Old Man Rafferty's

Back during the summer (yea, this isn’t a very timely review) I went to their Hillsborough location with a friend and ordered something I thought would be quick, easy and ‘safe’ . . . a cheese burger medium well done. When I received my burger and I cut in in half, it was visibly red in middle with its meat juices flowing. So, I understand this sometimes happens, and I inform my waitress that my burger is not medium well done, and she agrees with me (she was very nice), and takes my burger back to the kitchen. Then, the general manager (who I find out later has over 15 years’ experience at her job) comes over so she can make sure just exactly what I wanted to be done to my burger, since as it was served to me, it was "a perfectly made medium well burger". Wow! What ever happened to the customer is always right? . . . not to mention the burger was visibly red in the middle, dripping juices, to myself, my friend, the waitress and the manager with her 15 years of experience. So, I have to explain to her that if this is perfect medium well burger, then I want my cooked more (no kidding this, this really happened to me – even my friend was shocked at her rude behavior . . . like I was the idiot here).



I then get my recooked/new burger, cut it in half, and guess what, well it’s no longer red, but still very reddish and dripping juices! The waitress is horrified and offers to once again take it back once again. I thanked her and said let’s just forget it and ate the outside of the burger and left with my friend.



So, due to my horrible experience, I decide to write the owner and explain what happened, since based upon my 55 years of eating hamburgers, I never knew that medium well was red and dripping juices, not to mention I wanted to inform him of his managers rude behavior. He replies, defends the actions of Hillsborough manager, and tries to baffle me with culinary verbiage explaining to me that all of their protein is check with “3 second thermometer” and it should have an “internal temp of 155 degrees, an industry and culinary standard for medium well” . . . well OK, thanks for temperature reading, but what about the fact that the burger was red a dripping juices.



I swear this is all true and have the email chain to prove it.



Net net, the moral of my story is: IF YOU WANT A MEDIUM WELL HAMBURGER AT OLD MAN RAFFERTY’S, BE PREPARED TO SEND IT BACK . . . AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF TO THE MANAGEMENT SINCE YOUR DEFINTITON OF MEDIUM WELL IS NOT AN INDUSTRY OR CULINARY STANDARD!