We understand that each of our customers has individual needs and considerations when choosing a place to eat or drink outside their home, especially those customers with food allergies. “I’m bringing the backyard into the kitchen,” says Nee, whose space is outfitted with three griddles, a six-basket fryer and a machine so he can grind his own meat throughout the day.At McDonald's, we take great care to serve quality, great-tasting menu items to our customers each and every time they visit our restaurants. And he’s working on three more menu items he’s not yet ready to reveal. At least one off-the-menu item that was available at the backyard pop-ups will also be available. The bricks-and-mortar Burgers Never Say Die will serve a double burger, single burger and a grilled cheese (but Nee says it will be called something else), fries and soda. “It’s one of those stories where it like takes you half your life to figure out what you’re supposed to do,” says Nee. The 42-year-old moved to Los Angeles from Boston 20 years ago to work in film and television, was a self-taught photographer, and didn’t eat red meat for a time. Nee seems genuinely surprised by the crowds that form. “I hate lines, but it’s the fact that it could be something amazing and intriguing.” The former cook said he learned about the pop-up from Instagram. “I don’t wait in line for much,” said 35-year-old Ryan McGuire. When Nee recently popped up at Glendale Tap bar, the last pop-up before opening his restaurant, the line stretched down the block. I tend not to listen to people for the most part.”
Many people were, like, you can’t do that. “I thought I’m just going to call it Burgers Never Say Die. “I was watching ‘Lord of the Rings’ and I thought wouldn’t it be so cool to do a T-shirt with a wizard and this beam coming out of it and under it says ‘Wizards never say die?’ ” says Nee.
BURGERS NEVER SAY DIE MOVIE
While there’s a definite ’80s theme that coincides with Burgers Never Say Die (there are Battle Ship and Connect Four games on the pop-up tables), Nee says the name isn’t actually a nod to the “goonies never say die” line in the 1985 movie “The Goonies.” “When I hit 50 followers on Instagram, I thought it was the biggest deal ever,” says Nee. The quirky bunch dressed up in burger hats and socks and wore pins with characters from the Netflix show “Stranger Things” to cook burgers on Sundays at Nee’s house. Eventually, Nee, Bonnie Amos, Gary Winterboer and Brad Stemke formed the Burgers Never Say Die crew. He and his wife, Julie, got the idea while driving around Los Angeles eating burgers, one of their favorite ways to spend the weekend.Īs more people started to show up, he enlisted the help of his babysitter and a couple more friends to help out. When he started his pop-up in his home a little more than a year ago, he was simply trying to make burgers for friends and family. And he has someone who runs a steel company specially make his smashers, which look like bent pieces of metal with a handle attached.
“I basically read just one article about smash burgers and then I just started,” says Nee, who has gone through dozens of versions of smashers, buns, cheese, meat-to-fat ratios and sizes of diced onion before deciding on the current iteration of the burger. While the burger may seem simple, it took Nee more than a couple of years to perfect, and he’s still tinkering with it. And it is dressed simply with sour pickles, minced white onion and a squirt each of ketchup and mustard.Ī day later, a week later, a month later, it is that lopsided double cheeseburger you will use to measure every other burger going forward.
The bun, of the grocery store, squishy variety, molds to the meat, soaking up just enough grease to make it perfectly pliable. A friend smartly dubbed the jagged edges “meat lace.” The cheese is American, which means it turns into goo and melts in a way only American cheese can. The patties are smashed into near oblivion, with two ultra thin layers of beef that caramelize and crisp up around the edges.