B2A2: Blimpy Burger

Three entries into B2A2, I've been eating burgers conceived by trained chefs. A cocktail bar, a James Beard semifinalist, a formally trained chef. The burgers have been excellent. They have also been, in a specific sense, performances. Someone in a kitchen decided what the burger should be, and I showed up to receive their vision.

Blimpy Burger does not work that way.

At 304 S Ashley St, you join the line and wait your turn. When you reach the counter, you call out your order — patties and bun first, then grilled items when asked, then cheese when asked, then condiments. Don't say cheese until they ask. Don't talk when you're not ordering. Don't hold up the line. The regulars know the protocol, and the staff expects you to learn it. There is no menu to interpret, no sauce with a backstory. There is a flat-top, a list of toppings, and you. The burger is yours because you built it.

This is the fourth entry in B2A2, Best Burger in Ann Arbor. After the Raven's Club smash burger, the Frita Batidos frita, and the Echelon smash burger, I wanted something that doesn't belong in the same sentence as any of them. Blimpy is the answer.

The Burger

You choose your size. You choose your toppings. You choose your cheese. The person behind the counter slaps the patty on the flat-top, presses it down, and builds the thing in front of you. The process is fast, direct, and has not changed in any meaningful way since Blimpy opened.

The patty is not a smash burger in the Raven's Club or Echelon sense. It's thicker, looser, cooked through rather than seared to a hard crust. The beef is solid and unpretentious. It doesn't taste like dry-aged anything. It tastes like a burger — ground beef on a hot grill, the fat rendering into the surface, the edges getting a little crisp while the center stays soft. If you've been eating carefully calibrated smash patties for three weeks, that simplicity hits different.

The toppings are where Blimpy earns its identity. Fried egg. Grilled onions. Fried mushrooms. Jalapeños. Olives. You can stack a triple with four cheeses and a fried egg on top if that's who you are today. Nobody will judge you. Nobody will suggest a pairing. The counter person will build it, wrap it, and hand it over.

I ordered a double with American cheese, grilled onions, pickles, and mustard. It cost me less than any single entry in this series so far. The cheese melted into the patty. The onions were soft and sweet. The pickles were standard deli pickles, and they were right. Nothing about the burger asked me to admire it. It asked me to eat it.

The Fries

Thick-cut and deep-fried. They come out of the fryer dark golden, salted, and piled into the tray next to your burger. They are not delicate. They are not seasoned with anything besides salt. They are hot, crunchy, and gone in about four minutes.

No aioli. No house sauce. Ketchup is on the counter. Grab it yourself.

The Room

I hesitate to call it a room. Blimpy moved to this location from its original spot on Division Street in 2013, reopening at this spot in fall 2014. Blimpy Burger is a counter operation with some seating. The space is small and functional. You stand in line, you order, you sit down at a table or take it to go. The walls have stickers and signs accumulating since the move. There is no ambiance strategy. There is no playlist. There is a grill, a fryer, and people eating burgers.

Cash only. Bring cash.

The experience takes about fifteen minutes from the moment you walk in to the moment you walk out holding a greasy bag. Compare that to Echelon, where you're sitting down for a cocktail and a properly paced meal. Compare it to Raven's Club, where the lighting alone suggests you should slow down. Blimpy is not interested in your evening. It's interested in feeding you.

Where It Fits

Four entries in, and B2A2 now has a real spectrum.

Raven's Club is discipline. Two thin patties, garlic aioli, everything calibrated. Frita Batidos is personality. Chorizo-beef, shoestring fries on top, a Cuban lineage that predates the American hamburger. Echelon is firepower. A James Beard kitchen treating a bar staple with the same focus it gives the rest of the menu.

Blimpy is democracy. You get what you ask for. The quality comes from the grill and the simplicity of the format, not from a chef's training or a cocktail program. There is no vision here beyond giving you a burger the way you want it, cooked on a flat-top that has been doing this since before most of the other restaurants in this series existed.

Is it the best burger in Ann Arbor? I don't think that's the right question for Blimpy. The place isn't competing with Echelon's sear or Raven's Club's restraint. It's making a different argument: that a great burger doesn't require a point of view. It requires a hot grill, decent beef, and the freedom to put whatever you want on it.

I've been eating chef-driven burgers for weeks. Sitting at the counter at Blimpy with a double and a pile of fries — nobody designed that meal for me. It was great.

This is part of our ongoing series. Read the full tracker: Best Burger in Ann Arbor (B2A2): The Running List.

Blimpy Burger is at 304 S Ashley St, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Cash only.