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Search for the Best Burger Joint in Austin: Your Mom’s Burger Bar

Q: Where you havin’ lunch? A: Your Mom’s

If you’ve been looking for the best burgers in Austin, you’ve come to the right place. This post is part of a series on The Austinot.

All the posts in this series start with “Search for the Best Burger Joint in Austin” in the title. Remember, I’m looking at not only the burgers, but the experience as a whole.

You’ll always get an honest take on the burger joints that I’ve visited. I’m not on any burger joint’s payroll. Agree or disagree, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

First Impression of Your Mom’s Burger Bar in Austin

First of all, it’s fun to say. When a friend asks, “Hey where you wanna go for lunch?” you can reply with “Your Mom’s!” and actually mean it! Second of all, it’s really cool when you learn that Your Mom’s Burger Bar was formed from a dream and originally funded by taking music equipment to a pawn shop.

Ryan Blackmore, owner of Your Mom’s Burger Bar

Once upon a time, Your Mom’s had a location on Caesar Chavez, but they shut it down. According to company’s website, the Chavez location was shut down due to “poor choice of accounting services coupled with a few employees who stole over the years and straight up bad management.”

Unfortunate story, but this is one of the things I like about the folks behind Your Mom’s Burger Bar. They are straightforward, transparent and not afraid of mistakes they’ve made along the way. Since the Chavez location was shut down, attention has been focused on Your Mom’s sole location at 5001 Airport Blvd.

I’m thankful they didn’t shut down everything because Your Mom’s Burger Bar serves up a burger worthy of admiration.

For those who have been following the series, you may know that Austinot guest blogger and friend Kat Mandelstein has a companion series to mine, on the best veggie burger in Austin. She joined me for lunch at Your Mom’s (and her veggie burger review will be coming soon).

We placed our order and sat down in a comfortable open space. while classic rock tunes poured out over the speakers.

Your Mom’s Burger Bar is located at 5001 Airport Blvd. – slightly north of the I-35 exit

Austinot Eric’s Burger Review Criteria

If you’ve read my other articles in this series, you’ll know that I rate burger joints using a 1-10 scale, with 5 being Average. (Don’t be a hater. If I rate you a 5, that means you were average.)

Roughly speaking, a score of 1 translates to “worst ever,” while 10 translates to “God handcrafted this himself.” Remember, you are free to disagree with me. This is just my honest take.

When reviewing a burger joint, these are my categories:

1. Burger Patties
2. Bun
3. Cheese
4. Messiness
5. Garnish
6. Burger Taste
7. Fries
8. Atmosphere
9. Cleanliness
10. Other Factors

Burger Joint Review: Your Mom’s Burger Bar

Look at the thickness of that bacon

1. Burger Patties = 8. Thick and juicy burger patty that left little to be desired.
2. Bun = 9. The bun was nearly perfect, slightly toasted. Just look at the photo. It didn’t fall apart during the meal and was ample enough to cover the sizable patty. You won’t be disappointed here.
3. Cheese = 6. Real cheese that accompanied the burger well. Nothing outstanding here, but nothing wrong.
4. Messiness = 7. The sizable bun didn’t stop the shredded lettuce and juicy burger from leaving a drip of a mess. That’s a plus in my book. Bravo, Your Mom’s! Keep ‘em messy!
5. Garnish = 10. Take a look at the photo again. That is the thickest cut bacon I’ve ever had on a burger. Fresh shredded lettuce is always a plus, and thickly sliced tomatoes made the garnish perfect.
6. Taste = 9. This burger was melt-in-your-mouth kind of good. Arguably among the very best I’ve had.
7. Fries = 9. Okay, can these guys do anything wrong? Their fries are fantastic. Not the thin and crispy fast food style fries. Not the overly thick steak fries, but a fresh and nearly perfect meeting in the middle. Well seasoned.
8. Atmosphere = 7. It’s a cool joint. Your Mom’s has artwork on the walls from various local artists, including the talented William K. Stidham. Aluminum siding, great music, and random fun. They lose a little for the TV cord which was draped haphazardly and shamelessly down the wall. But hey, if you don’t go to Your Mom’s Burger Bar because of a TV cord, you’re a fool.
9. Cleanliness = 8. Far above average in cleanliness, though there were a few discrepancies (like crumbs on tables) that I noticed here and there.
10. Other Factors = 7. Your Mom’s Burger Bar has a cool name, was bootstrap funded by hocking things at a pawn shop and has learned from mistakes. Much respect to Owner Ryan and his wife Gina for pursuing their dream and creating a great place for locals to go to.

