By Dr. Ink
Leave it to a place that calls itself “crazee” and where kangaroo burgers hop off the grill for running a weekday happy hour beginning precisely at 2:23 p.m. and ending three hours and 56 minutes later, at 6:19.
Nobody at Crazee Burger could provide a clear explanation when I inquired about the peculiar span of time, which applies Tuesday through Friday. (Happy hour is all day on Mondays.)
“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s interesting?” an employee replied in up-talk as she efficiently kept the long line moving at her cash register.
When I asked a staffer working at the adjoining register if there was any significance to the odd hours, he laughed and shrugged, saying that “it makes people remember us better.”
This was my first time visiting the popular eatery since it moved a few blocks down 30th Street from its original location, which had a cozy, Bohemian vibe. The new digs are rather sterile with concrete floors, a metal-wrapped L-shaped bar and plain walls that could use more quirky décor like the picture hanging near a front window of Mona Lisa smoking a joint.
But the place still slings beer; naturally they’re all crafts for effectively competing along North Park’s 30th Street craft beer corridor. And burgers remain in abundance, extending beyond the norm to those made with ostrich, alligator, camel and kangaroo.
The exotic choices, however, aren’t discounted during happy hour. But you can sink your choppers into beef, turkey or veggie burgers for a couple bucks below the normal price while partaking in any of the draft beers listed on the chalk board for $3.49 a glass.
There are about a dozen taps featuring rotating selections by Yeti Great Divide, Hess Brewing, Green Flash Brewing Company, St. Archer Brewery and other craft producers.
I paired the signature beef burger (a smallish 6-ounce patty) to a 13-ounce pour of Vanilla Cream Ale from Mother Earth Brew Co. The suds offered more of an umami flavor than the meat. With each sip, the enchanting essence of fresh vanilla beans surfaced without the excessive sweetness you might expect.
The burger was priced at $4.49, although had I not paid $1 extra for pepper jack cheese and asked for raw onions, it would have tasted bland. Though juicy, the meat by itself lacked seasonings – not terrible but definitely less exciting than the exotic and dressed-up versions I’ve consumed in the past from the regular menu.
Crazee Burger’s happy hour also caters wisely to night-crawlers with the same deals offered from 9 p.m. to closing on Fridays and Saturdays — a time slot that’s easier to remember after enjoying some drinking time in the neighborhood’s teeming bar scene.
