Late Dinner at Slater’s 50/50 Pasadena – Restaurant Review

On Friday night, after seeing an excellent production of “A Christmas Carol” (the three ghosts rather sensationally done, yes indeed!) put on at A Noise Within Theatre, we got on the Metro train (Sierra Madre stop is right next to the theater, making it real easy!) and headed into Old Town Pasadena. About 10:15 p.m., we made the short walk from the Memorial Park station to Slater’s 50/50 Restaurant, which just opened at this location a couple of weeks ago. The restaurant was completely packed at this time – we were given about a 20 to 25 minute wait time, so headed to the bar for Martini’s while we waited. The bar was full up too, so we stood while waiting – luckily it didn’t take more than 15 to 20 minutes before we were seated at a nice two-person table set a couple of steps up at the far end of the bar area, right next to a huge cow painted on the wall. On this evening we were two of the older people in the place, mostly young’uns (early thirty’s and younger), I would say. The whole restaurant was noisy, lively, and bustling with servers carrying hamburgers all over da joint! The restaurant is basically a sports bar that is divided into two sides, bar and dining – with cherry wood chairs and white-topped tables packed together, some booths along the sides, lots of TVs to watch sports.

Slater’s 50/50 specializes in burgers with a goodly selection of topping choices, emphasis on “Bacon” – – you can order a designed burger or “design it” yourself, creating and even naming your own burger by checking off your choices of bread, cheese, sauces, toppings, and “over the top” toppings like anchovy, beer battered jalapenos, peanut butter, Spam, sweet potato fries, Fritos, etc.  Their signature burger patty is called the “50/50” and is 50% ground beef, 50% ground bacon!

I ordered “The 50/50 Burger”, one of their choices of pre-designed burgers, a glass of wine, and we decided to start with Slater’s famous “Vampire Dip”. Our Dip arrived pretty quickly and – oh yum, was this ever good! A seriously tasty blend of roasted garlic, cheese, and artichoke that is served hot in a sourdough bread bowl. This was really delicious, nice and garlicky – and rich! It comes with bread dippers and some tasty, crispy fried Pita Chips.

Okay – already getting fairly full just from that yummy Dip, but on to my Burger. The 50/50 comes with the signature half beef/half bacon patty (choice of size – I got the 1/3 pound, which is plenty!), an egg fried sunny side up, Avocado Mash, Pepper Jack cheese, and Chipotle Adobo mayo. I found the burger decent/okay, but a bit dry – the patty (I ordered it Medium) tasted a bit too charbroiled and there just didn’t seem to be enough flavors in the toppings. I couldn’t taste that Chipotle mayo at all. I think next time here I would prefer to get a regular beef patty and not the 50/50. I do like that they serve the burger with a knife, so you can cut it in half and share or take some home – and that’s what I did as this was heavy/rich/greasy, so could only eat half. Hubby got “The Old Timey” Burger which he seemed to like – I tasted it and thought it was good, better than “The 50/50”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few suggestions:

1. This restaurant seems to be geared towards the young/”more tech savvy than me” crowd, what with the text message to tell you when your table is ready (first time I’ve seen that, way of the future perhaps?) and the free food offers I saw mentioned on Facebook/Yelp if you “check-in” – – how about for those of us born Eisenhower era or before and still out on the town past ten o’clock, a free Bacon Brownie for the table!
2. Don’t keep the Late Night Happy Hour such a secret! – we got no mention there was a happy hour going on at either the bar or at our table. There was a not very noticeable placard on the table that was facing away from both seats and I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t already known about the Happy Hour (via online) and been looking for something about it on the table.
3. Most seriously though, I think there should be more “designed” burgers available – I would love to see what other interesting concoctions this place can come up with! As it happens, I’m not super keen on the “build your own burger” concept (seems like if I want to “build” my own burger I could just do it at home). I must say though, this place had lots of interesting choices of toppings and flavors, so I might be willing to give it a try here.

All in all, I thought this restaurant had a comfortable atmosphere, the service was attentive and good, and – yay – they stay open late, important for me since we often go out to dinner after shows. I’ll definitely give this place a try again – and I’ve got my eye on that Fritos Crunch Burger they offer!

 

Website for Slater’s 50/50 Restaurant – has multiple locations