Bumsted’s

I’ve been here twice now and I just think it’s fantastic! I’ve tried one of their many meatloaf sandwiches and most recently their chicken parm and both were just way way better than expected. It’s is kind of an awkward little place that has been a handful of different things since I was a kid. This, in my opinion, is the best place to ever occupy the space.
I can’t wait to get back and try just about everything else on the menu. The service is always great and the cook is standing right there making the food so you can get a chance to tell her what an awesome job she’s doing!
Tucson is really starting to get so many great restaurants and I really think Bumsteads has been an excellent addition to them. We will be returning in the very near future.
See you soon!

Atmosphere is dingy, but not dirty. Don’t let it fool you, the food is amazing! Seriously the best sweet potato fries on the planet. The sandwiches are good, and the salads are huge.

Great food, HUGE portions, the atmosphere here though feels like it hasn’t been updated or improved in quite some time. The food is worth it though. Be careful what you order, because your going to get a ton of food.
I’d go back.

Bumstead’s has such a large variety of sandwiches, which I think is great! I love the Disco Inferno! It’s a buffalo chicken sandwich with bleu cheese crumbles. It comes with a side of fries or chips. I like level of spicy-​ness. It’s a little spicier than a normal hot, but it’s so good! The bread it comes on is so soft; I could literally eat it by itself. The sandwich is also so big! Totally worth the price! It’s like two sandwiches for the price of one. It’s great for dinner one night and then the other half for lunch tomorrow.
This place gets pretty busy on certain nights! It’s located on Fourth, so if you’re going just to eat, it maybe hard to find parking. They do have a small lot behind the Chocolate Iguana that you can park in for free during the week when you have to have to pay for parking. They have a trivia night one night a week, so Bumstead’s gets pretty packed!
The only downside to Bumstead’s is that it’s not that clean, and the service is sometimes slow. Usually when I go, it can take a little while to get the food even when it’s not super busy. The tables and the booths, sometimes, are a little sticky. I don’t know if that just means someone was there right before me or that’s just the norm. However, the food is so good! Definitely worth a try if you’re ever in Tucson!

I seem to forget about Bumsted’s for some reason even though we have always enjoyed ourselves here and the food is great. Maybe I just don’t get to this corner of 4^th very often anymore but if you’re in the area this is a great place to check out. The room could use some work aesthetics-​wise. They used to have a huge fish tank a long time ago but that was taken out and the rooms just look run down. But that hasn’t taken away from the food they serve. Sandwiches are HUGE, I always go with the MILF: turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado. Sometimes I add jalapenos. The ‘Pick up Sticks’ are chicken tenders and they are good too, or even just their regular wings. All the food I’ve ever had here is very generously portioned and always tasty. Booze is reasonably priced and service is always quick, a must try!

At this point I try to eat here as often as I can. Best burger in town by far, and the owner is awesome!

One of my all time favorite places! Family owned and the owners take care of their staff and community. They even do a free monthly Bacon Bash. I highly recommend any of the meatloaf situations. Cheers!

So there is really one factor that drives up this place to a 5 star.
The biggest factor is the quality to price to portion ratio. I can’t think of a restaurant where I get this massive amount of quality food for the price.
I am a big man, but it took me two and half sittings to polish off the «Who’s Your Daddy?» sandwich. Plus, it was really good.
The place was beyond packed when we got there. Yet we still got our food relatively quickly. The service was friendly and efficient. It has a dive bar atmosphere, which I don’t mind,
Try the sweet potato fries.

Still givin’ this place five stars, but thought I would give my two cents about some of the best menu items:
1) The chicken tenders. Get them tossed — great wing sauce, and the chicken is always super tender
2) Anything with meatloaf — seriously. I like the Meatloaf Sole.
3) Sandwiches piled high. I like the green lady, soccer mom, and the cool whip.
4) Get your fries mixed — they make the fries fresh.
5) Split a reese’s cup with your friends — life will be so much better after you do.
They recently brought back The Dating Game, which was fun to watch. Seriously, what a gem of a dive bar you are, Bumsted’s. Thanks for keeping it real!

Excellent sandwiches and you will never leave here hungry! Dorian rocks the grill. He’s amazing. Great place

Huge sandwich tasted amazing I recommend the big daddy. Could only eat half how’s that even possible. Inside a little dirty and hot.

TRIVIA THURSDAYS at this huge bar with lots of seating (we snagged one of the booths), thankfully since there were many teams competing during trivia night when i came
i came a bit late joining my team’s trivia so i didn’t get to try the food but this place is your typical casual NO FRILLS bar

I eat and/​or drink here once a week for trivia. After over a year of regular attendance these are my thoughts:
1. The menu is long and varied. There are many delicious items here, and they’re not always what you’d predict. For instance, the portabella «burgers» are fantastic – excellent veggie options! But the grilled cheese isn’t. Regrettably, this place has perfected the science of melting the cheese without even browning the bread. Very disappointing.
2. Always order extra crispy fries – otherwise they are limp and bogged down with cooking grease.
3. Do not expect your food in under 30 minutes. The kitchen is very small here and can only accommodate about two cooks. The seating area is very large, and often quite full. You do the math.
4. The dessert case is fabulous.
5. The drinks are of consistent, middling quality. Nothing to write home about, but then again, the drinks are also on the cheaper side. Can’t really complain.
6. There’s no A/​C. Be prepared for that when visiting in the summer.

