The Moderne Burger: A Regular Riverside High Hangout

Moderne Burger

2507 West Broadway, Vancouver

It’s where Archie and Veronica would eat. A charming little retro diner with turquoise booths, a checkered tiled floor, Formica counter tops and swivel chairs with silver rims. There is even a jukebox. We stumbled upon this little diner on our way to Granville Island and had to stop in. That and I also had an intense craving for a burger with a milkshake.

The service was exceptional and the owner was very friendly, explaining to us in careful detail how the burgers are prepared. Each burger patty is hand shaped, no fat is included, and the burger bun is baked fresh daily.

We got so ambitious that we ordered a double steak burger with the house sauce (a sweet ketchup based concoction) and a ground turkey burger with swiss cheese with a side of hand-cut fries (cut to order) and a tall vanilla milkshake.

The burgers came thick and surprisingly juicy. I only say surprisingly because there really wasn’t an ounce of fat in either the steak burger patties or the ground turkey yet, these patties were dripping with juice. The owner even advised us to drain out the steak juice before biting into the steak burger, and also not to put the burger down on the plate for fear of the freshly baked buns getting soggy from all the patty moisture. Not putting the steak burger down was not a problem, after one bite, it was pretty hard to set it down. The meat was tender, the bun was soft and even after eating two thick patties, I didn’t feel stuffed since there wasn’t any fat in the meat.

The turkey burger was also very light, the spices in the patty gave the burger a little bit more dimension than the steak burger. Although, I understand that the steak burger is a sacred sandwich that no chef wants to mess with by adding any additional herbs and spices.

The fries were pretty amazing. I may be biased due to my love for french fries but these are no skimpy MacDonald’s skinny fries. These fries are cut thick and therefore held up in the deep fryer, coming out golden, crispy and perfectly salted.

After all that I was still able to happily slurp down a wonderfully cold, sweet and creamy vanilla milkshake in one of those endearing soda shop glasses. The milkshake was the perfect consistency, although, you can also order the milkshakes here extra thick.

My only complaint is that Moderne Burger closes at 7:45 pm, and on a Saturday night too. That’s too bad because this place would be a perfect late night snack destination.