Hat Creek Burger Company

Good food, good price, custom milkshakes. Three creamy sauces on pump, food reminds me of Five Guys.

While ordering the guy working the counter apologized for his hoarse voice. He said, «they made me clean up after a sick kid earlier and now I’m sick.» Okay, add that to the list of things never to say to a customer.
I’ve never waited so long for a burger in my whole life. Apparently, they must go out and slaughter the cow and grind the beef before putting it on the grill.
Finally, after waiting 45 minutes the food was ready. It was fine. The small hat was small. Not much meat, a lot of lettuce.
Well, been there done that. Won’t be back.

Great place for kids with a fun playground to run around before and after dinner. Great place for adults with fresh salads and delicious burgers with choice of beef, turkey or chicken. Plus Thursday is $ 1 draft beer days! Yeah!!!

I think it is a little over priced, but that is because I MUST get a milkshake every time. Super good! Burgers are fine. Nothing wrong, nothing great. Its nerdy but I like the fry sauce options. Surprisingly I learned they have a decent breakfast too. Eggs, potatoes, sausage for $ 5! And I saw a flyer for $ 1 beer one day a week.
Decent kid playground for not being a chain fast food.

What if In-​N-​N out had bacon? And beer? And flat screen TVs. That’s a scenario you are facing when coming to Hat Creek Burger Company, my own personal family oasis and yours too if your family features an active toddler, a penchant for a decent afternoon beer, a bacon cheeseburger with real crisp bacon and a football game on.
More thoughts and ridic pics over at Bang for your Burger Buck:

Add Two Stars to the Rating if You Are Four Years Old
You Can Also Add Two Stars to the Rating if You Adore Pickles
If You Are A Four Year Old Who Loves Pickles — Then Welcome Home!
What is magnificent at Hat Creek is magnificent.
What is not magnificent at Hat Creek is average to poor.
They have the finest hamburger restaurant playground in the universe.
I am over 60 years old — but my inner four year old wanted to not eat at all but go and play on that playground.
The coolest part is a super narrow super tall house with all sorts of hidden stuff inside.
The burgers and fries can wait … I’m busy.
Hat Creek prides itself on making its own pickles and sauerkraut and other pickled goodies.
I had their signature cheeseburger and had it topped (my addition) with their signature homemade jalapeño sauerkraut.
The burger was boredom on a stick.
The only interest bitefuls were the sauerkraut — which was everything advertized.
For a side dish I had their fried pickles.
Totally all star fried pickles. !!
The base pickles themselves are just fine.
They are cut thin and breaded very thin almost but not quite at tempura thinness.
The batter though is laced with generous amounts of black pepper.
Black pepper is not the most interesting flavor in general —
but in this application, it absolutely sang.
The pickles were greaseless, totally full of flavor, and the pickles, the batter and the pepper each made a wonderful contribution.
It does not hurt that Hat Creek has three custom made sauces that they have in squirters on a condiments table.
Use them.
The «Hat» sauce (one of the big three) was far more interesting than the white stuff that was served with my pickles for a dip.
Great eating.
However, other than the legendary pickles — the rest of the meal was quite flat.
I already mentioned my ho hum burger.
The bottom of the barrel was my milkshake.
They have all sorts of exotic flavors so I got a Cuvee Coffee shake.
Credit due where credit is due — they are trying to do a high integrity all natural ingredient no fake syrup no relying on flavored ice cream milk shake.
Kudos for nobility.
Razzes for results.
There was not much flavor in the milkshake — and much of it was uneven.
I found a flavor stripe … kinda sorta … between the 25% and 40% of my milkshake —
where it kinda sorta kinda sorta tasted like coffee.
The rest tasted like empty milkshake mix — although an honest homemade milkshake mix.
Honest and boring, like a Boy Scout boyfriend, you intend to drop for a drug dealer who is much more fun.
I am not sure I will be going back to Hat Creek.
It is not exactly health food …
The thrills are not there in large enough numbers to justify the calories …
and if I run up and down the ladders and slide down the slides, I might knock over smaller children who have more legitimate business there.

