Episode 5- Gordo's Pub & Grill: 6.4
What happens when a restaurant capable of excellence doesn't quite deliver? Find out on our visit to Norwood's popular bar and burger joint...
In the harsh, unforgiving world of burger ratings, one “off” night, one little mistake — well that can spell disaster. As the wise philosopher Eminem once mused:
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime
When it comes time to rate your burger, that experience will be all we can use to judge performance. You gotta bring your “A” game. When you don’t… well Eminem said you’d probably end up in jail or shot.
DISCLAIMER: The good news is the “One Shot” trope wasn’t true for Eminem in 8-mile (In the movie, B-Rabbit chokes in his first rap battle, and he gets a second shot. In fact the real Eminem experienced an early, consistent rise to fame — not from “One Shot”) and I for one hope that future visits to Gordo’s will fare better than this one. I can vouch from multiple instances of patronization, Gordo’s can make a great burger. (Can we also talk about how Eminem should have said “do not miss your chance OR blow this opportunity”… the song as written makes no sense, people!)
But we’re not here to critique Marshall Mathers, our intent is to rate what the popular neighborhood burger joint Gordo’s has to offer vis-à-vis burgers.
Nestled on Montgomery Road in Norwood along a strip of commercial buildings, this bar screams on the outside just what it is on the inside. Walking up, you see an unassuming brick building with a faux stone facade in a tall, thin structure. Inside you’ll find an unassuming restaurant with a wooden-facade bar and a long, thin dining room. It’s not dirty enough to be called a dive. Not dark enough to be a hole-in-the-wall. It’s not classy enough to be a “Cheers” joint. The standard office drop-ceiling tiles press in with a “nothing to see here” attitude that isn’t exactly a liability but certainly isn’t a feature. This place isn’t attractive. It isn’t terrible. It’s just kind of… there.
Now I, the author of this post, am a fan of Gordo’s. I highly recommend you visit and try one of their delectable burgers. But I do not recommend going in with your critical goggles on, as we did. Just enjoy the creative array of burger options in a standard bar experience, and you’ll leave happy you came — as have many Norwoodians and Cincinnatians. Know that I do not believe that our experience is indicative of all that Gordo’s has to offer.
However, we will not shy away from sharing with you the truth of our visits — nay, dear reader, we will bring you the truth. And may the truth set you free. (Well it may set you back $15 if you get Gordo’s Hangover burger)
The sad truth is that Gordo’s failed to make the cut to a “great” burger experience (8 out of 10) or even a “really good” burger experience (7 out of 10) simply from a few small failures that cost it those coveted positions on our rankings chart.
We enjoyed the experience, and it easily had good elements, which I’ll endeavor to elucidate. (Take 6 points for alliteration for those of you playing at home!)
One of those was certainly the music. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (Since no one can stop me! Ha! The benefits of starting your own blog): Life is so much better when, everywhere you go, the people who pick the background music grew up enjoying the same songs as you. We’re talking everything from Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer to Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade. We were serenaded out the door by Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner — I’m talking all the great hits from the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. (Come on? Tom’s Diner! You’d recognize the song, “I am sitting in the morning, At the diner on the corner, I am waiting at the counter, For the man to pour the coffee”):
We enjoyed chatting with the bartender, and clearly the other patrons felt like they were at home. Everyone was chill. Everyone was hangin’ loose. Maybe to them, this place is like “Cheers”. While we didn’t feel it when we were there (overall it was a bit low energy… maybe go on a weekend?), who are we to dismiss their experience?
In fact, that’s the real shame about our visit. There wasn’t anything we could identify that was bad (except for one of our group *cough* Mike *cough* who wouldn’t know a good french fry if it climbed up his belly and bit him in the face). As we dug into our juicy burgers (some of them maybe too juicy… rare burgers with runny eggs can make quite a mess), there wasn’t a moment where anyone said, “This feature of the burger is terrible.” But the joint itself and the whole experience could arguably be defined as mundane except for their reputedly exceptional burgers. And I know they are capable of excellence.
Since 2008, Gordo’s has been delighting burger enthusiasts from across the region with their wide selection of burger options — 12 very different selections (13 if you count the Black Bean Burger, which I don’t). They are well situated in the center of Norwood on the main drag, they clearly take much care in the craft of creating burgers, and they love craft beer! Win, win, craft win.
And yet… when you focus narrowly on excelling with one special feature (in this case the burger), if you don’t nail it, you can loose big. You can loose your shirt. But not our shirts. We kept our shirts on. Which is your loss.
