I started my first day exposure to the new Mary's Burger Bistro at about 7am today. I placed my order at their charming walk-up window then headed inside to wait. As you may have seen yesterday, the place looks great. But how was the food? My sourdough grilled breakfast sandwich was nice 'n greasy with two eggs, bacon and melted cheese filling it up. Everything from bread slice to slice hit the spot and was only made better (and more sinful) with the side of ranch for dipping. Co-worker Joe was there too and put his opinion out there for all to read. Oh, and the race for the best ranch is still between Caper's Downtown and Farrelli's with the latter still in the lead. ;) It was a pretty heavy breakfast that I would probably enjoy more on a weekend when I don't have to sit at a desk and can digest in a more proper, couch-centric setting. They do have grab-n-go muffins and Sarah liked the caramel mocha I got her. Might be more once they get their deli case up and humming.

At lunch the place was nuts! We filled the place up with friendly faces. Let me see if I can list everyone I know and/or met who was there. From our office: Brian, Ken, Dave, Mike, Anna, Joe, Michael, Sarah and I. Fellow bloggers ensie, Frinklin, jenyum, tacomachickadee, and Niki from GritCity. Likewise from the local media were Joseph and Mindy from the News Tribune, briefly Steve from the Weekly Volcano, and Todd from the Daily Index. (I'll link all y'all up tonight -- gotta work at work once in a while, you know!) New old Tacoma resident and blog reader Mike was there as was Heidi who dropped a comment on a previous post. There were also plenty of other folks there at lunch making Mary's work hard for their money on their first day.

The wait was the thing today. With so many people on a first day we swamped 'em. We were easily there for an hour-and-a-half before we got our food. I didn't mind because it was fun chatting with everyone there. Even still, that's pretty rough even for an opening day but I enjoyed my fiesta burger once I got it. The patty was probably slightly over-cooked (though I do like a little char around the edges) but the spice of the burger was just right. Not too much to make me fear for the health of my digestive track. I think the overall sentiment was that some of the burger patties were overdone but, after sending a burger with a really small patty back, ensie was pretty stoked with the larger "mighty" burger they replaced it with. No complaints though 'cause I enjoyed my food and want more.

Links to other first day reviews: Izenmania (breakfast, lunch) | Spew | In-Tacoma | Tacoma Mama | Both Hands | GritCity | Ed's Diner | tacomachickadee | Anna | Even a review of the reviews

I'm going back. I look forward to see their progress on the cooking front and want to try the various options of chicken, fish and veggie in future burgers. That and some of the deli selections sound pretty sweet. Any non-blogger folks care to voice their opinion? Oh, and thanks to everyone who came -- I'm really enjoying this blog mobbing of new businesses. I really hope it shows the owners how much locals enjoy supporting locals.

Previously on KFnet