Smashburger

This is the second time I’ve tried Smashburger and it really doesn’t appeal to me. The first time I tried it was in Vegas, and it just wasn’t a tasty meal. So I thought I’d give it a shot at this Chino Hills location with a different pick in food. I got the Smashchicken Classic Chicken (Crispy) with their Smashfries. The only thing I can positively say about this burger is that it was cooked perfectly, crispy and crunchy with great texture. Oh, and the vegetables are fresh as well! The flavor however, I would rate a ²⁄₁₀ because there really was no flavor. It’s bland. For the price, I felt as if the burger should have been above other fast food joints and had more flavor… But it didn’t. After the second bite I was wishing I’d gone elsewhere. The dipping sauces are a bit different than the ranch and other dressings you’d normally get. The ranch had a bit of a tangy taste to it and the Smashsauce is one on its own. I was hoping that I had a fluke with the restaurant in Vegas, but it’s the same story here at this location as well.
The place however was very clean. The atmosphere and decorations all went together. The server/​waitress was very nice and helpful. She even went back a couple times to get some stuff for us. Everything was good except for the flavor of the food. Not that it was bad or anything, but just lacking the much needed flavor. Unless you’re treating me to lunch here or something, doesn’t look like I’ll be back anytime soon. Many other joints in the complex to go to.

It was my first time here and the food was alright. There is not much flavor in my sandwhich. The fries were good. The awesome customer service is why I gave 5 stars. KENDALL was great! She was patient and offered to bring us sauces. She is the reason why I gave this place 5 stars!

Store didn’t accept my e-​gift card! Even though I tried to convince the manager (Mike) that I’ve used my same e-​gift card at same store & I am using the remaining balance. Still he said, I am sorry. We only use physical hard copy gift card!
Bad service & I will email HQ on their website now

Our family really likes this place! Very loud and it echoes a lot so it won’t be quiet. The food is great. We love the Smash Fries.

Expected more for the price on menu.
Compared to many burger joints, there are plenty of customize burgers with more selections. Many of the vegetables and condiments are free of charge. The cheese, protein and other special veggies add-​ons cost a little extra.
Food was fair and portion is good for lunch. But with two people’s lunch, 1 combo burger and 1 customized burger price came out to be a little over $ 18 dollars.
I think it is a little pricey.

The burgers are awesome! Love the buns too lol. But can do without all of the sides. Our family tried the fried pickles, the smash fries and regular fries, and the onion strings. To me, the fried pickles and onion straws were over-​seasoned and super salty. Both fries were a bit lack luster and again, a tie bit salty. I would come here again, because like I said, the burgers were awesome, but that’s all I’ll be getting. Service was excellent that’s why I bumped it up another star.

What I don’t like about Smash Burger is they do not offer a lettuce wrapped Protein solution for their burgers. When you complain, they will offer a coupon for a discount on your next visit. Having a head of iceberg lettuce at the locations is a pretty simple fix.

Vegetarian review.
Smash Burger offers a black bean patty alternative and it’s gross! Literally, black bean SMASHED into a patty. I’ve had black beans burgers that taste so good that I had to double check with staff to make sure it’s meatless. Not the case here. It’s definitely bean! And the smash fries… solid two stars.
I gave this spot two stars for service and clean restrooms. Besides that… gross.

My first time at this location and I have to say how Unsatisfying it was! The cashier was very rude and not friendly at all!
Didn’t really know the menu figured she would be more of a help considering she works here.
Got my burger super quick… Took a bite and it was raw pink inside. The outer edges of the burger was cooked but ugh disgusting.

The girl at the cashier was VERY helpful super friendly! Place was super clean and food was delicious!
Great service

First time here. The food was pretty good. Casual, beer only, easy menu. But this is more about Vincent the manager! Awesome
From one Mgr to another — you did us all proud lol
Vincent & a cashier and 2 guys in the back. There was a line. He ran food, wiped tables, assisted customers & supported the cashier AND smiled the whole time.
I am a fan! Thank Vincent. It was a pleasure to be in your restaurant.

Pros: Service was great, the girls here were super friendly and the tables and floor were clean.
Con: I liked the Spinach Salad (except for the cucumber slices which tasted like they froze & then defrosted). I got a «regular» burger (4oz.) with ketchup, mayo, tomato & cheddar cheese which I looked up afterward on their website and it was over 800+ calories. Yikes! It was nothing special. Also tried the fries & onion straws & both of these were also nothing special. The prices were pretty high for what you got. I probably won’t be back unless my boyfriend is craving a shake… then I’ll just stick with the Spinach Salad.
NOTE: Their address is on City Center however you can neither see it nor enter from this street. It’s almost hidden in a hallway next door to Panera.

