The BURGER Project: DickieJo's

Fun day; we now have 5 Burger guys (not to be confused with 5 Guys Burgers).

Today Norm had the picking duty and he chose a new place in Tualatin called DickieJo's. The website and T-Shirts have a logo: "Lucky 52".  I took that as a good omen since I was born in 1952.

Now that we have 5 of us, we need to take 2 cars. Norm and Ray drove over and we met at my house

Norm and Ray

We navigated the tricky twists and turns on Martinazzi Ave. and found that both cars made it.
The staff was very friendly and took our picture. We had been talking with the family behind us and the guy definitely wanted to be part of our crew.

Norm, Jay, John, Howard, <dude>, Ray

The family behind us have been there before and gave us some good tips. You walk in and get in line to place your order

The menu

Our happy server. Wish I would have got her name.

Behind the scenes; more or less. Nice view of the going's on from our table

 I ordered a root beer milkshake. It wasn't on the menu but our server told me she could make one. Sweet!

Nice thick shake with whipped cream on top

 The burger arrived with the fries. Very tasty looking. They have a nice dipping sauce for the fries; probably mayo and ketchup with a dash of mustard.

Nice looking burger but it could have used some seasning (i.e. salt

Obviously it was good enough!

I've been having a dickens of a time getting my Google Docs spreadsheet incorporated in the blog. When I pick a new pivot table to insert the old one goes away. So, I'll continue with screen shots of the ratings; not ideal. But if I wait to figure it out I'll never get anything published.

Selected Comments on the Burgers

Norm

A bit above average bun. Hefty but not overly large patty....just a tinge of pink as per my request. Patty was moist and flavorful. Lettuce NOT shredded, a plus. Tomato slightly above average. Good slices of bacon with flavorful Bleu Cheese. Made for a good mouthful! Size was average but it was enough for a meal

Ray

It was a good burger. Just juicy enough. Good soft bun. The tomato slice was big. Bacon was cooked crispy, but there was only one slice. I ordered it with "some pink" but it was well done (no pink). The patty was pretty thin, so probably hard to get just right. Regardless, the beef was good.

Howard

Pretty nice. It could have used a bit more seasoning. I ordered it "with a little pink" but there was no pink; but then neither was it a hockey puck. Nice thick slice of tomato. The iceberg lettuce was nice and crisp; not shredded (which is good). Only 1 slice of bacon and it wasn't perfectly crisp.

Selected comments on the Fries
Norm

Fries were of the thin "shoestring" style, as we used to call them in Idaho. I got the truffle parmesan fries for a dollar extra. Good Flavor because of the cheese. But fries were a little bit on the soft side. And as sometimes happens with this style of fry, there tend to be a lot of very small, short pieces. Quantity served was average. Again, enough for a meal.

Ray

They were pretty ordinary fries, but cooked well and the seasoning was excellent. The dipping sauce was tasty - reminded me of what we had at drive-inns as a kid. Probably a mix of catchup & mayo.

Ray had a beer; the rest of us had shakes which we liked. We are all still waiting to find that milk shake made with hard ice cream spun up in a metal canister on a green Hamilton Beach shake mixer. That will be the 5-star milk shake. These shakes had whipped cream which kicked them up a notch.

Selected comments on the service and ambience
Norm

Everything still looked new and clean. Cooking area was accessible and appeared to be operating in an efficient manner. Dickie Jo's is modeled somewhat after a 60s era diner. And there appeared to be an effort to appeal to folks looking for more than the typical low priced gut-bomb fast food burger . Signage and menues indicated much of the food was locally sourced with an attention to quality and detail. The place was attractive and well lit. Typical oldies music was playing on a quality sound system. Customers seemed to be a mix of younger families and middle aged boomers.
It was high noon on Saturday and the place was jumping with a line approaching the door. But Dickie Jo's was adequately staffed and everyone seemed to be getting their order in reasonable time. Wait staff was personable and friendly. Customers also seemed to be happy and although the place had only been open for a couple of weeks I would guess the customers were a good mix of first timers and returning folks.

Howard

I enjoyed the music and the nice stereo; but when I walked outside i realized how loud it was.

The Ratings
Note that at press time we hadn't heard from John.

So overall a pretty solid entry. I think most of us have it somewhere in the middle. Dea's and Killer Burger are still the two top contenders.

Some of the guys may have comments or pictures they'll want to add as comments.