My spouse and I dined at Burgatory on the North Shore for lunch on a Saturday in early October 2016. The restaurant’s logo illustrates its amusing name “Purgatory, which features a halo on top and a fiery bottom. The company’s goal is to provide “helluva burgers” and “heavenly shakes”. The restaurant is open daily for lunch and dinner. Burgatory’s owners operate several other restaurants in the Pittsburgh area including Uncle Sam’s Submarines and Fuel & Fuddle (and the now-closed Joe Mama’s Italian Deluxe). Other Burgatory locations include Fox Chapel (at the Waterworks, their first location, which opened in 2011), Robinson Township (at The Pointe), Homestead (at the Waterfront), Murrysville (Blue Spruce Shoppes), McCandless Crossing/North Hills, the Consol Energy Center (now called the PPG Paints Arena), and Heinz Field.
Burgatory on the North
Shore opened in fall 2015 on the street level of a commercial building amidst
other bars and restaurants. It occupies a corner location that allows for
outdoor sidewalk dining in front of the building and semi-alfresco dining on
the side beneath a canopy enclosed with clear-plastic roll-down sides. Staff
can roll up huge garage doors on the side of the building to allow outdoor
access. Indoor seating at booths, tables, and a large bar is available. The
restaurant decor features concrete, metal, and wood that blend with gray,
brown, red, and yellow paint. A clever flowchart on one wall helps you make
food decisions.
Burgatory serves
casual American cuisine, including burgers, salads, fries, and milkshakes.
Whenever possible, they use organic, all-natural, and local ingredients.
Besides ordering from the pre-designed burgers, you can create your own using
paper order sheets and pencils located on each table. You choose every element
of your burger, including bread (brioche, wheat, pretzel, gluten-free,
focaccia), meat (their beef is a proprietary blend of sirloin, chuck, brisket, and
short-rib, but you can also choose chicken, bison, wagyu, crab, elk, vegan),
rub (jerk, Cajun, onion, mushroom, peppercorn), cheese (cheddar, American,
provolone, gorgonzola, gruyere, gouda, brie), sauce (bourbon BBQ, habanero, aioli,
sriracha, wasabi, horseradish), toppings (bacon, guacamole, savory jelly, ham,
onion straws, chili, fried egg), and cooking instructions (red, pink, no pink).
The menu at the North Shore location features a few different items than the
menus at other locations, such as ribs and a PB&J burger. Keeping with the burger
theme, the restaurant delivers most burgers with a small red plastic pitchfork
in the center. Each burger comes with crispy house-made potato/sweet-potato chips,
but you can upgrade to the house-cut thin rosemary fries, or spicy baked beans
(other sides include cole slaw, potato salad, and side salad). Portions are
large, and prices are reasonable. Burgatory has won awards for their burgers including
in the national A1 Steak Sauce Burger Bracket and at the World Food
Championships.
To craft their custom
milkshakes, Burgatory uses cream from local Titusville Dairy Products to make
their own ice cream daily. Shakes are available in either child-friendly or
adult versions. We ordered the non-alcoholic salted caramel shake (vanilla ice
cream, caramel, and pretzel bits for a salty-sweet combination), to which our
server suggested adding a shot of caramel vodka. The shakes are generously
portioned (nearly 18 ounces, with the overflow arriving in an icy metal shaker
with a long spoon), topped with whipped cream and then garnished with something
appropriate (such as a mini pretzel, in our case).
In
order to provide excellent service, Burgatory staff has attended seminars held
by the Union Square Hospitality Group from New York City (owned by restaurateur
Danny Meyer of Gramercy Tavern, Union Square Café, and Shake Shack). Our server
was friendly, patient, and informative, so her training paid off.
We
enjoyed our lunch at Burgatory – particularly the milkshake varieties – and we
will return.
