Day two of Hamburger Week finds me in Eastlake overlooking Lake Union. The burger joint for the day is one Daly’s Drive-In. One of only a couple of people in the restaurant I choose to arrive early to beat any rush there might be during the dinner hour. Also I heard that there is a decent view of the lake from the stools at the back of the “drive-in”. Funny that they chose to use that moniker, as it really isn’t a drive-in at all; but more like a ramshackle building, one that’s almost on the verge of collapsing. While there are some restaurants that work hard to maintain a faux dive atmosphere at Daly’s it’s all dive, for real. Looking around I can almost picture the restaurant as a prop from the movie Jaws and the sticky, gummy fixtures make me wish for a bath. But I sidle up to the counter and place my order with the teenager who looks less than thrilled to be working on such a beautiful Seattle afternoon.

I order the Daly Double ($4.89) and an order of Fries ($1.69) and find a spot to settle into while I wait on my food. The wait was not to be a long one as my number was called out. A small brown tray awaited me with its basket of shiny fries and aluminum foil wrapped burger. The Daly Double was two thin patties of processed industrial beef that held a nice char flavor but little of anything else. Missing was any beefiness or juiciness; all of that having departed the meat long ago. What there was a lot of was cheese, processed, American but cheese. Three slices of it melting wonderfully between the dual patties of lifelessness. The lettuce was fresh and plentiful as were the two slices of tomato; onions were kept to a minimum and were of the diced variety. Stranger items were the slices of pickle. Not the more common dill pickle one would expect but something tasting a bit more akin to sweet relish. It wasn’t a bad thing mind you, just different. Plus it helped to make the overall burger more palatable. The fries were a little better than most but still lacked that crispy exterior and light fluffy interior. Instead they were greasy, oily and slightly limp. The few specimens I could pick my way to that had any sort of crispiness and flavor were far between one another.

As I sat with my order, customers began filing into the front of the restaurant and the one binding commonality that they all had was that none of them were ordering a burger. It was all fish and chips, fish burger or steak sandwich. I think I now understand why. Daly doesn’t have a good grasp on the hamburger. A thin, industrial patty is not going to satisfy anyone and if most people think your fish options are that tasty that they avoid the burger you should take the hint. For you my readers I won’t hint. For a burger, you’d almost do better heading down to your local chain burger joint. At least there you’ll be in a clean plastic environment while you eat your meal.