Bottom Line on Your Mom’s Burger Bar in Austin: 8.0 out of 10

Overall Score = 8.0. The overall score is the average of the 10 categories.

Willie Nelson Burger? You’ll have to check it out

Coming in with a score of 8.0, as of this writing Your Mom’s Burger Bar is in second place on my search for the best burger joint in Austin. The burgers are melt in your mouth good, the fries are fantastic and the staff is really cool.

The addition of local artwork and the tenacity of the owners make this place extra special.

For the purposes of this review, I ordered the “Norma Jean” with bacon. But their specialty is stuffed burgers. I can tell you that I’m definitely going to go back and try one of their stuffed burgers. Oh and by the way, their onion rings looked great, though I haven’t tried them yet.

If you are looking for the best burger in Austin, this may be it. It falls second on my list so far, but it only came in second by one tenth of a point.

I highly suggest you check out Your Mom’s Burger Bar for yourself. When you do, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Your Mom’s burgers satisfy with ‘impressively soft’ buns

Downtown restaurant reimagines classic dish, provides friendly service

Shelley Neuman/The Daily Texan: Ryan Blackmore, owner and chef of Your Mom’s Burger Bar and Delivery, prepares a Frida Kahlo burger.

By Rene Huynh

Daily Texan Staff

Despite its name, Your Mom’s Restaurant and Delivery is not a cute, old-fashioned

burger joint.

You won’t see portraits of Elvis hanging next to collectible Coca-Cola Co. paraphernalia, nor will you find floral-print curtains or those quaint milk shake glasses.

Instead, you’re in for creative, tasty burgers from the epitome of a hole-in-the-wall. Dim lighting, stained leopard-print sofas and crinkly plastic red lanterns oddly harmonize in a very tight space. Basically, it’s the grungy, attic-like extension of a bar.

Located on the second floor of the Headhunters Club building on Red River Street, Your Mom’s is a bit hard to find at first since there isn’t a sign clearly in sight. But once we did manage to find the restaurant, a friendly face popped out from behind the counter to greet us. Almost instantly, we felt at home.

Adan was personable and chatty, making comfortable small talk as he gave us burger recommendations and took our orders.

“We’re like your moms,” Adan said, good-naturedly referring to himself and Ryan (Owner). “We’ll take care of you.”

And they did. When asked if they offered a sampler basket of fries, onion rings and fried pickles (so we could avoid the need to purchase three separate orders), he casually cocked his head to the side and said, “Hmm, we don’t really have that. But we can. How about we prepare you a basket for $3.50?”

Score. Not only was Adan flexible, but the improvised basket contained a lot of food for its price.

“You’ve ordered our first sampler ever,” he remarked playfully as he set it down on our table.

Although the sampler basket was good, the real stars of the evening were, of course, Your Mom’s burgers — complete with spunky names and even spunkier components. We went with the two most highly recommended versions: the Frida Kahlo ($7.50) and the Marie Laveau ($7.50). The prices were a bit higher than we were used to paying for individual burgers that didn’t come with sides, but they were also packed with more ingredients than usual.

As expected, the burgers had distinctly different personalities. The Frida Kahlo was an eclectic, free spirit with pepper jack cheese, chorizo, a fried egg, avocado and lime spread.

Although we couldn’t really taste all of these exotic burger ingredients, especially the ones with a subtler taste, together they offered a scrumptious blend of different textures.

The Marie Laveau, on the other hand, was Southern and sassy. The half-pound burger patty was blackened Cajun-style, stuffed with boudin and topped with a remoulade sauce.

The Cajun seasoning added just the right amount of spice and flair to each bite.

In general, the burger buns were impressively soft yet still held up throughout the eating experience, despite the burger’s sauciness and plethora of ingredients.

If you’re looking for a straight-laced burger restaurant, Your Mom’s is not the place for you. But if you just want to chill in a low-key environment with a fabulous burger and a margarita, Your Mom’s won’t disappoint. Or disapprove.

Eat at Your Mom’s

Lauren M/eastaustinite.com | March 19, 2010

by: Ryan Loyd of austincitysphere.com

source: http://www.austincitysphere.com/2010/09/childish-humor-helped-name-serious.html

Where do I begin this story? There’s the easy, ever popular and eternally funny your mom joke. Yo Mama’s so dumb that she tripped over a cordless phone. Or, Yo mama’s so old that when she was in school there was no history class!

