{"id":21527,"date":"2025-07-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/one-mans-quest-to-rank-38-hamburger-joints-in-durango-area\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:07:14","slug":"one-mans-quest-to-rank-38-hamburger-joints-in-durango-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/one-mans-quest-to-rank-38-hamburger-joints-in-durango-area\/","title":{"rendered":"One man\u2019s quest to rank 38 hamburger joints in Durango area"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Steve
Steve Harris is on his second Burger Tour of Durango, in which he eats a burger for lunch at every restaurant that slings them in the Animas Valley. Here, he checks off the green chile burger from Gazpacho Restaurant on June 26. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Steve Harris stared down the massive hamburger smothered in spicy green chiles and American cheese piled atop a fluffy brioche bun. Gazpacho Restaurant\u2019s green chile burger was his latest challenge in his quest to eat and rank all of the hamburgers in the Animas Valley.<\/p>\n

So far, Harris has eaten at 19 of the 38 establishments that serve a hamburger in and around Durango. The goal is not so much to find the best burger in town, but rather to give a comprehensive rating to each based on seven criteria: patty size, patty quality, bun quality, topping quality, sides, service and atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know what somebody\u2019s going to like and somebody\u2019s not going to like,\u201d he said. \u201cWhenever someone asks me what the best burger in town is, I usually stutter. How many times have you heard somebody say, \u2018This is a book that changed my life.\u2019 And you read it, and you go, \u2018What? Really?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The first bite. Steve Harris rates each burger he eats based on seven criteria: patty size, patty quality, bun quality, topping quality, sides, service and atmosphere. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Though his goal is to eat every burger being served for lunch in Durango, he said, it\u2019s more about rediscovering his home and connecting with friends along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m not on the burger tour, I generally don\u2019t eat burgers,\u201d he said. \u201cLunch is where I visit with people. It\u2019s about sharing your food, because a lot of people are busy, and I don\u2019t go out in the evening hardly at all anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris invites friends to join him for a burger every time he makes a stop on his tour, he said. It gives him the chance to slow down, explore a new spot and spend quality time with the people in his life. One of the most important criteria for his ranking system is the restaurant\u2019s atmosphere, which scores higher if he can sit and enjoy his comrades\u2019 company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I go with my friends, I want to be able to visit,\u201d Harris said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to stand up where it\u2019s really noisy. You want to have some place where you can sit down and talk, usually take an hour or so to have lunch. You never know what we\u2019re going to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"From
From left, Kelli Henry, David Henry, Chuck Fredrick, Steve Harris and Steve Parker have their burgers delivered at Gazpacho Restaurant on June 26. The burger tour is a way for Harris to slow down and visit with friends over a burger. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Several of Harris\u2019 buddies joined him June 26 at Gazpacho as he checked its green chile burger off his list. Steve Parker, who has known Harris for over 40 years and had come for lunch, loved the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve said we ought to rate these places,\u201d Parker said. \u201cThe rules are to enjoy the burger and be objective about it. Otherwise, there are no rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Harris\u2019 second burger-specific tour of Durango. In 2017, he was inspired to visit all of the restaurants serving a burger for lunch that he could walk to from his engineering office near City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were 33 places that I could walk to,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I did the same thing I\u2019m doing now. I had an email list of people that say, \u2018Well, let\u2019s go here at this time,\u2019 and I rated them all on a spreadsheet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eight years went by, he said, and his friends who had joined him on his first burger tour reached out and said it was about time to do another one. He agreed, though he soon discovered, Durango\u2019s burger scene is different now.<\/p>\n

\"Gazpacho\u2019s
Gazpacho\u2019s green chile burger. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI quickly realized that of the 33 places I could go to last time, there were less than 20 left after COVID,\u201d he said. \u201cSo this time around, I did any place in the Animas Valley from Glacier Club down to the McDonald\u2019s at that new roundabout.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris said he missed some of the old burger-slinging establishments that are not around after the pandemic \u2013 like the Irish Embassy and The Palace. But, he said, many of the restaurants serving burgers today are still good.<\/p>\n

The reason Harris chose burgers to be the culinary muse of his tour through Durango was because they are a quintessential part of American culture, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurgers are ingrained in America\u2019s soul,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re comfort food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poetics aside, the most important part of Harris\u2019 tour is just getting a group of old friends together to laugh, reminisce, poke fun at each other and enjoy a meal. Harris plans to have eaten at every restaurant by the end of the year, and to make his finished spreadsheet available to everyone.<\/p>\n

sedmondson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Burgers are ingrained in America\u2019s soul,\u2019 Steve Harris says. \u2018They\u2019re comfort food\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1357,438,28,1142,450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-contests","tag-food","tag-headlines","tag-profile","tag-restaurant-and-catering"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77349,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21527\/revisions\/77349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21527"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}