Bumsted’s is a great restaurant by day (and til midnight), and bar by night. They regularly have karaōke which is usually what we come for. As a restaurant, Bumsted’s is a down-​to-​earth diner/​short order sandwich shop. The bar is very comfy, even late at night. It’s more relaxed than most of the places on 4^th that time of night. It’s a great place to comfortably have a drink if you want somewhere low-​key where you don’t have to shout at your friends. We often stop in to take a break from the other louder, more crowded bars down the street.
Until last night, I had never actually been there in time to try the food but it was excellent. At first glance, the menu is daunting, mostly because all the menu items have silly names. Read the descriptions first. Most of what we got seemed really fresh and homemade, including the french fries. They’re hand-​cut from potatoes and deep fried on the spot, pretty rare for most short order/​diner kitchens.
The sandwiches are really what this place is known for, at least from what I’ve heard around town. It has been awhile since I’ve had a decent chicken parm, but Bumsted’s does it really well. My SO had the chicken parm, and I decided to get the «Frank & Beans», which was a fantastic combination I would never have guessed would go together. Pastrami, fried chicken, cheese, honey mustard, tomato, and lettuce? Genius.
I’ll definitely be returning as I’ve heard great things about their reubens and burgers. And of course, karaōke!

I live off 4^th but have never been to Bumsteads. I’m so glad I decided to go because the food is amazing. We got there on a Sunday at around 9 pm an hour before they closed. It was empty so we got to sit at whichever table we picked. They don’t have a draft list which is kind of annoying but the server was able to name a few off the top of her head.
The menu has really crazy names for the food but the descriptions make it easy to know what everything actually is. I started with a grapefruit ale beer which was delicious and shared a order of the Pick Up Sticks sauced with Hot and Sticky. HOLY AMAZING! Next time i’m getting those as my meal because they were so good. The sauce… I could go on forever about the sauce.
For my meal I ordered half of a Who’s Your Daddy sandwich for 6.95 with a side of half sweet potato fries and half regular for an extra 2.95. It was HUGE and also amazing. My friend got the Mary Jane pasta with meatballs and it literally was an entire box of pasta but he loved it and from what I tried so did I.
Food was 5 stars, service and atmosphere was 3 ½ stars but I will be back.

I came here for the trivia geek night with some girlfriends and it was pretty fun! With 8 rounds, the game is rather long and I was really tired by the end and I just wanted it to be over but it was fun to try to guess at the questions. Half of the time I couldn’t really understand what the guy was saying when he was reading the questions either cause he was mumbling or the microphone part it was bad, I’m not sure I just couldn’t hear him that well.
We went late at night so most people were finishing up their dinner or having drinks but I wanted to get dessert! I had their molten giant peanut butter cup and shared it with my girlfriends. It was very rich but tasty! It’s impossible to finish the whole thing, even with three people munching on it!

This place is ok. The food I had was good enough. I got a sandwich and sweet potato fries. Sandwich was pretty greasy but I didn’t mind and the fries were a little over done. Those were the highlights.
I’m giving three stars because I think they deserve it, but my experience was 2 stars.
I was sat down under a vent. I’m not sure if it was an A/​C unit or a swamp cooler but it was very cold and blowing the entire time… miserable. The worst part of the experience was the fact that I’m a beer snob. I’m not a snob in the typical sense of the word. I don’t mind drinking bud light if need be. I am just easily upset when my server doesn’t know anything about beer.
Now that I’m thinking about it, my experience was more like a one star. I asked what beers they had, and she told me they had Odell’s IPA. 10 minutes later she comes back and they don’t. Then I ask about the Sierra Nevada beer. She says it’s an ale. Well most beers by craft brewers are ales. I guess she meant it was the pale ale. I ordered it. It was awful. It was flat and had an old cardboard taste. I had drank a can of it earlier in the day so I had a good point of reference. Anyways the beer was BAD and I was miserable.
And then of course the server charged me for an extra beer. So that sucks, but I told her and she made the correction and then I was able to leave about 30 minutes after I wanted to leave. It was one of those situations where you feel like you have been held hostage because of the bill.
The food might be 4 stars but the rest of the experience was 1 star for me.

I am confident that no one in here was over the age of 30.
This is your quintessential college town bar/​restaurant/​meeting space/​hook up joint.
It’s super casual. Über. Seriously, it feels like it’s on its way to being a dive bar in the next couple of decades. For now, it’s just that fun-​spirited little nerdy kid who has just left after hours of computer programming to check out some rave set up in the middle of the desert.
The menu is extensive. You’ll find chicken wings, chicken tenders, burgers, sandwiches, bacon stuffed everything! I haven’t even attribute night in celebration of the menu items that contain bacon.
Honestly, I started to wonder how I got in and seated without getting the server a secret handshake.
I had a chance to try the spicy chicken tenders and burger his name I forget. It’s one of those served with a fried egg. Although the bun was slightly dried out, the burger was quite nice. I absolutely love the tenders! They were spicy enough to make your lips burn. That is all kinds of fabulousness.
Service is very good, and the atmosphere was welcoming. Not at all what I expected. Not even a little bit. I look forward to a return visit.

We went again (car pulled in by itself)
Tried something new to make sure it was good across the menu.
Holyshitamolyyyyyy!
Yummmmmmmm
Lynda had a salad (see pic) and I had a different meatloaf sandwich
You will not be disappointed!

I give this place 5 starts just for their chicken tenders which they refer to as «skinny dipping.» In no way will they make you skinny but they are hands down my favorite chicken tenders in the entire U.S. and trust me, I know chicken tenders. They are perfectly cooked in the middle and have this incredible breading that you can hear yourself crunch into every time you take a bite. It helps that they have yummy ranch to dunk them in. I recommend getting half regular fries and half sweet potato to accompany the tenders.
They also have a large menu full of incredible sandwiches and burgers. Their portions are big so you definitely get your money’s worth. Splitting an entrée is not a bad idea. They also have their desserts on display at the front that will make you want one as soon as you see it. Crème Brulee Cheesecake? SO GOOD. Carrot Cake? Out of this world.