I’m a fan of this place, however, the speed of their service is unpredictable. I ate breakfast there with a friend two weeks ago, and it literally took them 20 – 30 minutes to bring out the food after we ordered it. There was only one other customer in the restaurant, so I have no idea what they were doing back there. There was zero explanation for why it took so long, so I’m not sure they’re even aware that it was a problem. Then today I drove through the drive-​through, and it took my family 15 – 20 minutes to move up 4 cars to the window. Again, zero explanation for why the long wait time.
Hat Creek — You guys are great, and I love your food. But your Burnet store is too slow! P-Terry’s is waaaaay faster! You gotta figure that out! Thanks!

Okay, burger joints like this seem to be the new food fad in Austin, these days. Come in, read all about their hand-​made pickles, «best bread you can buy» and other synonyms for «fresh» and «healthy» are plastered all over the menu. Each of these places tends to have some type of odd or different way to take your order, and then go on to charge you extra just to eat their food. But hey, you’re buying from a company that cares, right?
Sarcasm aside, this is just a burger joint. Regular «small hat» burgers are tiny… like McDonald’s cheeseburger tiny. The «big hat» burger just doubles the meat. Think In-​N-​Out or P. Terry’s in the size department. Fries are standard skin-​on fare, with tons of (maybe too much) salt. Burger flavor was okay, but honestly you do not get a lot of the burger patty in a bite, as there is a lot of bread, and a TON of lettuce. Not enough of what I came in for, and that was BEEF.
I paid just under $ 10 for a tiny burger, fries, and a 20 oz drink. For about the same money, I could have eaten at Twisted Rood Burger Co, which is just up the street. Twisted Root doesn’t scrimp on anything, and so paying a higher price does not seem lame. However Hat Creek is just as expensive, and leaves you wanting more in the end.
As a guy that grew up on a ranch, Hat Creek is «All Hat, and No Cattle», IMO.

I love this place! They have a vegan veggie burger (they serve the vegan Hot Dang patty) and a drive-​thru, and you don’t usually find both in one joint around these parts. (I’m looking at you, P. Terry’s.) I also like the style of fries they serve, which are thin and greasy, and they offer tasty topping options for your burger like avocado and jalapeños.
Also, the last time we drove through, both our dogs were in the car with us, and the person working the drive-​thru window saw them and pointed them out to a different worker (the manager, maybe?), who brought us two plain burger patties fresh off the grill for our pups! He told us how cute our dogs are (the quickest way into my heart, for sure), and even asked if they’re on a vegetarian diet before handing us the burger patties. So thoughtful and sweet!

This place is okay, not great but not horrible just okay. The burgers and chicken sandwiches are bland they need to add more seasoning to the meat to add a little flavor. I’m giving this place 3 stars because they have a unique variety of dipping sauces that are good and serve a few local beers and shakes that are pretty good as well! They service I have received has always been nothing but friendly. Really the only thing I would suggest would be add a little flavor to the food.

Great kids spot with their playground. They have gluten free chicken nuggets which I love. Burgers also really great and can customize your soda with different flavor options just like at my movie theatre.
The staff is very friendly and good with kids. My 6 yo ordered on her own and they were so sweet to her.

Few things make me as happy as a great burger. Found this place by accident; my boss always raves about the $ 1 beers on Thursdays. I stopped by on a Sunday after working up an appetite at Barton Springs all morning.
The burgers were excellent. Perfect sizes. Topping were great. The fries were thin cut and were piping hot. The sauces are a must especially the Hat Creek sauce.
They also have Strangeland Brewery beers on tap. Mainly dark beers but after sampling the «Entire «I ended up taking a growler home.
Playground for the kids. Parking isn’t great but not many places in this area have good parking

