Burger Shack — Pascoe Vale

Behind the counter

Built around one burger

Burger Shack is a fictional restaurant created to demonstrate the Bold personality of the Counter design by Get Plated. Its story, menu, events and contact details are showcase material. A smashed patty is a simple thing and an easy thing to get wrong. Too thick and it steams. Too cold and it never crusts. Pressed too late and you lose the sear entirely. Get all of it right and you get those crisp lacy edges, which is the entire point. So that is what the whole place is built around. A flattop hot enough to do the job, beef that goes on cold and gets pressed once, and a bun toasted in what comes off the grill. Everything else on the menu earns its spot by going well with that. Order at the counter, grab a number, find a seat. Chips come out first because they always do, and nobody has ever complained about that.

How it works

Six burgers, no compromises

There is a version of this place with twenty burgers on the board and photographs of all of them. We tried it on paper and hated it. A long menu means holding more stock, and holding more stock means something is always sitting around longer than it should. So there are six. Each one is on the board because it does something the others do not, and each one gets made the same way every time. When we want to try something new it goes up as a special for a week, and if people order it twice it earns a permanent spot. That is the whole philosophy. Order at the counter, eat with your hands, and come back on Tuesday when doubles are the price of singles.