la.foodblogging

On the Westside, there are a handful of burger joints that people swear allegiance to. Apple Pan with its metered ketchup and grumpy servers, Father’s Office with its single burger option and then there is The Counter, which prides itself on offering thousands of burger combinations and plenty of ketchup, bbq sauce, or whatever other toppings you want.

The Counter is consistently packed, and wating twenty minutes or more is not unusual. On the plus side, the friendly servers come around and take beer, wine and drink orders while you are waiting for your table. You can get to work on your order while you are waiting too. Each diner gets a slip of paper with all of the burger options and toppings on it. You check the box next to each option you want. For a full list of options, see their online menu.

50-50

We like to start with the 50-50. It’s a basket half filled with french fries and half filled with onion straws. It comes with one side of BBQ sauce and one side of ranch dressing in addition to the ketchup on the table.

Turkey Burger

I like the turkey burger, with gruyere or horseradish cheddar, topped with onions, tomatoes, roasted chilis and a host of other goodies. Their sweet BBQ sauce is a nice addition as well.

Veggie Burger

The Counter also offers veggie burgers and my wife loves them. They are thick and meaty (meatless) and packed with flavor.

The burgers are offered in 1/3, 2/3 and 1 pound versions. Even the 1/3 lb burgers are sizeable. After you are seated, the burgers come up fairly quick. I think that it has to do with the efficient ordering system and while there are tons of different options, they are pretty easy for the cooks to apply.

We have also had the burgers to go when we can’t hold out for a table.

The Counter
2901 Ocean Park Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90405
310.399.8383

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.