In our continuing search some of Austin’s more well known burgers we finally made our way to Hat Creek. We tried to mix it up and got a Big Hat Burger with pepper jack, a 4 piece chicken flashers and fries. Saturday afternoon around 2, no line at the Burnet location so we got the food plenty quick.
First the chicken, which we both loved. We would say they are slightly larger than nuggets but are nice large pieces of white meat, not to heavily breaded and taste great with one of their signature dipping sauces (our favorite being the Idaho one?).
For the burger we opted for the big hat with pepper-​jack which to our pleasant surprise meant two patties. The burgers have red onion which is different than most the popular burger joints and the sauce is only mustard. The burger was nothing special but it was a solid quick burger. We would rather come here than Shake Shack but it is no In-​N-​Out burger.
The fries however are fantastic — much better than In-​N-​Out. They are shoestring style and have a similar flavor profile of Five guys. The story with both the fries and the burger is that they both improve with one of the sauces. We will definitely come back when in the area.

Burgers were very tasty and fry portions generous. We tried both the regular fries and the sweet potato fries.
They have several sauces to choose from but nothing too exciting here.
Staff was very friendly. We realized after leaving that we were charged for an extra drink and fries and returned about an hour after our visit. They were helpful and reimbursed the difference without hesitation. Great customer service.
Also pleased that grilled onions or jalapeños added to the burger is free.
My only reason for the 4 stars is the price. A burger with cheese, fries, and a drink was about $ 10. I think the food was delicious but I’d rather eat Mighty Fine for about the same price.

This was my first time here. I met up with a couple of Mocha Moms for a «Fun Lunch» with the babies. We had a nice time. When it was time to place my order I was greeted with a smile, that’s always a plus!
The Grilled cheese was the best even after it got cold. The chicken nuggets and Sweet potato fries were very tasty.
I like how the play area was safe, I wish they did have more to the playscape but it was fun to watch the little ones play.

Nice outdoor seating. Dollar beer Thursdays boast a nice selection to complement delicious burgers. Three great dipping sauces.
Good food, although it definitely feels loaded with calories.

The burger and fries were ok. The cheese on the burger was not melted much at all. The staff was very nice. I ordered a shake with oreos. The oreos are ground up into small pieces so I didn’t get the expected chunks of oreos. I’m agreeing with another review that the shake quality is nothing as good as I had hoped. Great employees but I would pay more for better quality.

THIS IS MY BURGER HEAVEN.
Great, great burgers but the star of the show is how amazing the burger and fries become with the specialty sauces. I drown my burger in Hat Sauce and use it on my fries as well with some guest appearances from the fry sauce. I would consider the happy sauce amazing (Hat Creek’s take on honey mustard) but the other two sauces are just so unique that I don’t reach for the happy sauce anymore.
Wish they would go back to the old brews. The Silent Ranch brews on tap aren’t too impressive but not horrible either.

I first tried their burger when they had a food truck outside Starbar, way back then it was one of the best burgers I’ve had in Austin.
About a year ago I tried this location and thought it was still pretty dang good, right there with In n’ Out and Mighty Fine, very similar burger as well.
They do so many things right:
— Sonic style ice
— Bag o’ fries
— Balanced ratios of meat, veggies and bread.
— Good ingredients
— Great service, prompt and with a smile.
So, why 3 stars? It wasn’t very good today. The fries were more grease than potato, soggy, limp and borderline burnt. The burger was ok, but a placid unrip tomato kind of ruined it.
I thought, ok, well, 4 stars then, but by the end of the meal I didn’t even really want to finish the last bite and I threw most of the fries away.
I’m sure they are just having a bad day, tomorrow, 4 stars, maybe 5, but the single most important thing in fast food is consistency, it has to be the same every time, and today, they failed.

Ahhh Hat Creek… you’ve done it again.
Love the new look, BTW. Very modern. Cute.
Kids were quite excited about the new play area, but the rain said…“no way” :-(maybe next time.
Me and my boy got burgers and my daughter got the gluten free chicken flashers… (Those things are fanfreakintastic… really. Try them!
My son said «They have the best fries, mom» while his mouth is stuffed. Hehehe. They were delicious. Hot, crisp, fresh… yummy.
Staff just as nice as ever.
Yes…we love Hat Creek… and appreciate what they stand for.