Busy Bee Bar & Grill

I’ve driven past the Busy Bee dozens of times, always thinking to myself that I should give it a try. I’m a big fan of a good garlic burger, and I was really hungry one sunday night, so why not?
Right as you walk in, there’s a big giant sign saying they’re a cash only establishment. Super, since I never have cash. I used the atm and got a $ 2.50 fee for withdrawing money. The place has a super divy feel that might have been ok if more people had been there
We walked in and there were maybe 3 people inside and a bartender talking to them. I stood there for about a minute before just grabbing my own table. The server/​bartender brought us menus about a minute later. She asked what we wanted to drink, and I asked what they had on tap for beer. They had 3 choices — a hef, coors, and some other random beer. Super awesome selection for a bar, especially considering all of the advertisements for several different draft beers.
The menu is straightforward, so I ordered a garlic burger and an order of wings. About 2 minutes later, the server brought us our food. I started picking at the fries, and noticed that the second order they brought out (she ordered a sandwich with fries) had a salad with it. Right as my friend was asking for fries instead, one of the guys at the bar literally fell backwards out of the stool onto the ground. The bartender came running around and helped him up and back into the stool, commenting on how we walked over from another bar.
About 2 minutes after she took the wrong plate back, she came back and took my burger and said she gave us someone else’s good accidentally. Cool, no worries, right? It came out super fast anyway.
The wings came out maybe 5 minutes later, and they were definitely the highlight of the trip. They were only $ 10, and there were almost 20. The sauce was great, the wings were crispy and tasted awesome.
Next came the burger. My garlic burger came out on bread, and apparently all of their burgers do. I pulled the tomatoes out (who wouldn’t?), and to my dismay, the bread was coated with mayo, which wasn’t noted on the menu. I used a knife and scraped it all off as best I could, but it didn’t all come off.
Around this time, the man who fell out of his bar stool fell again. Because, alcohol. He looked like he hit his head and I thought we witnessed someone dying for a second. But he rallied and got back up. The bartender took him to a chair and sat him down to sober up.
After a few more minutes she brought us our check and we cashed out. We stayed for a few minutes watching the baseball game that was on and then left.
Overall, I had mediocre expectations and it fell much below them. I liked the wings, which is why I gave 2 stars, but there are definitely better places to grab wings in salt lake. I’d you find yourself wanting a garlic burger, do yourself a favor and drive 11 blocks east to fiddlers elbow.

Every once in a while, I get a craving for a great burger. I have passed this place several times; there are signs out front advertising garlic burgers. It is a bit of a dive bar, but the staff is prompt and friendly. I suppose the phrase don’t judge a bool by its cover applies here. Upon walking in, i was promptly greeted, the bartender tool my order, and an ice cold beer within minutes. Had to go with the garlic burger, and glad I did. It was awesome. The food is great!!! They do mot take credit cards, that is a bummer, but the in house ATM only charges $ 1.50 to get cash… That is a plus! If you are in the mood for a great burger, check them out. Not a high end place by any means, but the prices are good, and the food is great!

My boyfriend and I LOVE going to Busy Bee to watch basketball games! The staff is awesome and super friendly and their blue cheese bacon burgers rule!

The garlic burgers are absolutely divine. Seriously, delicious. I was bummed years ago when they went from fresh cut fries to the frozen variety, but the ones they currently carry are pretty delish. The garlic pita is also great. The only complaint is the hours seem to change arbitrarily. Wish they’d make up their minds on this…

GARLIC BURGERS! PASTRAMI BURGERS! HEY DID YOU HEAR WE HAVE BURGERS?! You can see Busy Bee coming from a mile away. The food is decent, nothing special, and the beer is cold. Prices are average. It’s definitely a dive, but an interesting one.

