No, it’s not in the neighborhood, but it’s close enough for a 15-minute road trip if you’re looking to try a new place.
Hopdoddy Burger Bar is an Austin transplant, and the Preston Center location is the chain’s first in Dallas.
It’s organized a bit differently than any other place I’ve been in Dallas. First, you line up to order. While you’re in line (assuming there’s a line, which there was the night we visited), a hostess assigns a seat for you; no worrying about standing there with a tray of food and no place to sit.
The ordering process is pretty basic, although the menu is limited primarily to burgers. But no worries — the burger is good enough that you’ll be thinking about it even after you’ve finished. Even though the meat was cooked “medium” according to the order-taker, it wasn’t pink inside but it was incredibly juicy and tasty. The basic burger starts at $6, and like every premium burger place, you can add stuff on or select some of the pre-packaged options and spend more. The fries are suspiciously good, too: Even after sitting on the wrapping paper for 30 minutes, there was nary a drop of grease on the paper, if that tells you anything.
There’s a good-sized bar with surround-seating in the place, and an awful lot of locally brewed beers are served (two from Deep Ellum and two from Lakewood caught my eye). You’ll also find shakes and a large variety of natural, no-name soft drinks, as well as as the one standard brand just about everyone has to serve these days — Diet Coke.
In short, you can get in and out of there with two burgers, an order of fries and two soft drinks for a bit more than $20, pretty standard for Dallas upper-end burger places. But if you like burgers, I think you’ll like this place. (Click on the photos for a larger, more savory view.)