J Alexander’s bacon cheeseburger with shoestring French Fries.
The Dunwoody – Sandy Springs corridor is the largest commercial real estate market in the Southeast and larger than downtown Atlanta and Buckhead combined. The market is dominated by large, attractive office parks featuring two or more high-rise towers clustered in heavily landscaped properties. The tenants are mostly national, state, and local corporations seeking low stress business environments.
The office parks are magnets for high-end steakhouse restaurants such as McKendrick’s, Capital Grille, Fleming’s, and Del Frisco’s (now closed). J Alexander’s features meat and similar comfortable surroundings. My son strongly believes Superica’s Hamburguesa should be brought to the public’s attention, too.
Superica’s Hamburguesa, Mexican-style cheeseburger with seasoned potato wedges.
My son and I like the steakhouse mission to provide high quality proteins, vegetables, and beverages in comfortable and stately rooms. We lived near McKendrick’s and Sasha’s job occasionally furnished gift cards to the venerable local establishment.
But we did not frequent McKenrick’s that much, nor the other nearby places for two reasons. First, grilling steak is something that I do well at home and at far less cost. Granted, steakhouse meat is top quality but is a NY Strip worth $60 to a $100 or more dollars?
Still, we wondered if we were not taking advantage of a half dozen or more desirable eating places less than a mile from our home and contemplated a reasonably-priced approach. We both like cheeseburgers so we strategized sampling each restaurant’s best preparation.
Upscale steakhouses usually don’t list cheeseburgers among their dinner menu items because of high labor inputs and low margins. Some restaurants include cheeseburgers in their lunch menus as people generally eat and spend less for a midday meal.
But steakhouses live to please and will gladly accommodate diners seeking a cheeseburger. We recommend making reservations several days in advance and informing the restaurant with special instructions. The chefs will appreciate it. All worked very nicely with us.
This food testing pursuit took us two years to complete. J Alexander’s was the first food emporium that we tried, probably because it was closest to us.
We were very impressed – our burgers were perfect – flavorful, tender, the cheese still bubbling, the fries delicious. Our mission was off to a good start.
J Alexander’s cheeseburger with grilled onions and shoestring fries.
Our aim is not to tell the public where to go for the best cheeseburger. We want people to know that their local steakhouses have great cheeseburgers and will cook them up for you if you meet them halfway.
Our second investigation took place at Fleming’s located in Ashford Lane. We had just moved from the Lofts Apartments to the Flats Apartments and viewed Flemings from our terrace, perhaps a hundred-foot walk door to door.
We made reservations and gave them our instructions. Fleming’s simply asked us to please sit at the bar, submit our order to the bartender who, in turn, would give it to the chef to price and cook up.
Working with them was worth it – the burgers and fries were just as good as J Alexanders and the interior was nicer. Fleming’s makes a great burger and offers a heady dining experience.
Fleming’s bacon-cheeseburger with Brioche roll.
Fleming’s cheeseburger with fries.
After a year at the Flats, we moved to the new High Street Atlanta mixed-use complex and could see from our terrace Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse located in the base of an empty State Farm office tower. After a couple of months, we made reservations and walked over.
Del Frisco Double Eagle Steakhouse cheeseburgers.
The Del Frisco burger was attractive, interesting but very messy and salty. The chef heavily placed kosher salt around the rim of the burger and made it difficult to eat.
The Matre’d took notice and asked what was wrong. I told him that my family always complained that I automatically salted my food before tasting it and I, ironically, could only eat half of the burger.
He judiciously picked up the check, smiled, and bid us a good evening. Their effort did not work and they honorably faced up to it. Sadly, the restaurant has closed though I would give another Del Frisco a chance – the service was good, the room was pretty, and they tried hard to please.
McKendrick’s opened in 1995 and has been a staple of Dunwoody fine dining ever since. I have celebrated several life achievements at McKendrick’s over the years. And since Sasha received another gift card, we made reservations for our fourth cheeseburger to sample.
McKendrick’s is noted for excellent food and service and they delivered beautifully. Our burgers and fries were terrific and the onion rings superb.
McKendrick’s bacon cheeseburger with fries.
At that moment, we realized we were dealing with incomparable meals – all were very satisfying in their own way, maybe a classic apples and oranges situation.
McKendrick’s cheeseburger with superb onion rings.
I will declare that McKendrick’s onion rings are the greatest I have ever eaten and cannot figure out how they manage to keep the batter fixed to the ring like wallpaper. After our raves, management provided us a complementary chocolate dessert.
As much as we like McKendrick’s, Sasha and I are glad that we pushed ourselves to discover the other places – our burger quest showed us three lovely places with comfortable bars to nurse a drink, too.
Steakhouse operational costs are among the highest in the industry so high menu prices are a necessity. We found an affordable way to enjoy places that formerly felt out of reach.
We had one more visitation to complete our mission – the Capital Grille – although we were already feeling quite fortunate that our burger quest had become special. We contacted the restaurant and they graciously accepted the challenge.
“You guys are set – come at 6:30 and Mack will take care of you.”
We arrived and Mack was waiting.
Capital Grille cheeseburgers with fries – Sasha’s patty had bacon.
Mack set down the most different burger of all; it was enveloped in bubbling mozzarella cheese that toned down a highly seasoned burger – it was delicious and so messy I finished eating it with a fork. We, who normally prefer American cheese on our burgers, salute a gutsy call by the chef.
We encourage diners without company expense accounts or high incomes to consider the local steakhouse as an affordable option like we did. They like to please and make you happy.