Eat Brgz
250 7th Street SE
Washington DC 20036
Okay, this is not the way I wanted to start sharing the great restaurants we ate at during our visit to Washington, DC, in early January. Yes, I'm six months behind, but I'm determined to cut that in half by the end of the year. Back to our first day in DC, though. We were fresh off the plane from OC, and after a day touring the Capitol, checking into our hotel, and navigating the metro, we were a bit tired from walking and were ready to tackle my DC restaurant wishlist. First up for us was Eat Brgz.
Eat Brgz was located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood and followed by locations in Chinatown, the West End, and the Eastern Market area of DC. Unfortunately, as of February, all of their locations have closed. Founder Brandon Alexander was made an offer from Wonder, a food hall concept that was too good to pass up. He also wanted to focus on family and is getting another business degree from Columbia University.
Brandon opened up Eat Brgz in 2019, weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, and ended up on my DC restaurant wishlist because they were mentioned on nearly every best burger list that I scoured before leaving for this trip. They also had a viral hit with their fried chicken and waffle tower that they served for brunch.
We arrived here just after 4pm, after walking a block in the wrong direction after exiting the Eastern Market Metro station. We have five days here to figure things out. The restaurant had a clean and sleek vibe, mainly due to the white walls and floors, and the lack of decor. Ordering was done at the counter, and behind that counter, customers had a great view of the staff preparing and cooking each guest's meals.
One section of the menu was dedicated to a build-your-own burger, where you pick the cheese, mix-ins, seasoning, and sauce. You also had the option of having all of these inside your burger, resembling a juicy Lucy. Since this was our first time here, we stuck to the signature burgers that come already built. The sides included fries and Brussels sprouts. Burgers hovered right around the $15 price point. Let's see if this food was a sign of good things to come for us on our DC trip.
Katie must have been really hungry, or she did not see that this Wagyu Smash Burger ($17.50) contained two patties. It also came with four slices of American cheese, grilled onions, and their house Brgz sauce, all on a potato bun. She, like me, thought this was going to be an actual smash burger, which is flattened very thin on the grill with crispy edges on the outside. This was more substantial than a smash burger, and I'm sure that's why she gave me the last few bites of this. I enjoyed it, as it was a simple burger with some excellent meat, which was juicy and seasoned just enough. I would have liked some extra onions and definitely more sauce, which was applied way too lightly. The Fresh Cut French Fries ($4) were nicely fried and tasted like they were indeed freshly cut there. Excellent, fast-food-style French fries.
I selected the Basic Bacon Burger ($15.50) for my meal at Brgz. Seriously, one of the better burgers I've had in years. The beef patty was infused with diced bacon, relish, basic seasoning, red onion, and cheddar cheese. The toppings not mixed with the beef were pickled red onion, sliced cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, Brgz sauce, and thick-cut maple candied bacon. This was a well-crafted burger, and not gimmicky like I thought it was going to be. I was afraid that the bacon would overwhelm, but it just added some smokiness to the patty. The cheese inside the patty was not really noticeable, but the sliced cheese outside picked up the slack. I do regret not cutting it in half to share a picture of the cross section. The bun is also worth noting, as it did not slide around a lot and held its integrity throughout the short life that this burger had in front of me. I'm always partial to Crispy Brussels Sprouts ($6) and gave them a try here. They had three options for seasoning on these: salt and pepper, Cajun, or the one I got, garlic parmesan. They were fine, with a light dusting of the parmesan, I got bored with these halfway through. I ended up using some garlic aioli that I had ordered to dip them into, and it helped me finish these sprouts.
I did not learn about Eat Brgz closing down until I started writing this review, and it hit me hard. It's really a shame for the people of DC that this excellent burger spot is no longer available to them. I admit I was very hungry when we were here, but that's not the reason for my rave review of this burger restaurant. It was just plain delicious and made with some high-quality ingredients. It's easy to see why they were mentioned on many of the best burger lists in DC. Hopefully, they will return someday, and if that's the case, I'll have to make a return visit to DC.
I thought it would be fun to share a picture of what we saw in Washington on each of the following eight restaurant reviews. This was my first time here since 1984, and it was Katie's first visit to our nation's Capital, and our first time being in snow for any extended length of time. For the 5 days we were here, the temperature was in the 30s, but we did have one day that it got up to 51, which felt like a heat wave. Here's a shot of the Capitol on our first day in DC.
Out of five bathtubs (because the US Capitol has two ivory bathtubs in it that were initially used by the senators because they used to live in boarding houses that did not have running water), five being best to zero being worst, Eat Brgz gets 4 bathtubs.
Since Eat Brgz has closed and their website has been taken down, you can see everything you missed by clicking here to visit their Yelp page: https://www.yelp.com/biz/eat-brgz-washington
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