So glad I gave this Smashburger location another try, they have more then redeemed themselves!
Service was fantastic, food came out quickly, order was correct and made perfectly!
Loved my veggie burger and salad, loved the veggie fries.
Nice kids meal for my son and my husband enjoyed his burger and fries as well.
Being as this location is close to home, I am happy they worked out all the kinks, we will be sure to return again!

This is why some reviews can be so confusing. I was hesitant to try smash because of the mixed reviews. All I can tell you is I was greeted kindly as soon as I walked in the door, had a delicious jalapeño baja chicken sandwich, which came out promptly.
I will be back !!!

I recall years ago, dining at a smashburger in San Diego and actually enjoying the experience. Suffice to say I was pretty excited that a smashburger had opened in my hood. I brought my daughter with me for one of our dates and I was raving to her how good it was.
Well as you can imagine from my rating, we weren’t very pleased.
Service and the establishment were fine. No qualms there.
I had intended to order a club chicken sandwich, lettuce wrapped however forgot to mention the chicken part. But I figured NBD since the burger should have been better than chicken anyway. After all, this was a burger joint. I also got the flash fried veggies. Now the girl who took my order seemed perplexed at my lettuce wrapped request. Like it was rocket science. I told her if it was too cumbersome, go ahead and prep it like usual, just with extra lettuce. She said no need and she understood what I meant.
Kid got a cheeseburger and fries.
No sweat right?
My order came, of course in the sheet lined basket. The burger? Not lettuce wrapped. Instead it was one lettuce leaf made extremely soggy by the atrocious patty that sat on it. It had two pieces of bacon atop. The patty was just so egregiously greasy that the lettuce couldn’t even wrap around it. Oh and the patty itself, it’s hard to explain it’s blandness cause there were some parts that were just salt laden. As if seasoning was an ill placed afterthought. It was such an appaling thing to eat that quit on the patty after I ate the bacon.
Now the flash fried veggies? You’d think they’d be light and crisp. nope. Greasier than the burger. Also just as horrible.
Kid said her burger and fries were OK, thus the 1 star.
I am so disappointed with smashburger. I don’t think I’ve been so negatively surprised by a burger joint before.

I’ve wanted to like this place for several weeks, but it’s been nothing but a disappointment. A month ago, I came with my family to get some good food, and when I found that they did fried pickles, my eyes lit up. Sadly, the cashier was very rude and kept eyeballing me the entire time. When I went back to order more fries, she made it feel like she had better places to be, as well.
I returned just tonight for what I hoped would be a better evening, but the milkshake I waited minutes for ended up coming out soft and runny like someone’s melted ice cream. The staff took so long that I had to assume they left it out. Never returning. Staff is way too young.

I absolutely their burgers and their evening and weekend staff are completely for lack of a better word, kick-​ass, when it comes to service. I love the variety here and the amount of freedom that anyone who comes here gets in creating a meal of their own from the burger to the choice of fries to the drink and the possible crazy flavor of milkshake if you’re still hungry after dinner.
Always have a good time here except when I come more towards early weekday hours, cause the staff doesn’t seem to be the same or that nice. I asked for a burger medium rare several times over phone-​in order when this place first opened up and they merely said «yes» and obliged me. And they did so for me several times I’ve come in but one visit in particular totally caught me off guard. The girl behind the counter who was taking my order during that visit had told me that they didn’t make their burgers medium-​rare and even checked with the cook behind her to cross reference that info and assured me they definitely don’t do that. I told her that I had phoned-​in orders and been here before and asked them to do it for me and she said that no one’s ever asked before but she was pretty sure they didn’t do medium-​rare style meat.
It got to the point where I asked her if she could maybe ask the manager to see if it was possible, because I was at the point where I didn’t really believe her since I had always just been told that it was possible and it was done (or so I thought?). She went through a door that lead towards the back area of this establishment, most likely to wherever her manager was and simply came back to tell me again that it wasn’t possible. I never saw who was in charge and it seemed strange that they didn’t even think it necessary to speak to a customer who is asking questions like this. That experience didn’t sit too well with me.
That aside, I love the food and the staff for the most part is very friendly, although I’m not entirely sure if some customizations are carried out or even if they are and they just know and smile when you ask for something unusual.

