Brew City

104 Shrewsbury Street  Worcester, MA 01604

Emily's delicious creation

What Victoria threw together

Pros:
Numerous topping options
Bar opens early for sad middle-aged men
Lots of Brew City apparel options (how have we gone this long with out a "Brew City" V-neck?)

Cons:
Waitstaff steals from patrons


The Experience: 
For our lucky number 7 stop on our Burger Tour we ventured into the glorious Worcester, Massachusetts and stopped at basically the only street where there is human life: Shrewsbury Street.

Victoria wanted to visit Brew City, as she always blindly recommends it as the go-to place to eat of Worcester to the children on her Ho Cro tours. She felt it was time she determine how accurate her restaurant recommendations are, and maybe take up a career of writing scathing yelp reviews.

In addition, we had a special celeb appearance from the one and only Gillian Martin Biggert. A part-time Ann Arbor, Michigan resident and avid college football fan (GO BLUE, LETS GET DENARDED!!!!!), she enjoys throwing her letters up during rush (AXO IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO) and throwing her phone off the side of hayrides at the annual barn dance in early October. Between all of her Starbucks runs and Natick Collection pit-stops, Jill/Fill decided to grace us with her presence this Thanksgiving break. After surviving all of the "OMG HOW ARE YOU?? I MISS YOU SO MUCH! and GUESS WHO I SAW AT STARBUCKS??"es that come along with Thanksgiving break, we all piled into the mom-mobile (Volvo S60s were never cool regardless of what Jo Anne Aramini says) and found our way to good old route 9.

Mind you, we decided to continue the tour the day after Thanksgiving. Even though we were all a little worried when we woke up Friday morning (well Shannon doesn't really sleep) because we were still full from the 3 Thanksgiving dinners from the day before, that didn't stop us (we're really dedicated to this mission, you're welcome). Per usual, Shannon and Victoria wore the stretchy pants and Emily looked cute sporting this seasons light pinks and browns. Fillian obviously stole the show in her crayola blue vest. Can you say TSM?

The extensive topping options
(please note sambal and grilled banana)

We finally made our way to Shrewsbury Street and wandered inside the restaurant. After awkwardly standing there for 3-5 minutes near the bathrooms, an elderly woman who we later learned was named Sue, escorted us to our table. Emily immediately took a seat facing away from the window because she was too baffled by the Afghanistan restaurant that just opened up across the street. Who knew Emily had a never ending kabob craving? Turns out everyone, she tweets about lamb shanks on the reg.

Brew City is divided into two parts: a bar and a restaurant.  Naturally, at noon on the day after Thanksgiving, the bar was practically full to capacity while we shared the restaurant with only what appeared to be a nice Amish family.  Let's be real, eating turkey, napping, and watching football all day can be really, really stressful.  We all pretended not to see Victoria ripping shots of Barton under the table.

When it came time to order, the stress really piled up. Talk about choices. There are about 5/6 prepared burger options, but unless you like banana and peanut butter on your burger, we'd steer clear. Brew City offers the "build your own burger" option, which allows you to choose not only your toppings, but the type of burger and bun you want as well.  For the indecisive types, this can be extremely overwhelming. Angus or kobe beef? Slaw on top? How do you feel about a grilled banana? And honestly what on earth is sambal aioli? And more importantly, do you want some? It was a rough time for us all and Emily was forced into a game time decision and ended up yelling a rapid-fire list of fifteen choices at Sue, who walked away whimpering. Shannon worked to comfort our waitress by ordering her customary soft drink: aspartame filled diet coke!!!

After a brief 20 minute wait, during which we discussed the events of Thanksgiving, which obvi included endless pie eating and shrimp cocktail consumption, our heaping plates of angus and fries arrived! The burgers were certainly well-crafted: moist, succulent and extremely flavorful. The fries on the other hand were a little sub-par...Emily wasn't impressed with the spud situation (apparently the side of fries she ordered sounded like potato chips). We honestly wouldn't have been surprised to learn if the hunks of potato rolled out of the Ore-Ida bag and into the oven 15 minutes prior. Processed potatoes really aren't our thing. We like freshly hand cut. And if they're going to use store-bought frozen fries, we would have appreciated the potato smily faces.

After approximately the 7 minutes it took us to devour our meals, Sue handed us the bill. Emily, the only one of us who knows how to add and subtract numbers, figured out what we all owe and after paying up, we realized Sue ripped us off. She felt she deserved a 40% tip and didn't bring us any of our change. At the end of the day we realized we overpaid. This would be fine 15 years down the road when all of our trust-fund husbands are taking us out, but right now we're all poor college students.

Important Things to Consider:
Make sure you have a smart phone handy while scanning over the menu...poor Fill had to google half of the burger topping options. Apparently they do not have Intro to "Fried Stuffed Pablano" at University of Michigan #wolverines. Thank god for the 3G network.

Also make sure you have mom/dad's credit card or lots of dolla billz. This place is getting $1.29 for habanero jack cheese and a solid $2 for brie fondue on your burger, I mean COME ON. In a perfect world we would all build burgers that cost $30+ but instead we saved all of our money and made some sacrifices (poor Fillian had to pass on the apple and pear compote (what is that...?)) so we could tip our girl Sue that 40%. Or so she could tip herself, depending on which way you look at it.

Finally, don't go to Brew City when you are starving, because you'll have to spend quite a bit of time picking out your toppings. If you enter Brew City with a need to order quickly, you might get stuck with the grilled banana and peanut butter creation. Like on what planet does that sound appetizing? The only place we think that could possibly be a hit is the monkey cages at the Franklin Park Zoo. Eliminate the post burger stomach ache and stop and think about what you're ordering people. Peanut butter and angus do NOT go together and should never be paired together, we don't care if you haven't eaten in weeks.

RATINGS (1-10 Scale) Price (too expensive-1, fairly priced-10)... 6
Service... 7
Sides... 6
Size... 8
Presentation... 7
Menu Choice... 10
Deliciousness!/Flavor... 8
Time to Get Food after Ordering... 8
How Much Do I Feel Like I Have to Vomit After Eating (yes-1, no-10)... 8
Bang for your Buck... 7
TOTAL... 75/100