10 Red Flags At A Burger Joint That Should Send You Running

Is there anything more satisfying than the perfect burger? Picture it: A soft white bun paired with a perfectly seasoned, grain-fed beef patty loaded with crisp lettuce, juicy tomatoes, tangy pickles, aged cheddar cheese, and a dollop of ketchup. Does a finer meal exist?

America is the home of the burger, but alongside the many lip-smacking, belly-rubbing burger-busting joints across the country is a scattering of badly run establishments that will have you sobbing into your greaseproof paper. All told, what are the red flags at burger joints that should send you running? Negative reviews, wilted toppings, cheap meat, an unclean restaurant, and surly staff are obvious indicators of a substandard burger experience, but did you know that mandatory service fees, unfathomably vast menus, and low prices can also signal a substandard restaurant?

We asked Joe Hannon, a former burger joint owner and GM at Restaurant 365, to help us identify what we should avoid when choosing where to eat our next burger.

It's simple to spot a red flag before even stepping foot in a burger joint, thanks to the wealth of online reviews via sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Many restaurants have websites or social media pages through which you can seek out opinions, and there's always a plethora of influencers willing to share their thoughts. Most restaurants have an online presence — and you can consider these your gateway to evaluating a burger joint before you decide to visit.

According to Bloom Intelligence, 90% of consumers read reviews before visiting a restaurant, and 33% trust peer reviews over any other type. While critic reviews are a valuable source of information when considering a restaurant's red flags, critics sometimes overlook smaller burger joints, so peer reviews are important. When deciding to visit a new restaurant, look for reviews on the service, food quality, ambiance, and price, but take care to use your judgment. If an establishment has 50 five-star reviews but only two bad ones, chances are that bad reviews don't accurately reflect the restaurant's quality.

Sadly, it's not uncommon for disgruntled diners to leave negative reviews, and it's not unheard of for competitor restaurants to leave untrue reviews to divert customers to their own business.

Another way to spot a burger joint red flag is to look out for a scruffy and unsanitary environment. Eagle-eyed customers can start to gauge the quality of a restaurant from the outside. Clear warning signs include chefs or staff smoking out front, trash in the parking lot, dirty windows, and broken signage. A neglected interior often reflects how much attention is paid to food quality and hygiene.

In a restaurant environment, uncleanliness can often indicate unsafe conditions. Hannon shared that "signs of strong hygiene practices include well-maintained kitchen environments, proper labeling, temperature controls, frequent handwashing, and organized storage." However, most customers don't get to peer into a restaurant kitchen, so keep an eye out for dirty tables and sticky, crumb-filled floors. If the customer-facing areas aren't properly cleaned, the hidden areas are likely worse. It's not enough for staff to give the table a quick wipe–they should pay attention to the details, like ensuring that condiments are clean of drips, the menus are unstained, and cutlery is wiped.

Stockton University conducted a survey where 78% of people said they judge the cleanliness of a restaurant by its bathroom. If the bathroom smells bad, has overflowing sanitary bins, and has no toilet paper or soap, you may consider taking your custom elsewhere. Ultimately, when it comes to your food, nothing is more important than being 100% sure it has been prepared in a sanitary and safe environment by a team of people who care about the business.

Bad staff are a major red flag for any restaurant, and burger joints are no exception. Running a successful burger restaurant is a holistic enterprise that should consider all facets of the business. Delivering mouth-watering burgers is important, but customers want to feel confident they're dining in a clean, safe environment with well-trained and polite staff. The same care that is put into food preparation should extend to the staff, who play a vital role in ensuring food is delivered promptly, safely, and with a smile.

Key red flags to look out for are poorly dressed or unkempt staff, no one to greet you as you arrive, long waits to place your order, rude behavior, staff eating on the job, and employees more focused on chatting with each other than doing their work. It's a good idea to look at what the manager is doing; are they running around handling the tasks that the staff are doing? Do the staff seem unhappy or intimidated by the management? Is everyone working as a team? These could all be signs that point to a poorly managed restaurant.

