Hamburger Mary's

I blame the name.

[quote]mean, how do you fuck up a burger and fries?

VERY easily.

It must be the management of each location. You're right OP, it's an easy business model. A couple friends of mine perform at one regularly and I've had the brunch & regular meals, both were diner-style food and were great. Helps to have experienced staff. I'm actually surprised there aren't more locations.

MARY!

It is for lesbians only? Blondie has big boobs!

I mean, it failed in Chicago in Andersonville and in Oak Park.

And it failed in Palm Springs. Which is a tourist trap filled with mediocre food. If you can't throw a few tired drag queens and a burger together for the tourists.....something is just wrong with the business or business model somewhere.

I ate at the one in Dallas and it wasn't good. Restaurants that aren't good tend to close.

R7 Yeah, it was always mediocre at best.

Which is sad because as I said....how do you fuck up a burger and fries? It didn't have to be deluxe, but it should be decent.

The one in Ybor closed because of a hepatitis scare just before the shutdown, but honestly had seen better days- the other in Clearwater closed shortly afterwards in what seemed mismanagement be the franchisee. Dingy, worn and tired (the restaurant itself, not the drag queens!)

I’ve seen furnishings, fabrics and staging in a junk yard. It was like walking into a 90’s kitschy club that someone forgot about.

I knew the brothers/owners. Well, really just one-Ashley. They bought the DC one then moved to Chicago and bought the franchise. Looking at the list of locations I didn’t realize there were so many! The DC one closed and I don’t see the Chicago one listed on their website. They’ve sold and re-purchased some store over the years. For a while the Denver one became something line “Mile High Mary’s’” before they bought it back.

The Denver one is pretty nice and always clean (and packed)

I ate at one in St. Louis. Nice vibe, good food, pleasant servers. The place was quite popular.

But it closed suddenly and without notice. Turns out there was a lot of behind-the-scenes skull duggery among the partners, including embezzlement.

Sucks to hear they’re all doing so badly. I don’t know how good they are as businessmen, but I was surprised when they took over the place because they seemed pretty young to own a corporation! Now I just feel really old. ☹️

The one in Orlando was doing real well, mostly because Ginger Minj performs there when she is in town. Now, they are having problems because of DeSantis. They even have a law suit against him for interfering with their business. Good luck!

The one in my city never made it back from the covid shutdown. I'd never been but hamburger-loving friends weren't impressed.

There was one open for a blip in my city 20ish years ago. It was very poorly run and the staff had major attitude. Both times we went it was a disaster, long waits, wrong orders, bad food, bad service. I think it lasted less than a year.

Chicago and Palm Springs already have enough gay establishments. It seems this does better in places without a lot of options.

My friends and I went to the one in Toledo, Ohio of all places. The location was ok but the "talent" was meh. The hamburgers were not that great and the "Deep Fried Twinks" were nasty grease sponges.

The one in LA is next to city Hall on Santa Monica. It’s ALWAYS crowded outside with obnoxious fat women. They get drunk and scream and yell. It’s a day drinking place. You can always see vomit around the building outside that they don’t bother to wash away. Areli. For straight fraud with their bride sashes.

*for straight fraus

Years ago I was asked to write a few April Fool’s Day spoof stories for a local news site and one was about a recently closed, fluorescent light-covered downtown diner. I said they were going to turn it into a gay restaurant like Hamburger Mary’s with twinks on roller skates as soon as they figured out the liability insurance issues.

The next day the Hamburger Mary’s corporate office contacted the site’s editors wanting to get in contact the business owners about potentially making the location a part of the chain.

I am not a writer but the editors of the site were throughly impressed that my spoof story had fooled a corporation.

I lived in Portland when the first two Mary's were the Portland location and the one in San Francisco. The food was okay. I went pretty often, just because it was a gay restaurant and I wanted to support them. That area, 9th and Taylor SW, was a gay-ish area. I used to go to a bar called Somebody's Place, on 10th, IIRC.

Eating at a “gay” restaurant is not required

People flock to Steve’s hot dogs now. I don’t.

I used to live near a Hamburger Mary's in Sacramento, it became "Hamburger Pattie's", and then closed down during the pandemic. Does anyone know the story of the name change? It did sound like there was strife with the main company...

Two closed in St. Louis. Internal business problems.

Did they serve pink hamburgers?

[quote]The one in LA is next to city Hall on Santa Monica.

If it's next to a city hall on Santa Monica, it's not in LA.

Everyone has touched on the many problems of Hamburger Mary's. The one in my city was constantly changing hands/management. The food started off OK but went quickly downhill to the point of having one burger on a menu made up mostly of badly fried appetizers. The entertainers at first were quite good but they weren't paid shit and let's face it, tips there weren't nearly what they are in clubs. So they all left to be replaced by tragic, bottom of the barrel queens who no one wanted to see. It became dangerous, closed, and is now a struggling urban gay-ish lounge.

When you walk in, do they ask "Do you want some hamburgers, Mary?"

R29, comedy is not your strong suit.

Don't worry, r30, I'm not planning on quitting my day job.

I used to love it. Closed in Chicago during the pandemic.

The one in Long Beach relocated from Alamitos Beach to Pine, but it's still going strong. DRAG BRUNCH!

[quote] Chicago and Palm Springs already have enough gay establishments. It seems this does better in places without a lot of options.

Palm Springs indeed does have other gay or gay-friendly establishments with mediocre food, shitty drinks, bachelorette fraus and screeching drag queens.

*waves at Oscar's, Pinocchio's and all of Arenas Road.......

I'm hungry.

It was doomed from the beginning

Steve’s hot dogs should take note

R27 it’s on Santa Monica Blvd next door to WeHo City Hall.