We moved from Mayfield (Manti suburbs) to Salt Lake City circa 1966 after my father started a new job here. Rented a duplex on 900 East 2000 South. My mother was somewhere nearby getting her hair done at a beauty parlor one day. One of the women had gone out to pick up lunch for everyone. When she returned, my mother was quite taken by the look and smell of these grilled pastrami sandwiches. The women were slightly embarrassed to say that they purchased them at some biker bar on the corner of State and 2100 South.
I imagine later that night, my parents plotted as to the best approach to secure those sandwiches for themselves. The Busy Bee wouldn’t take phone orders. The inside was full of smoke and «undesirables.» I was but a toddler in tow.
What they would do is pull up, my dad would go inside to order and pay. He would then retreat to the car for 10+ minutes at which point he’d go back in and return with their sandwiches. This went on until the last few years of my parents’ lives — let’s say 1988-​ish.
When I was old enough, I was encouraged to try a bite. To say I was a finicky eater is an understatement! First of all, the meat was pink! Second of all, it had pickles! I went for nearly two decades until I decided to try one of those for myself.
Correct. I’m an idiot.
The smoke-​filled room is now long gone. The «undesirables» aren’t nearly as undesirable. The place is owned by the same people that operate Cotton Bottom but the garlic burger is much better there than it is here. The fries are great, the beer is cold. They’ve even got free darts and a parking lot patio.
They used to be closed Mondays or Tuesdays or something strange. Went by today for lunch but they were closed due to some issue with nearby construction. I was disappointed. There was a point that they shuttered for an extended period and I feared they were gone forever.
Anyplace that’s been around since the 60’s must be doing something right!

Been there a few times terrible service, the place is a real filthy place the place smells like a bathroom.
The burgers are not that great! The Cotton bottom has the best garlic burgers.

Their burger with feta cheese is amazing. Huge slice of feta, like as big as the patty. Pretty good garlic burgers also.

Delicious garlic burgers. Try them with a ice cold draft beer… Yum! They close early (boo!), but if you can catch them while they are open, it’s worth stopping in.
(It is a bar, so 21+ only.)

No more than 2 stars. Burger was only ok, took forever to arrive, and I never got a refill on my iced tea.

For all the ass clowns that gave it a crappy review, it’s the busy bee, it’s a dump that’s for sure! What were you expecting? Hands down best garlic burger and if you think they care what you wrote, I’m sure they don’t.

Friendly staff, no nonsense décor and food. Grilled cheese was American cheese on white bread and was cooled to perfection — crunchy but not hard bread still warm inside, and thoroughly melted insides. Sweetie tells me his burger was a solid 4 — hit the price point, had the flavor, «was more then I expected».
Beats standing in line to be told by a surly host «it’ll be 15 minutes for a table and another 45 once you’re seated if you’re eating,» at Lucky 13. Thanks for being such a knucklehead, because of you, we found this delightful hole in the wall.

Oh, the Busy Bee. They have really odd hours, but if you can make it work I’d definitely suggest checking this place out. I’ve tried a different food item every time I’ve gone in and have never been disappointed.

Love this place! Love the garlic burger, beer is cold! Service is great!

Another dump that is doing its level best (banners and bunting FTW!!!) to try to get people in the door by wildly claiming that it has the best garlic burger. The war with Cotton Bottom is on? While mostly content to sit this one out due to a distinct and overwhelming lack of caring on my part which claim is actually most accurate, I will note that Busy Bee does have a lock on location and their parking lot is usually pretty full.
I happened in there one time when it was decidedly less full. In fact, myself and my friend were the only ones there, which was good because the place was adorned in Visqueen and bare wood framing. Evidently they were having some sort of construction party or something. I don’t really know, as the exterior doesn’t look dramatically different to me and I haven’t been back inside since.
The décor here is more straight-​up bar than the dive that is Cotton Bottom and they have a full kitchen, so the meal was more like an actual meal, but they didn’t have a stunning selection of beers, either and we were treated mostly like an afterthought. I found this, along with the construction business, to be rather annoying. If you want to be open, be open and if not, then not, but don’t be open and wish you were closed. That’s frankly just stupid and rude.
As to the food, I remember liking this Garlic Burger slightly better, but not enough to ever go back. On the food front, they definitely were better than Cotton Bottom, but that was offset nicely by their annoying manner and the rather disheveled nature of the place. Maybe if you’re more tolerant and less demanding than I, this might be an acceptable place to you, but for me, it’s a definite miss.

