First of all, thanks to all  for your kind words about our restaurant and your determination to have our burgers. I worked really hard coming up with a burger appropriate for Craigie on Main and I’m incredibly flattered so many of you feel so strongly about its availability.

Let me explain what has happened and also clear up what seems to be a misunderstanding about our bar menu and motivation. In the past several weeks the burger has appeared prominently in two national and 3 local publications. The result is that we have been swamped with orders to the point that we can’t operate the way we need to offer the variety of Tasting Menus and other menu selections that most people expect at Craigie on Main. Space, supply, and staffing have all been affected. Basically, the spike in demand was so great that I was forced to begin ordering meat from other sources which did not meat our standards and philosophy.  If I was truly concerned about money, or if I was a cold and ruthless businessman, then I would have had NO PROBLEM with this compromise just to capitalize on the burger’s popularity.  I’d just keep pumping out an inferior product.  But seriously, this is not what I am about at all.  So we’re going back to the meat that made our burger so great in the first place, which I can only get in limited quantity – real meat from two small farms, not mass produced, industrialized, commercial beef.  In order to offer the menu variety that people are expecting, not compromise the quality of the burger, and not run out entirely before a weekend, we felt we should order and prepare for as many burgers as we did before our recent publicity. Because that publicity hasn’t worn off yet, it can happen that we run out early, and we apologize for that.

In terms of changing our Bar Menu, it is really only the format that is different; we were responding to many guest comments that our multiple menus were confusing. Also people in the dining room were often anxious to try our “bar” offerings. Our solution was to combine the menus into one. The bar favorites  are now in the appetizer section and their prices are unchanged. The burger is offered verbally to every table in the bar. This same menu is used in the Dining Room and the Bar.  Our objective was certainly not to make more money.  Of course, it would be easy just to raise burger prices, but that seems cynical and not the foundation of the kind of relationship we want to maintain with our diners. A few suggestions to be sure you can have a burger at Craigie: trying coming a little earlier, consider Sunday Brunch, and/or waiting a just few weeks.  We bet things will return to normal soon. Thanks for reading. We hope this clears up any misunderstanding.  Happy Holidays!!

Best,

Tony Maws

Chef and Owner

Craigie on Main

We’ve omitted formal measurements, since this is so much a matter of personal taste.  If you keep tasting, you really can’t go wrong. Here goes:

Cook starching potatoes (more like russets than red skin) in their skins.  Pass through a tamis or potato ricer.  Add  butter, milk and a little garlic to taste. For super smoothness, pass through ricer or tamis a second time. 
Fold in fresh cheese curds (actually from mozzarella) and grated Laguiole cheese, stirring constantly until well incorporated and emulsified.