If your regular burger joint has a high staff turnover, it could indicate bad management and a lack of attention to food preparation and hygiene standards–and this could be a red flag.

Watch out for a restaurant that tries to do too much. The best restaurants focus on doing a few things well rather than trying to provide customers with lots of different options. While fusion restaurants can work well, and there's a market for blending different culinary styles, combining too many types of food can backfire. Top chefs spend years perfecting their craft, and for most, it's impossible to excel in every area — it's dubious that any restaurant claiming otherwise can deliver a high consistency of food and quality to their customers. Joe Hannon says this doesn't extend to restaurant specials or limited-time offers; "limited-time offers showcase creativity, seasonality, and innovation, often signaling active culinary engagement rather than lower quality."

Specials aside, a restaurant that offers an extensive menu with many different styles of food is unlikely to be able to provide all those ingredients fresh. As a result, much of what you are eating may be pre-prepared, bought in, or nearing its expiration date; no one wants to eat a burger made with frozen patties, store-bought buns, or wilted lettuce. There will inevitably be a huge amount of food wastage, which is a cost to the restaurant that isn't being passed back to you, the customer.

Nothing is more frustrating than waiting hours to have your order taken or to receive your food. Long waiting times can make you feel ignored and undervalued, and they can be a sign that the restaurant is understaffed or that the staff is slacking in their duties. In either case, they point to a deeper issue: poor management.

In burger joints where you are required to queue to order or pick up your food, long wait times are even more frustrating. Who wants to go out to eat and spend half an hour standing in line? Unless you are queuing for a hugely popular burger joint, long wait times could be indicative of operational inefficiencies. Long wait times to order could signify badly trained or lazy staff. If the food is taking too long, it may indicate an unskilled chef or a lack of stock or prepared ingredients. If the staff are taking too long to bring out the food, you can look forward to cold food or congealed burgers.

According to a poll by CivicScience, "one-third (36%) of fast-food diners say they have recently either switched to a different fast-food establishment or stopped visiting a specific restaurant due to wait times." Long wait times drive business away, so if a restaurant hasn't taken steps to rectify this, it's a definite red flag.

We all love a bargain, but no business can operate without a profit–any burger joint with prices that seem too good to be true may be guilty of cutting corners.

For a struggling restaurant, offering low prices is a way to draw customers in, but the impact of reducing prices will have a knock-on effect on the business. Joe Hannon tells us that while "Value pricing doesn't always indicate lower quality; smart purchasing, waste reduction, and efficient kitchen processes can keep prices down without sacrificing quality," a restaurant that suddenly reduces its prices can indicate a red flag.

Joe explains, "Excellent burgers come from consistency, quality ingredients, and skilled preparation." If the prices are suddenly lowered, one of these areas will likely take a hit. It's an easy win for burger restaurants to cut costs by using cheaper ingredients–this could mean sourcing lower-quality beef or buying in pre-frozen patties, reducing the freshness and quality of their toppings. Alternatively, there may be cuts in staff wages and the proper preparation and storage of ingredients.

Joe says, "High-quality burgers can absolutely be offered at affordable prices, but operational efficiency and ingredient sourcing play crucial roles."

Too many burger toppings can be a red flag — if your burger is loaded with condiments and piled high with unnecessary ingredients, it could be a sign that the restaurant is trying to mask low-quality meat.

While customizing a burger with your favorite toppings is one of the joys of dining at a burger joint, a great burger should be able to stand on its own– magnificent in its simplicity. We aren't talking about burger specials or limited-time menus here; as Joe Hannon says, "Limited-time offers showcase creativity, seasonality, and innovation, often signaling active culinary engagement rather than lower quality." We are talking about burgers that are stacked with unnecessary ingredients. Multiple toppings may appeal in theory, but the result can be a sloppy mess and a medley of tastes that don't align.

