Lunchbox Laboratory

Like this place ! good eats — decent service

Food is good but the prices are a little much for a burger and a side. The worst thing about this place is the inattentive staff. During our handful of times we’ve gone we have always been left wanting for more attention and twiddling our thumbs while waiting for the server to realize we were done and ready to pay. I won’t say I wouldn’t go back but would leave this place as a last resort. Sorry guys.

Half priced Mondays are legit. Drip mic

My Daughter brought me back half of her burger about two weeks ago and it was pretty good, so I thought I would give it a try again today.
I think this is my new favorite burger place. Had a classic with Tots and a banana split shake. It was all outstanding.
Only giving four stars as this was my first real meal. If the next is as good as this one will bump it up to 5.
Went back this weekend and had another great burger with great service. Giving this place 5-​stars and two thumbs up.

It’s a cute place for a date but not the best… It’s definitely not worth the Tacoma Narrows Bridge toll fee. My husband and I ordered the Dork Burger sub cheddar cheese with cheddar mac, happy hour dogsticks with fries, lunchbox laboratory long island & a coney island bloody mary (which we took off the bill because it was gross). Customer service was extremely slow and food was not served timely. Our waiter was cool but didn’t really check back in with us. We probably won’t be back but food was decent.

Forget the happy hour sliders. SUPER small. Perhaps best suited for a 4 year old? The regular sized burgers are good but servers should be required to tell you the just how small these things are. They are SWALLOWED by the oversized buns. Awful. Waist of money. Never again.

So we have been hearing about this place ever since our daughter saw it on food network months ago. Since she came into town to visit we decided it was a good time to go try the place out for the first time. We are a military family and new to the area ourselves. We arrived at just about 10 to 5 pm and were told it would be a 30 minute wait on seating, since it was half price special night. We had no issue with that wait time but when we started seeing that there were several empty tables we thought it strange. It seemed they were trying to hold down the orders for the kitchen, which, I can also to a DEGREE understand. We did get seated at just about 5:20 maybe 5:30 so no big catastrophe there. We were immediately approached by our waitress who took our drink order and also appetizers (we wanted to order fast because we had a 2 year old with us who is not so patient when it comes to waiting for food to cool) so we ordered his fries to come out with out starters. It took approximately 15 minutes to get the starters to the table and the fries for our son. The apps were small and well over priced but at least the egg rolls were tasty. We had the buffalo rolls and the jalapeño pops. The poppers were just ok, not even warm all the way through just sort of a ball of cream cheese with chopped jalapenos mixed in and deep fried in a crust. so, not impressed so far but still looking forward to the burger, after all that’s what we went to try. We were done with the apps in around 5 minutes, and then the wait begins.
We sat and watched other tables sat after us getting food delivered before us and we did not have an extravagant order 3 burgers (2 fit for the gods and one mushroom swiss build your own) with sides fries tots and onion rings and a kids mac n cheese. I kid you not when I tell you we waited over an hour form the appetizers to the burgers… I stopped a passing employee and said can you please go find our food because our server had not come back to take our dirty dishes from the aps, not fill our drinks as of yet. SO we of course could not ask her anything. it was 7:20 before we got our dinner. The Manager I assume (A woman with two toned hair and glasses) was involved n bringing the food over after I asked, and she said «I wish I could have control over what happened here tonight» and walked away. Not even and I’m sorry, Nor can I do anything, She was very cold and rude and seethed with disdain at the fact that we had asked for our food because our toddler who was now well past done with his dinner and tired of sitting in the booth was getting restless. Now I understand it can take time to cook burgers to order but! 2 tables sat after us were served before us and when I saw the manager walk in a table of a man and a boy and girl, (clearly her family or friends) then proceed to sit down with them and chat, go up within minutes and get them some food which included burgers and fries and I have been sitting an hour? They waited all of 15 to 20 minutes max. Then she has the nerve to come at me with that answer? Had she given me a moment to say anything I would have told her that it was very unprofessional to do that. And that people notice things like that. That in and of itself washed every argument about it being very busy right out the door. If they can get food in under 20 minutes, I can also.
We wolfed down our burgers, leaving most of the sides there because the garlic fries were cold, the mac and cheese was absolutely tasteless, the onion rings were hard as rocks the sweet potato fries were good but don’t go far between 3 adults sharing because everything else was inedible! By now it was 7:40 and my babies bedtime and we still had a 20 minute drive home. We had to stand up and ask for our bill which took another 5 minutes to get her to bring it to us, Then I tried to hand her my bank card then and there and she said oh sorry i will be right back for it. I almost lost it at that moment but I did tell her please hurry we are in a rush now I have to get my kid home! She even with me saying that didn’t come back for 10 minutes. I had to leave the table and let my husband pay because I was so angry at the lack of service. We did not get paid and out of there until 8 pm… 8 PM! we arrived at 10 to freekin 5 for a reason. We will NEVER go back Mediocre food, Completely overpriced, small portions, horrible service and worse management. 5 Guys is a MUCH better value! for that matter, so is Wendy’s!

