Post # 4 Wild Willy's, Watertown, MA

Wild Willy’s

46 Arsenal Street

Watertown, MA 02472

www.wildwillysburgers.com

As Scott and I negotiate his return to Happy Burger (see post # 3) riding shotgun again this week is my son Spencer. That being the case, I picked a place a boy can appreciate: Wild Willy’s in Watertown.

The Watertown outpost of Wild Willy's

Wild Willy’s is a chain, and while restaurant chains can conjure negative connotations, many of today’s burger chains (and there are a lot of them) serve decent products. UBurger, Five Guys, B Good, Tasty Burger, Shake Shack…they all demand respect, and not just for focusing unapologetically on the craft of burger making.

A couple of years ago, my wife--who over our quarter century together has developed an if-you-can't-beat-'em,-eat-'em, attitude about burgers--accompanied me to a new Uburger promoting its Grand Opening with a free burger giveaway. The giveaway seemed like a brilliant idea to me, and to about a million others, too. Before setting foot in the place, Alicia and I waited in line for 45 minutes in a driving rainstorm among all the other drowned-rat cheapskates, and if that wasn't indignity enough, a WBZ camera crew filmed us for a segment on the evening's news. Yet, after getting inside and eating the burgers, I had to admit that the soggy, demoralizing experience was worth it. Right then I realized that the burgers from these chains are nothing to turn your nose up at...and that there's little I won't do for a free one.

Wild Willy’s has six locations sprinkled throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. It is a ride 'em cowboy, western-themed chain, which is kind of hokey and has nothing to do with burgers, but whatevs. At the Watertown "outpost", as the company affectionately refers to them, a stagecoach doubles as a condiment stand and a mural of a prairie with cows trudging through it graces the back wall. Continuing on the theme, the burgers have names like The Annie Oakley, The Mustang, The Stampede and The Wrangler. You get the picture.

Wild Willy's cowpoke interior

The burgers at Wild Willy’s are of good size, 6 ounces apiece, and you can choose among three types of beef: Certified Angus, All Natural from Pinefield Farms and Tender Bison. The patties are hand-formed daily, seasoned with salt and pepper and charbroiled. Hoping to repeat my Killer Bee experience from the Boston Burger Company (see post # 1) I decided on the Certified Angus Bubba Burger, which is constructed with a similar list of toppings: cheese, hickory-smoked bacon, onions, pickles and BBQ sauce. After ordering at the front counter, my pard'ner and I moseyed over to a table by the prairie landscape, hunkered down and prepared to put on the ol' feedbag. I almost wished I'd brought along a harmonica to blow wistful tunes on as we waited.

When our grub arrived, the burgers were wrapped "to-go" style in foiled paper. I don't know why a burger would be wrapped to go when it's to be eaten inside. I would think that naked on a beat up tin plate would have been more apropos for Wild Willy's.

Wild Willy's Bubba Burger. The photo doesn't do it justice.

After getting the wrapping off and cutting the burger in half, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the meat was cooked “on the way to medium," as ordered. I ate the first half so fast I was concerned I wouldn’t feel full after finishing the second, so I slowed down. By last bite I felt a nice bloat coming on and was ready to douse the campfire and undo the bed roll.

While the burger was not up to the culinary level of the Killer Bee, it made for a fine eating experience. Let me explain it this way: regarding an entirely different subject it's been said by men worldwide that there's no such thing as a bad one. If the same is true for burgers, then although this one didn't blow me away, it didn't suck either.

Score: 8 out of 10 napkins