IMG_4227-e1427730275575The Casa Linda restaurant opened a few weeks ago amid all of the crazy ice and snow days. It hails its burger-building as a method that is “so simple, it needs an explanation.” The key is that instead of piling all of the toppings (as many as 13, if you want) atop the patty, Dugg scoops out part of the top bun and tucks the toppings into that scoop, so that you don’t have to open your mouth so wide to eat a tasty burger. The scooped-out bun is then saved to make bread pudding, the only dessert on the menu.

The menu is incredibly simple, and the dining space is fairly tight. Dugg Burger is more efficient than atmospheric, to be sure, but considering that Goodfriend right up the road is a burger spot with ample atmosphere, focusing on efficiency is not a bad strategy. The five-item menu (burger, fries, soda, beer or wine, bread pudding) and burger assembly line makes things quick and easy on customers, and our experience was a tasty meal for a reasonable price ($7 for a burger; $10 for burger, fries and soda; $13 for burger, fries and wine/beer).

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On our Dugg, we chose grape tomatoes, lettuce (both tossed in a house vinaigrette, thanks to the suggestion of a Dugg employee), cheddar, caramelized onions, pickles and Dugg sauce, a Thousand Island-type sauce akin to the sauce on Keller’s famous no. 5. The burger was, as my 5-year-old says, “yum.” Fries were hot, skinny and well-seasoned, and the wine, despite being in a cup with a peel-off top, complemented the burger well. (Rather than offering beer on tap and wine from bottles, Dugg stocks a rotation of about six canned or bottled beers as well as red and white Stack wines.)

Plenty of kids were dining with their parents, which was not surprising considering the ease of ordering and speed of food delivery. The “kids meal” at Dugg is $6 for a burger, fries and a soda.  Jeff Braunstein, one of Dugg’s four founders says the restaurant hopes to host benefits for neighborhood schools in the future. At its inaugural fundraising night, For the Love of the Lake was the recipient, with $300 donated from a portion of Dugg’s proceeds that evening.