Did you catch our photobombing bartender?! I think he wants in on this…
He and our burger club member Josh look like long-lost cousins! Don’t they? If Josh gets hit by a bus, we have a perfect substitute lined up and apparently ready to go!
Speaking of going, lettuce go now to our panel of judges to hear what they have to say.
DEEP THOUGHTS
Jack Handey: If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you’ll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.
Once again, in honor of the great Jack Handey and his one-liner Deep Thoughts, here are the profound musings of our unparalleled certified Burger Tasters:
Mike: I’ve been here before and loved it, but this missed the mark.
Josh: I’m going to take a bath in the sink. [I told you it was messy!]
Nick: I think this might be one of the most creative set of burger options I’ve encountered.
Steve: Who would have thought a peanut butter and jelly burger would be this good?
THE RATINGS
As I’ve mentioned there are a good number of burgers to choose from. The rule set by the Picker of the Restaurant was that everyone had to choose a different burger, and we ordered a PB&J burger to share for the table. We tried:
Hangover: Smoked Gouda, Smoked Sausage, Cheddar, Canadian Bacon, American Cheese, Smoked Bacon, Onion Strings, Chipotle BBQ Mayo
Korean: Kimchi, Fried Egg, Pork Belly, Pepper Jack, Sriracha Mayo
Gordo: Topped with Roasted Poblanos, Mushrooms, Onions, Smoked Bacon, Boursin Cheese and Mayonnaise
IPA Burger: Psychopathy IPA Fondue, Sautéed Mushrooms, Onions, Smoked Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato
PB&J: Fried Banana, Chunky Peanut Butter Cream Cheese, Jam and Smoked Bacon
So once again, between the four of us, we tried five burgers. Two of us split ours so we both got to try three.
Meat: 7.2
This category had both extremes. We had two ratings in the 5-6 range, and two in the 8-9 range. This was where we started to see the sporadic failure to deliver.
Two of us ordered their burgers medium rare, and two ordered medium, with the shared burger ordered medium. The shared burger, one of the mediums, and one of the medium rare burgers were cooked to perfection. However, the other medium rare was actually rare to the point of raw. The Taster had to abandon ship and didn’t even finish the burger. (When he got up and walked away from his table, so did the burger…)
The other individual who gave it a low score had a medium rare when he ordered a medium, and he claimed the meat was a bit bland and tasteless. Now, I’m not saying this Taster was full of it, but I suspect he woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. (I can confirm that at least my meat was pristinely prepared and very tasty). He also didn’t appreciate the rounded nature of the meat patty. This point I will grant him.
That burger is far too invested in its vertical height, am I right?
It reminds me of the time I cooked burgers for my colleagues when I didn’t press the patties enough. They were so far from flat burgers we had to come up with a new nickname for them. Gordo’s seems to have stolen my specialty, and now they too serve “Spherical Beef Treats.”
How can one be expected to fit this burger into one’s mouth hole?
I can’t help but wonder if our patties were a little flatter and were cooked to the correct temperature, could we have seen this category jump up to a very respectable score that would bring up any of the lackluster categories? The world may never know… (Until we come back to validate the score)
Bun: 7.1
Unlike the meat, which averaged out from two extreme ends, the bun’s score reflected the general sense of the bun. It’s a solid burger bun. Toasted, light, and it held up well when the burger was juicy.
It is a good candidate for a really good burger. However, it lacks any flare or ability to stand out. It knows the limelight is supposed to go on the meat and the fixin’s, but when those two don’t deliver, unfortunately this bun doesn’t have any tricks it can pull to try and cover for their failures.
Fixin’s: 7.5
This was an opportunity for Gordo’s to really stand out. Kimchi, brie, poblano peppers, PB&J — so much creativity. Here we see a score that was good… but again not great. In this case, if we had substituted two of the burgers, that might have been enough.
This category was close to an 8. The burger option that almost singlehandedly brought it down was the IPA burger. Now this is the perfect burger for anyone who, when eating a burger with an extreme amount of cheese on it, goes on to say, “I think this could use a bit more cheese.” It would be like calling for help while drowning in cheese and having someone throw you some Velveeta. A needle in a haystack is easier to find than the taste of meat under all that cheese.
The Taster who chose that burger only kept us out of the 6 range because the PB&J and his half of the Korean slightly made up for his disappointment.
The other burger that didn’t score as high as the others, the Gordo, suffered from a taste imbalance of the various fixin’s. Again, potentially a little shift in the proportions of the individual items like the peppers, cheese, or bacon could have made a big difference.