At Tasting Table, we always look for gourmet burgers that prioritize quality over quantity, with "attention paid to how each ingredient is sourced, prepared, and cooked." As Bobby Flay once famously said, "The best burgers are simple, juicy, and messy." Too many toppings are a red flag–a great burger doesn't need a long list of toppings to shine.

Transparency is of increasing importance to customers. Joe Hannon shares, "Transparency helps build trust and loyalty; diners increasingly care about origins and sustainability." A 2022 Nielsen study cites, "When it comes to dietary requirements, consumers increasingly want transparency over where ingredients are sourced from, their composition and how they have been processed to ensure consumption of the food product does not compromise their ethical standing nor preference."

The need for transparency can be broken down in two ways: the need to understand potential allergens related to dietary requirements such a gluten, dairy, or peanut allergies, and a desire to understand the source of food for ethical and sustainability reasons.

If a restaurant isn't transparent about where they source their ingredients or doesn't declare potential allergens in their food, it's a major red flag. Transparency is a non-negotiable when it comes to customers with specific dietary needs. A burger joint should know everything that goes into every component of their food. This information should be clearly stated on the menu, and the staff should be well-trained to guide customers verbally on any dietary concerns.

Joe states, "Consumers prefer establishments openly sharing information about suppliers, local sourcing, organic ingredients, and sustainable practices." Look for restaurants that have ethical sourcing policies in place, particularly when it comes to animal welfare, organic meat options, and sustainable practices. A reputable burger joint should be able to provide clear information on where and how their ingredients are sourced, ensuring both quality and responsibility.

A burger is only as good as the ingredients that it is made with. Cheap ingredients equals cheap taste. Ground beef, the main component in burgers, is made from the tougher parts of the cow and/or the leftover trimmings from other meat cuts. The difference between high-quality ground beef and cheap is down to which cut of meat the beef came from (the most affordable ground beef is probably an amalgamation of different parts), the fat content (the more fat, the cheaper), and how the cow was bred and raised. Top-end burger joints carefully consider the provenance of their meat's fat-to-meat ratio (at Tasting Table, we believe that 80% meat/20% fat makes for the perfect burger) and always buy their beef in fresh. Red flags are burgers with visible fatty white bits or overly greasy patties, gristle or bone within the patty, and burgers made with fillers like breadcrumbs.

Are the burger buns freshly made? Burger buns are an integral part of every burger; consideration should be given to the bun's size, shape, and texture. No one wants a crumbling, stale bun that falls apart at first bite; buns should be soft, slightly chewy, and dense enough to hold a stack of meat and toppings. They should be freshly baked; if your bun is stale, it won't soak up the burger juices and will fall apart. If your bun is uniform in shape, it may be store-bought.

In the United States, it is increasingly common for a mandatory service fee to be added to the bill. A 2024 survey by Square shows that adding service charges to the bill has doubled in popularity since 2022 and that restaurants are adding a mandatory charge to "offset certain operational or overhead costs across various areas of the business."

Tipping is part of American culture, with many restaurants paying staff under minimum wage and using tips to compensate their staff. An included service charge could be good if restaurants pay their staff a healthy salary and pass the service charge costs on to their staff. It is problematic if the restaurant is not confident that customers will tip and use a service charge to compensate. This may mean poor service, bad food, and a lower salary for staff.

The debate on tipping goes two ways; on the one hand, relying on customer tips to 'make up' salaries shows poor ethics. Joe Hannon believes that "including tips within the bill simplifies transactions and ensures fair, consistent pay for all service staff." On the other hand, tipping works to incentivize staff, giving the customer a better all-round experience, but an excellent restaurant should be motivated to provide the best product regardless of tips.

We think any restaurant that adds a mandatory service charge and doesn't have transparency over where the extra fee goes is best avoided. Joe Hannon agrees, stating, "Transparent pricing helps customers understand the true cost upfront, creating clarity and trust."