Sunday, June 10, 2012

Squeeze Inn

My family descended upon the poor unsuspecting Squeeze Inn in Galt, California (right outside Sacramento) to try their famous grilled-crisp cheese cheeseburgers.  Once a modest establishment, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and other accolades have caused rather rapid and aggressive expansion.  We ordered just about every type of burger and fry they served, milk shakes, and other artery cloggers.  In the end, we enjoyed ourselves, but a mix of average service and often underseasoned food caused the overall assessment to be rather lower than where they could, and probably should, be.
The milkshakes were large and delicious.
The fries were fresh and cooked perfectly, but needed more salt.
The chili fries were a meal unto themselves and featured good, Texas-style red (no bean with meat) chili.
The sweet potato fries (a new addition) were rather disappointing.  They had an odd taste, were crisp but not 100% delicious, and the wasabi ranch sauce was probably powder ranch mixed with powder wasabi (resulting in an extremely tart, oddly tangy - in the wrong way - pretty impossible to eat mix).
The burgers were beastly (hand for scale) with a delicious side of crispy cheese (which I folded back onto the burger).
And filled to the gills!  (Fork for scale of crispy cheese).  The patties were the thin variety, not fat "Red Robin" style, but more expanded "Wendy's" style.  This said, they were juicy and well cooked.  We couldn't be sure they weren't frozen, but such is life.  The main issue with the burger was the meat was underseasoned.  Salt - Pepper.  Feel free to also add a little Garlic Powder, etc.

Overall, good but not great.  We were glad to have gone.  Crispy cheese, what a fantastic idea to create a unique burger experience around it!  Bravo!  Our party could have been a little nicer, and so could the host/first server.  For example, as we arrived (with a large group) the servers were unwilling to allow us to move together a few tables (with 3/4 of the space open).  They wanted us to sit near each other, but not connected or wait for at least 10-15 minutes.  Some quick subterfuge later and the tables were connected.  

This did not seem to be a problem for local high school kids around.  The staff seemed perfectly content to allow them to nurse their fries for 45 minutes or more and drop by to see what they needed.  It appeared we caught them between shifts though, as one less helpful waitress left, a new, more helpful waitress arrived.  Seemed they may have wanted us to wait because one waitress did not want to help a big party and end up with no tip.  I cannot say I completely agreed with how our group handled the situation, but the service from hosting to serving never was super impressive.  

The Squeeze Inn
545 Industrial Drive  
Galt, CA 95632
(209) 745-4313
3.5 of 5

2 comments:

  1. "We couldn't be sure they weren't frozen, but such is life." I don't know that I could tell the difference, other than the tenderness of it. How can you tell?

    I think I would like this place.

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  2. Freshness, tenderness, suppleness, juiciness. There is just something about frozen food that is hard to nail down. I think you would like Squeeze Inn too.

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