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adrian's tavern

[address]

4812 Chicago Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55417

[phone]

(612) 824-4011

[date of visit]

3/5/2005

[price]

[summary]

Looking for awesome Jucy Lucy's and overpriced beer in the heart of south Minneapolis? Adrian's is the place!

[the joint]

Adrian's is one of those classic old feeling Minneapolis bars that probably opened sometime in the 40's and hasn't changed their decorations or their video games since. It's a long, narrow runway of a room that's plastered throughout with actual-vintage bar memorabilia - mostly Grain Belt stuff, natch - and a couple of TV's and some neon. There's a small bar up front and a bunch of vinyl booths that run up the sidewalls all the way to the back where the arcade museum is. Last but not least, giant mirrors line both sides of long room, which is cool if you like that 'infinite room' effect while you're drinking and stuffing your face which - no surprises here - I kinda do.

[the food]

The food menu at Adrian's consists of a) burgers and b) anything you can fry. And when I say 'anything you can fry', yes, I do include mini-tacos. Which they do serve. After frying them. And which turned out to be not all that bad. And neither were the jalapeno poppers or the onion rings, both which we also ordered to heat-up our taste buds as we drained our first couple of pitchers. Unfortunately all of the apps were of the food service frozen variety and were under portioned for the price, but that didn't stop us from enjoying them and if I went back I'd go ahead and re-order any of the three we tried.

In the name of completeness I will note that the drink menu consists of a) 3.2 beer and b) maybe some wine or something, who knows. At $11/pitcher (?!) we though the beer was a bit pricey for a hole in the wall burger joint, frosty mugs be damned. (Note: when the keg ran out mid pour, the waiter gave us the 1/3 full pitcher he had been pouring for free. Kudos for the dregs?)

After dancing around it for another couple of beers we put in our order for 6 Jucys, all with American because that was the only option. Estimated wait time: 25 minutes, which I like to hear because it usually means pattied-to-order. In the meantime, I went to take some pictures of the kitchen and while doing so I noticed the cook dude was sawing off these gorgeous slabs of onion for some other table's order. WTF? We weren't offered onions! I track our waiter dude down and ask for the story and he says "oh yeah, do you want onions?" and we say "all six with raw, natch" and he says "fine" and that's that.

Other menu-centric comments: The burgers don't come with lettuce/tomato and don't come with a basket option. Instead, they are all served with chips. Huh? So you pay $6.95 for burger/chips but you don't really want chips because nobody wants to eat dumb chips so then you have to order a bunch of quote-un-quote-large baskets of fries to share and you end up throwing your chips away. Whatever, if that's how they do it, fine, but it's not like I'm too stupid to notice that I'm now paying like $9 for a Jucy/Fry basket with no slaw.

The food arrives. Burgers are indeed large, fully meeting the advertised 1/2 pound weight. They are also almost mathematically perfect in shape and thickness and have no discernable seam. Also, in a stroke of true inspiration, the traditional cheese on the inside of the jucy is complimented with - brace yourself - ANOTHER SLICE of cheese on top. Genius! Bravo Adrian's!

Taste was borderline spectacular. Hot, delicous, and packed with cheese. And not just ordinary Jucy Lucy cheese, either, Adrian's was the truly the first Jucy worthy of the 'fear the cheese' legend. Within 30 seconds of food-arrival our group had already experienced several mouth and hand burns as the molten gooey goodness was freed from its meaty confines. But the pain could not stop us, for we had found one hell of a good Jucy Lucy. And not just one or two of us, either, as the CONSISTENCY was remarkable, by far the best we've ever experienced. Bravo again.

It was so good I even made a movie.

please 'save as' to your local machine (18MB)

Food wrap-up notes included: buns (lightly toasted, but bland, mcdonald's style), fries (hot and crisp and less under-portioned than the rest of the appetizer menu), pickles: ('rippled-chip' variety and missing in some baskets), chips (nobody ate those stupid chips), and slaw (N/A).

[service]

Service was disappointingly weak. Our apps were delivered without individual plates, our mugs were frequently dry, and then there's the onion incident mentioned above. I'm not sure if they were understaffed or what, but Adrian's didn't exactly shine in this department. Keep your expectations low.

[conclusion]

There was some debate as to weather this is the best Jucy Lucy we've had to date, but either way it ranks right near the top. Don't let the overpriced apps and the overpriced beer and the bad service keep you away. You owe it to yourself. Now go do the right thing.