I could begin this story on the importance of mothers. Scientific studies point to the overwhelming value of a mother’s love, hugs and support.

But maybe this story can simply start by saying how freaking awesome Your Mom’s Burger Bar (1701 E. Cesar Chavez Ste. B) is! After several weeks of hearing how much I needed to try Your Mom’s, the word of mouth advertisement became too much to resist!

“We don’t have [the] budget to have a marketing campaign,” said owner Ryan Blackmore Thursday when he personally sat down with us to talk mano a mano about burgers. “When we started out, Yelp hit us up and we started with I think five stars, and it just escalated to where we had nothing but five stars and we became number one on Yelp.”

Although Your Mom’s is a serious burger joint, it did begin with the infamous ‘your mom’ wise crack when Blackmore asked his wife where she wanted to go eat lunch one day. She said with a grin, “Your mom’s.” Blackmore just knew it was to be the perfect name for an up and coming restaurant later on when entering the restaurant biz became a reality.

Blackmore, a California native, moved to Austin from South Padre Island seven years ago with his wife, Gina. He worked in several restaurants, where he says he had to conform to a certain style – one that wasn’t his own. But now, he gets to have his own creative outlet and does damn well what he pleases. Mashed potatoes and corn stuffed burger? No problem! He just created it. It’s not even on the menu yet and already customers are asking for it because of a Thrillist review giving it lots of props and praise. This is all part of Blackmore’s plan to offer great food by great people. “We’ve done no advertisement, it’s just word of mouth and just getting great burgers out there,” he said.

I had the Willie Nelson – a half pound beef patty wrapped with bacon and stuffed with American cheese, tossed in honey bar-b-q sauce, topped with a fried onion ring on Texas toast. Man, oh man! I know some people are purists and just like their patty without being stuffed, with only your average fixins’, but geez Louise the Willie Nelson is fantastic. You can see the cheese sort of escaping when the burger arrives at your table. But the time you bite into the burger, the cheese is gushing and flavor is just singing like a fat lady at the opera inside your mouth. It quite honestly is one of the best hamburgers I’ve ever eaten. Writing this review is a little painful as I have to recall the burger without having another one of Your Mom’s creations right in front of me. Blackmore himself recommended the Willie Nelson when I ordered, despite my initial desire to have a plain and simple burger to test out this place. But good thing he convinced me otherwise.

As for the fries: crisp and delicious! I can’t recall the spices on the regular fries, but I’m almost certain there was cinnamon on the sweet potato fries I’d gotten for my little boy. (He loves sweet potato fries, and loved these twice as much!) I previously heard the french fries weren’t always up to par. “That was a learning experience and getting the recipe just right,” Blackmore said. “We were basically working out kinks and fine tuning them. Now they are tip top and I get compliments about the fries. Fixed!”

Your Mom’s has been at its East Cesar Chavez location for about six months. It’s a little tricky to find, but it’s basically at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Chalmers behind the red and yellow painted Taqueria Las Cazuelas. Before its permanent residence on the east side, Blackmore had a location downtown for about five months. It was inevitable that he’d move to a spot where he could serve up burgers non-stop.

With so many burger joints out there, there’s got to be a copycat. But Blackmore said the copycat he believes copied him is someone everyone knows – the Food Network’s Guy Fieri! “I started my stuffing process a little over a year and a half ago. My wife and I were researching some things and noticed that Guy Fieri had started stuffing his burger with chorizo. But I had my chorizo stuffed burger first! When we first thought of it we researched online and couldn’t find anyone stuffing burgers with chorizo,” Blackmore said.

If there’s ever any doubt, just ask the man himself who lays claim to this delicious mouth-watering method. “Oh man, now Guy Fieri’s got it, now he’s going to coin it and it’s going to be his. But make the record straight, I used chorizo first,” said Blackmore with a laugh.

The only bad thing to say about this excellent burger joint is that who knows what the new generation of your mom jokes will be like with a place like this around. They’ll turn the old favorites to compliments. But that might not be half bad. Whose mother deserves to be put down?

You can give Your Mom’s a call at 512-474-MOMS. Blackmore also offers catering, which kind of makes me want to throw a party just to have it catered by Your Mom’s. Go check them out and then post your own comment below. We definitely want to hear what you have to say.Tags: mom\s burgers austin,i did your mom jokes,california sign,frida kahlo burger,exotic burgers austin tx,east side burger austin,boudin stuffed burger,best hambergers in austin tx,austin caser,austin burger with fried egg,