Walked in at random when I was nearby. Definitely fits the Dive Bar category. Ordered the fried fish sandwich, and it was surely the worst thing I have ever tasted. Had only one bite, and the bartender didn’t even bother to ask if the food was OK when she took my full plate away to the trash. Maybe their other items taste better, but the plates on either side of me didn’t look worthwhile either.
Overall I would say stop by for a beer if you are next door, but don’t put any effort into a journey here for food (unless you consider a microwaved TV dinner to be «gourmet»).

I think have have passed this place about a zillion times and thought, «I need to go there for burgers and beer.» Well, finally this happened.
As long as you aren’t expecting extremely awesome ambience and gourmet food, you should be good here. I had some excellent cold beer and chili cheese fries. And, my dining companion liked his garlic burger quite a lot (although he didn’t feel like it was particularly garlic-​y.)
The thing we both noticed was that it was cheap, cheap, cheap! We will definitely be back.

Walking into the Busy Bee after seeing their ads for their garlic burgers taunt me every time i went to the Starbucks across the street.
Walking in, I was wondered if i was in the right place, or if I needed to get a Harley Davidson and some leather chaps before walking in.
I had the Garlic Burger and Garlic Fries (I wasn’t getting any anyway, so I might as well go all in)
The beer was cold, and frosty, like a good blue moon should be, The Burger was cooked perfectly, and the bacon and swiss was melted over like a blanket on a cold winter night.
It was worth going to, and visiting again.

The garlic burger was delicious. The spicy fries were excellent. The service was fast and friendly. The beer was ice cold and reasonably priced. Sounds great, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought, until it was time to leave. I decided to utilize the facilities to off-​load some of the aforementioned beer and, more importantly, scrub some of the aforementioned garlic off of my hands. The restroom was disgusting! They have one of those cloth towel dispensers from the 1950’s, where you pull a new section out of the machine as the used section disappears into a hidden compartment. It was trashed. The towel was just hanging out of the bottom end, bunched up on the floor. There were no alternative towels, such as paper. Nada! There were two soap dispensers and both were bone-​dry, apparently empty for the past 2 or 3 years (if not decades). So, I «rinsed» my hands with warm water, shook them off as best I could and proceeded to drip dry.
As we were on our way out of the Busy Bee, disturbing questions began to creep into my thoughts. Where do the cooks wash their hands? And with what soap? I just kept telling myself that they have an «employees only» restroom, with a fully stocked antibacterial soap cabinet. And towels with which to dry their impeccably clean hands. Yah… I sure hope so.

I’m getting some practice in for the Passover Seder that my wife swears we’re going to have this year:
«Kyle, why is this four star review different from all other reviews?»
It’s special because my wife and I can both recommend Busy Bee for its burgers. We had two different ones (I the pastrami and my wife the über-​famous garlic) and they were both delicious.
«Kyle, why on most other reviews, do you eat burgers and something else, but in this review, you and your wife both ate burgers?»
Because burgers are what to get here. But they’re different burgers — for those of you from the midwest, think Steak and Shake — thin, smashed burgers, piled two on a sandwich. Though they’re small, you can still get the burger flavor.
But it’s really the accoutraments that make the burger great. The garlic burger is bursting with garlic flavor and absolutely delicious from the first bite to the last. My pastrami burger had bites of perfection, where the melty, creamy cheese blended with the salty pastrami and pungent garlic butter to explode in a taste sensation.
«Kyle, what did you dip your fries (vegetables) in?»
Me? Nothing. I ordered the spicy fries, which had some sort of cayenne pepper /​seasoning salt on them. They were very spicy and full of flavor. My wife used the obligatory fry sauce, which was on the mayonnaise side of things, but still very SLC.
«Kyle, why did you recline after eating?»
Because the food is good, and there’s plenty of it. It’s definitely a different kind of burger, and probably nine times out of 10 I’d go to Lucky 13 for the sports-​bar-​ish atmosphere and burger (particularly if you want something juicy and spicy), but the taste combination of this particular garlic burger is something I’ve not experienced anywhere else, and I’d not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. Plus, the servers were friendly (it seems like a regulars kind of place), the sound was on for the Jazz game at the bar, and beers were reasonably priced. Just know that you’re not going for a half pound, thick, «monster» burger, but rather a swimming in deliciousness thin patty, and you’ll be in love too.