First, the idea of a theme restaurant is dated in 2023. Think of “Dick’s Last Resort”, or Rainforest Cafe”. These are places the food is and always was secondary to the experience.

Hamburger Mary’s reminds me of Liberty Diner in Queer as Folk, trying to qualify as a “safe space” for throngs of gays, but this has worn thin, because gays haven’t really rallied around each other or gone out to eat in flocks since the turn of the millennium! I’m from Boston, and back in the 90’s an equivalent place would’ve been Tremont Ice Cream in the South End, where you got to see who went home with with who Saturday- when they dined together on Sunday morning. (I miss that!) Another was along Chelsea’s Eighth Ave. in NYC, with Big Cup, Food Bar and Rocking Horse Cafe. That’s all gone now. All of those quaint, gay tinged establishments don’t exist outside of Princetown or Ogunquit. It’s also $32 for a burger as well to pay for the kitschy flair.

Secondly, the chain is franchised, meaning they follow a blueprint but each region is owned independently, allowing financial shenanigans, not paying staff properly, and a wide range of keeping the place presentable and clean. Maybe the owners are gay, maybe not, but after three years of losses they cut loose and let someone else run the place. The Mary’s in Ybor had to be at least 10,000 square feet, sat on the second floor of an upcoming area, and cost an absolute fortune in rent.

Third, I can’t imagine they would pay drag queens, never mind the rest of the staffs very well, with an unpredictable seating count, and tipping being all over the place. Everything tasted like it came out of a freezer and right into a fryolator.

[quote][R27] it’s on Santa Monica Blvd next door to WeHo City Hall.

Yes, that was my point. It's in West Hollywood, NOT Los Angeles.

Mary needs to get her shit together.

Mary is a FAT WHORE

"Hamburger Patty's" is actually a funny name.

What WOULD really work is if Disney bought the entire chain, and partnered with John Waters to create a concept that slyly sidesteps all manner of drag legally, yet hits you over the head, overdosing with gayness…

They create a brilliant, “rags to riches” back story for white trash Mary, and several colorful characters to revive the chain, along with a high camp floor show, and easily recognizable sing a longs for children that teach

Think Edith Massey as Hamburglar, and Grimace-like, evil character called Rictus that looks like a purple-hued Ron DeSantis.

I’d be right in front of the line opening night.

[quote] Should have been a simple diner-y place for gays and queens to eat, but it seems like location after location has closed. I mean, how do you fuck up a burger and fries?

I went to the one in DC. It had a garage door, and that's about all I remember of it.

I knew it was meant to be a gay establishment, but it felt like a restaurant, a little bit of a higher-end installation than seemed to fit the fast-food menu. The design impression I got from what I recall reminded me of something like Joe's Crab Shack, sort of midrange chain restaurant designed to look kitschy, but the menu from what I remember was a bit below that.

What did they do wrong? Not necessarily anything.

New restaurants come and go, at least in DC, literally every day. I actually get sad when I see a new restaurant open because I figure it is probably some person's dream, and I figure they'll likely be out of business within six months.

It's not a post-pandemic thing. Restaurants just come and go in the blink of an eye because there is so much competition and what is new is always what gets the business.

10 years ago, three new taco places opened within a block of one another and within a month of one another, and all of them had lines out the door for a couple of months, and all were out of business within a couple of years.

Six or seven years ago, three fried-everything restaurants popped up on Conmecticut Ave. within months of one another, serving things like fried chicken on doughnuts with bacon, and people I worked with went to them one time and then never again, and all were gone within six months.

If Hamburger Mary's did anything 'wrong' in this city, perhaps it was location, but even so I don't think the gay gimmick works here. It's a gay and integrated city. We don't really have a 'gay ghetto' anymore. The themes of hamburgers and gay schtick don't seem like a natural fit and I can imagine plenty of straight people wandered in and may have just been confused. Meanwhile, on 18th Street, there's a Duplex Diner that is an actual diner and totally rooted in the LGBT community, hosting watch parties and functioning as a quasi-gay bar. For people who call that place home, why would they want to go to a midrange restaurant decorated like it belongs in the white suburbs to get a fast food burger?

Fran's Flan Stand

The owner of Hamburger Mary’s Orlando filed the federal, saying the state is depriving the business of its First Amendment rights.

LA City Hall is on Spring Street, not Santa Monica Blvd. Santa Monica does not go all the way east to DTLA.

R37 which is not in Los Ángeles. Geography is not your friend.

[quote] It's not a post-pandemic thing. Restaurants just come and go in the blink of an eye because there is so much competition and what is new is always what gets the business.

Yeah, this is true.

I lived in Chicago for years near Randolph Street aka Restaurant Row. This was a neighborhood that was known years ago as "Skid Row" and Oprah's studio was the first thing that opened there - slowly over the years restaurants filled in the space and then it became a hot go-to neighborhood.

But success did it in, because the rents became so enormous that most of the small start up places couldn't sustain it. A friend of mine opened a bakery there and basically lost her life savings. It took the better part of two years to open, because one inspector says one thing and then the next one that comes three weeks later says, "why did you do that? That's not right."

The shame of it is so many of the places were really good. Like, memorable life experiences to remember always good. And yet time and again, either the money ran out, the rent was jacked up, or something else happened. One chef spent $50K on buildout and fees only to have the daughter of a famous restaurant owner in town basically steal the property from under his feet. It's a cutthroat business.

Now that area of Chicago (West Loop) has few restaurants that are innovative and cool. It's become a tourist trap with a lot of hotels, the McDonalds HQ and little else that resembles what it was ten years ago. And only big chains can afford it now.

What happened to muscle Mary?