I purchased a Groupon and was excited to finally try out this place. The atmosphere was pretty fun. They had a lot of old school metal lunchboxes on display which my kids and I enjoyed looking at and our server was pretty great. He was very helpful and answered all our questions.
My husband got the Dork and he raved how much he liked it. I got the Blue Cheese Marble with the homemade chips. The burger itself was pretty good. I probably shouldn’t have gotten it with the sweet chili mayo only because I could have done it without the sweetness. The chips though, was amazing. My kids got the New Yorker, kids cheeseburger, and mac n cheese. According to them, their food was very tasty.
My only complaint is that I wish the lettuce and pickle was a bit more fresh. The lettuce especially was pretty wilted and the pickle didn’t have a crunch to it that I like. But all in all we would probably come here again.

So we Grouponed this place and it’s close by. The burgers are not the norm; I had the Kelly’s Big Kahuna and Hubby had The Dork (duck and pork patty burger which was on TV*I assume on a credible TV food network*). Both burgers were good. He got his with the Mac Du Jour which consists of chicken and turkey (?) and I had garlic fries (also very good). The shakes are awesome– we had ours boozed up… What? That’s an option? Right? And don’t let me forget the appetizer, the Buff Poppers… Breaded in Panko and Cornuts… Mmmmmmmm… Totally filling. Costs a bit but is worth the dine. Enjoy!!! Oh yeah, Mondays are half off days and it’s recommended you make reservations as they fill up quickly. Maybe hang out at the bar???

Simply amazing. My friend and I were shopping in Gig Harbor and this place was close, so we tried it out.
The super beef is super delicious. We found out that it is organic, grass fed beef from Oregon. It was juicy and yummy.
Deciding which burger to get was difficult, because every thing on the menu looked so good. I had a burger with gorganzola sauce, bacon, and blue cheese. My friend had the Homage to Dicks. We were both happy with our meals.
We wanted to try a Nutella shake, and asked the manager for a sample. Instead of getting us one, she bought us a full sized shake herself, and just asked that we come back.
We are definitely going back!

Probably one of the worst burger joints, was not impressed with the service. Had to ask several times to refill my drink. Then the got my order wrong which was only a plain cheeseburger. This is a restaurant that I probably won’t come back to!

Everything was very good here and I will definitely be going back. It was a slow Friday afternoon, and everyone took good care of us. They are very big on experimenting with some crazy burgers, so I would like to go back to see some of the other experiments.

Great burgers, we got onion rings as appetizer and 2 burgers the James west and the churken (chicken and Turkey patty) they were delicious, hot food was on point. Lack of service as the only downfall that’s why in giving it 4 stars

I really like the atmosphere here, and also we went on veterans day and they surprised me with giving me my food free for being a veteran, but there are some things that need addressed. I ordered the merican burger, and added the fried egg, and also ordered garlic tots. The tots came out and had a good taste but they were soggy. This isn’t necessarily a deal breaker but they weren’t really good.
The burger had pickles that weren’t pickled enough, they tasted more like a raw cucumber, and the lettuce and onion strangely enough tasted pickled. I’m going to go back and try something new, because I really want to like this place

I really really want to love this place. I do. But I just don’t. While I love the vibe and experimental factor, what are we coming here for? Burgers! The burgers themselves-​the actual meat in the bun is not good. It’s always been dry and flavorless. No matter how many sauces and cool toppings you throw on top, it’s still a lacking patty. I can’t get over that simple fact. Apart from that, the place itself is really cool. Lunch boxes everywhere. The good are the shakes and the gavachos nachos. Sweet baby Jesus those flaky bits of goodness are amazing.
I genuinely hope that the burger issue gets addressed because this place has GREAT potential.