I came into this place excited to try it out because I saw them on ‘Undercover Boss’ and I personally love burgers. I went to this joint at night maybe like 2 hours before it was going to close, and there was no line. Success. I looked at the menu (a bit pricy) but I decided to order the Truffle Mushroom and Swiss Smashburger along with a regular side of Smash Fries.
The cashier was friendly, but she seemed like she just wanted to rush me through the order so she could just chill before this place closed, understandable. The place was really clean and well stocked with napkins, lids, etc. I sat down and waited for my food to come out. The wait time for my food wasn’t too long and when my food was given to me it looked good.
Unfortunately, the food was not so smashing. It was TOO greasy for me. The burger had too much of that sauce they put in it, there was too little mushrooms, and bun itself seemed like it was covered in oil, top and bottom bun. Whenever I put the burger down I’d have a sheen of oil on my fingertips. The meat though was well cooked, and very tasty. When it came to the Smash Fries, they were an utter disappointment. The fries I got were inconsistent. Some were crispy, some were undercooked, some were soggy, it lacked salt (surprisingly) and some where warm while others were a bit cold. The only consistent thing about them though was HOW. MUCH. OIL. THEY. WERE. SWIMMING. IN.
Like the burger, each fry I ate, I had to wipe my fingers on a napkin for how much oil there was on my fingers. Not only that, but when I ate enough fries, I noticed there was a puddle, yes a puddle, of oil. There was so much oil in my fries I just couldn’t continue. I noticed the assistant manager, was really friendly and proactive because he was going around asking people how their meal was. When he came to me to ask me how mine was, I asked him if the fries were supposed to be swimming in a pile of oil and he told me no they weren’t, apologized and said he’d get me a new batch.
When the new batch came out they were better than the ones I got beforehand because they weren’t swimming in oil, and they were hot and crispy (the way fresh fries should be). But even though they were a fresh batch I still didn’t enjoy it because there was still too much oil left on the fries. I really do think they need to change the temperature of the oil to help eliminate this problem of the oil being soaked into the fries, or possibly shake the fries when it comes out of the fryer to let the excess oil drain. Either way, the second batch I wasn’t impressed with and didn’t even finish it.
The reason why this place gets two stars is because this place was most definitely clean and the assistant manager was very friendly when he tried to fix the problem I had with the fries. I am not going to completely cancel this place out in my places to eat at when I am at The Shoppes, but I will choose other places around the area before I choose this one. Maybe in a year, once this place has perfected itself, I will be back but as of now, definitely won’t be recommending people this joint.

SmashBurger? Name sounded interesting enough so I decided to give it a try. And also the fact that this place was open past 9pm while everything else around (Bruxie) was closed.
This place is a nice new restaurant located in the Chino Hills shopping complex. The first thing I was wondering was why the place was called smashburger? And just as I was thinking, I saw the poster that explained it all. Every burger starts as a fresh, never-​frozen BALL of all natural 100% Certified Angus Beef and that ball is SMASHED on a hot-​buttered grill to sear the burger and seal in the juiciness hence the name.
I will give this place some slack because it is a new establishment and I know it takes a while before new restaurants can get into rhythm. There was a pretty expansive menu which included many types of burgers, but since this was my first time, I decided to go with the «Socal Smashburger» ($ 6.69) which includes chipotle mayo, sour cream, red onion, cilantro, avocado, tomato, lettuce, pepper jack cheese, the infamous smashburger patty, all between two soft and spongy telera buns. What made this burger different, in my opinion, were the buns. It brought the flavors together and gave a different texture when you bite. I also ordered a side of haystack onions ($ 2.49) and tried some of my friends SmashFries ($ 2.29). The haystack onions were a little too salty. They are like onion rings that are flaccid. Fairly greasy and needed to to be eaten with a fork. The smashfries on the other hand are tossed in Italian olive oil, rosemary, and garlic. It gives the fries a great amount of flavor and I definitely recommend them.
As for the menu, they also include various burgers using their smashChicken as well as an option to create your own burger from scratch. There are also serve fresh salads, beer (domestic, local craft), and hand-​spun shakes. Although it is pretty pricey for a burger place, I definitely recommend giving this place a try.

Ok, so I did come back on their first opening after being here the night before with the Unilocal event. I was glad I came the night before so I knew what I wanted the most from their menu.
I came here with my brother since I told him of the opening and was willing to try the place. I bought the Classic smashburger ($ 5.39) with some haystack onions ($ 2.49) which was really salty to me so it wasn’t my favorite but I’ve been meaning to try it. The burger was delicious though, well-​cooked with some lettuce, onions, and pickles with their special sauce on the side.
My brother got the Truffle mushroom crispy chicken and swiss cheese ($ 7.79) and their smashfries ($ 2.29) which is fries tossed with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic. You can really smell the truffle oil with the mushroom and he really liked it. The smashfries were less salty so I liked it better.
The place was loud and when you order your food at the register, they’ll bring your food to you. They take card and the place was packed.