasantly noted that they were heavy. I like heavy food.

The first thing you notice is the Ciabbata Roll. It was nice and firm, but fresh. As I was to discover, a girthy bread like this was needed. The juices and sauce would have destroyed a regular bun before you had even gotten it out of the bag.

Speaking of “sauces”, my wife and I couldn’t quite figure out what the delicious sauce was that they put on this heaping half-pound burger. Upon consulting the menu, I saw that they sauce is called a “Bucked Up Mayo”. And they did let on that Horseradish was one of the secret ingredients.

As I bit into the burger, the first thing I noticed was the fresh tomato. It tasted like it had just been picked out of the garden. I am not a fan of store-bought tomatoes, but the ones you grow yourself are so sweet and delicious. The slice that was on my burger was just like that.

Mj commented on the delicious bacon that topped the burger. Jim had told me it was a Smoked Applewood.

I commented to Jim that the little burger stand was cute, and asked if he owned the building (that looked like a home) behind it. He said they did, and they were planning on opening a specialty coffee and drinks area back there.

For folks who don’t want to sit it their car (as we did), there is a very nice area with pic-nic style tables between the stand and the main building.

All-in-All, we were blown away. Mostly because of the incredible burgers and the reasonable price. But also, because I was totally not expecting it.

I can 100% recommend this establishment if you ever find yourself in the back part of Ramona. Heck, I personally think it is worth driving over here just for these burgers.

Of all the hair-brained schemes in my life, this idea of reviewing burgers and posting the results on my blog has got to be one of the better one.

Lew B.