A decent burger place, we came because we had purchased a Groupon the macorani and cheese was very delicious, we also had a shake that was very good. The only thing that wasn’t so great was my boyfriend got loaded tater tots, which I wouldn’t call «loaded» they just topped it with bacon it didn’t even have enough sour cream. I definitely wouldn’t pay the 2 $ extra for it again considering the lack of toppings when you order loaded you expect it to at least be loaded and not a garnish. Other than that we had good service and got our food in a timely manner. We will definitely stop by if we are in the area; but it’s definitely not worth us paying the toll fee just to drive over for a burger

Not impressed. Horribly over priced in my opinion.
We arrived about 6:30 in a Saturday evening. Promptly seated… drink orders taken …
The décor is fun and I enjoyed the music being played… upbeat current hits…
We started with the tater tot nachos while we made our way thru the menu…
Lemonade was great, water glasses were kept full.
3 of us ordered burgers, the wife ordered the Caesar salad… the salad was a disappointment, huge salad but the dressing tasted funny. (Was removed from the bill)
2 ordered burgers from the lite menu (ltd) I did the build your own with lamb w/​Mac du jour (loaded).
Flavor all around in the burger choices was good… but my lamb burger was so greasy the bottom bun was a soggy mess… That aside the buns were pretty plain Jane.
The mac n cheese was delicious.
One in the group ended the meal with an almond joy milkshake. looked good and he enjoyed it.
To recap
3 lemonades
2 ltd burgers (no sides)
1 build your own w/​up charged side
1 Caesar salad (returned and roved from bill)
1 order of the tots
1 milkshake.
AFTER discounting $ 30 for the groupon we used the tab still came to $ 35!
Sorry guys, I just don’t see the value …
If there was a future visit, if probably just pop in for a shake or during happy hour.

I really can’t find fault in our experience here. The service was great as was the food. Mother’s Day and it was «free for tattooed moms». I was sure it would be packed. However, it was not and we were cheerily greeted and immediately seated. Our server was awesome. Really.
I luuurve the Etch A Sketch given to kiddos! I also love the history lessons available in the vintage lunch boxes and décor. Lots to discuss in the history of each box.
The food is always pretty great. Consistent. The Fossilized Fiancé, protein style, was pretty good. Maybe, just maybe, a tad toooooo much lettuce. Otherwise the bbq sauce and garlic mayo were excellent. I really, really love the truffle mayo on the side.
I also had the Coney Island Bloody Mary… Olives, bacon, and a mini corn dog… With a bacon salt rim. Wow… Yuuuuum!

I went with the All American Burger, since they only have Coke products, today just went with a glass of water. The burger was VERY good, tasty and juicy, was very impressed with it, and the fries were nice and crispy– loved them!
I would actually say this location is better then there Bellevue location IMO, it’s easy to get in and out of, and the prices are reasonable.
For the most part the service was about 3 12 stars to 4.

Every time we hit up WA to visit the in-​laws, we wanna try some place new. As luck would have it, I happened to see «Hamburger Paradise 3» on the Travel Channel, where they featured Lunchbox Laboratory, so I knew we were gonna hit that place up. Plus, there was a Groupon deal out there for the Gig Harbor location, which was the most convenient location for our travel itinerary, so SCORE on that too!
Hubby’s no fun and didn’t get a burger, but he really enjoyed the chicken sandwich he ordered. I went with the Dork burger, just because I had to try that flavor combo. Delicious! I also liked all the different flavored salt options on the table… pretty cool!
I’m really glad we stopped by and gave this place a try!