The Counter

The Counter is a 22 store international franchise based out of LA county.  They're becoming well known for their custom burgers.  The concept at The Counter is to build your own burger to taste from the following listing of ingredients:

This review is of a 2/3 lb. beef burger, with Tillamook Cheddar, grilled onions, honey cured bacon, peppercorn steak sauce, on a regular hamburger bun.

At first glance the burger is intimidating.  It's stacked high with the add-ons.  It becomes immediately obvious that the sandwich is not going to be easy to eat.  In fact, it's probably the hardest burger to keep from falling apart while eating. 

Presentation: The massive stack is cool looking. However, this approach can easily become overkill. I saw several burgers in the restaurant that measured close to a foot high... That's just ridiculous.  It's going to lose points due to the fact that it kept falling apart and out of my hands.  If I wanted to eat cut up pieces of a sandwich I would have gone to Costco for some free samples. 

Taste: The sandwich as a whole tasted great.  The cheese was tasty, the meat was tender, the steaksauce was awesome.  The bacon and grilled onions were pretty standard.

Quality: High quality ingredients all around. I was impressed.

Variation of ingredients: Obviously this place is a winner in this field.  I've never seen so many options.  If you think about it, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of different types of burgers that can be created from the available ingredients.

Note: They need different bun sizes scaled for different amounts of toppings and different patty weights.  If the bun was larger this would have scored a higher rating.  I recommend sticking with a small patty if you like eating with your hands.

Burger Eater's Rating:  7.5