Besides that burger though, the fixin’s overall were strong to quite strong. There’s a lot going on with that menu, and the creative combinations of the toppings really allows Gordo’s to stand out from the local competition. By now I’ve tried at least half the burgers on their menu, and in general their accoutrements tend be be good quality, balanced, and enjoyable.
But again, you smother your burger with too much cheese fondue, and you’re gonna see a hit to that score.
Burger: 7.2 (Meat, Bun & Fixin’s)
We’re going to start sharing the score of just the burger, as a weighted average of the meat, bun, and fixin’s (with a slight weighting towards meat). This is a good score. It’s a really good score. There are lots and lots of burgers in Cincinnati that would fall below this score. However, any fan of Gordo’s will tell you they would not be happy with this performance.
While this wasn’t as bad a “fail” as the 2018 UVA Cavaliers losing in round 1 of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament to a 16-seed, keep in mind they came back the next year to win it all. Gordo’s, there is still hope.
Fries: 4.5
Now I call these perfectly acceptable pub fries. They are serviceable. One could argue average. The fact that they were rated below average shows that you can’t please all of the people all of the time when some of the people have defective taste buds.
When you bite into one of these fries, the average person would not notice anything either good or bad. They might not even notice they had eaten some fries. If you, like me, believe burgers must be served with fries, you would get these and think, “Oh look, fries exist on my plate.” That’s if you thought anything at all! They are acceptable ketchup delivery vehicles.
You know the problem is not the fries when one of the Tasters *cough* Steve *cough* squirted two ounces of mustard directly on each individual fry before eating it. That’s not normal.
However, I am committed to sharing the true experience of our Tasters, and together we rated these fries as slightly below average. Buyer beware.
Environment: 5.2
You may notice the score for most of the next few categories are about average. This can really drag an excellent burger joint’s score down.
The environment was not bad. It was a brightly lit, commonplace, humdrum room. As I mentioned, I loved the music, but there was something about the energy of the place that didn’t quite reflect the music. It made the music contrast with the environment more than resonate with it. In a way, it made the place appear a bit less attractive. Like when party music is playing in your high school gym or when karaoke is brought into the office. You didn’t notice how drab it really was until you tried to have a party there. (Unless your office is the Nakatomi Plaza building, which is first-rate. However, your holiday party may have other trouble besides dull decor… watch out for East Germans)
There is nothing wrong with a serviceable bar serving a great burger, and that’s been my general experience of Gordo’s. As long as you know what you are getting into, I would recommend you give it a try.
Menu: 8.8
This is where Gordo’s really stands out. That menu is amazing. Twelve creative burgers with an array of very different toppings. A lot of burger joints are content to slap some bacon on a burger, then add avocado and claim they’ve got two burger offerings. Not Gordo’s. This place is easily in the top 5 creative burger menus in Cincinnati by any estimation.
Value: 5.9
Ranging between $12 and $15 for a burger with fries, Gordo’s knows they’ve got something better than the average bar, but they also know their clientele is not looking for steakhouse prices.
What dragged their value score down was a sense that it takes a special burger experience to really stand out in that price range. With so many burger options around $15, you gotta either impress on a lot of levels or completely blow you away in some respect. That, sadly, didn’t happen.
Enjoyment: 5.0
There is a multitude of factors that go into one’s enjoyment of a burger. This category is really rating that gut sense of how you felt while you were there — the service, the company, the meal… all of it. Maybe if the work day had been less stressful, or if we were able to stay a bit later, or if I had found $20 on the way into the bar, maybe this score would have gone up. It really was in many respects an average outing to grab a meal with friends.
One arena that was a bit tough to rate was the service. There are very few establishments that have bad service. We enjoyed our server and our bartender. There was a small mistake with a drink order — no big deal. There were a few times we needed something and had to wait for the busy server to get back to us. Nothing out of the ordinary. Kind, attentive staff in general. But… in this day and age… that is expected. It is not something that causes you to stand out. Average.
Rating Guesstimate: 6.1
I believe I’ve painted a pretty clear picture, so we expected a slightly above average score. I was glad to see the final score actually went up a smidge from here to land where it did.
Overall: 6.4
Gordo’s can serve an exceptional burger in a banal environment. Or they might only hit a double while swinging for that home run, which was the case when we rated them. They appear to care deeply about their burger (and beer), which is a good thing. A lot of time has clearly gone into providing a very creative menu. When they deliver, it’s certainly worth the trip.
Give them a chance. See what you think.
Buuuuut maybe stay away from the IPA Burger (unless you’re the type to take an IV of cheese directly into your body because you can’t get enough cheese through your mouth).
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