Burger UP!

Burger Up
2901 12th Avenue South, Nashville, TN
615-279-3767‎

Burger Up is now open to the public. Today, May 1, May Day, is the 1st day of opening.

lamb burger with arugula, peppermint dijon, boursin cheese

Shortly after I ran the Country Music Marathon for the 2nd time, I moved to live right off of the County Music Marathon Route because I wanted to be able to train on the marathon route just in case I wanted to run it again. As a matter of habit, every weekend, either Saturday or Sunday, I jog (stagger) a long run on a part of the marathon route and the neighborhood near my house. Last weekend, I decided to go up 12th Ave So, to see what I could see. And what did I see, I saw Miranda on her hands and knees finishing the concrete floor of Burger Up. Miranda saw a need for a great burger joint with good, local, organic and healthy ingredients for the 12th Ave So neighborhood. She wanted a place where parents would feel good about feeding their kids a burger, with wholesome, hormone free and antibiotic free, free range meats. She wanted a place where there is a vegan option, and she offers a quinoa black black bean burger. Miranda does not feed her family industrial meat (that has serious E. coli USDA Class I Health Risk and Death problems month after month), she will not feed that to anyone else either. Miranda is going to serve food that is good, tasty and delicious.

truffled fries with honey dijon aioli

As I was talking to Miranda, who was covered in dry wall dust and floor sealer, chef Chris Hyler and Cat walked up. Chef Hyler is from SC, and moved here about 6 months ago, and he is the main chef of Burger Up. He is 100% on board with cooking with good sustainable ingredients and serving really good food. Cat, his main squeeze is about to open the Green Light Organic Market just a few doors down. We got into a conversation talking about Burger Up, and GLOM and the 12th Ave So neighborhood. It is time that whole ingredients, whole foods, sustainable foods, and organic foods came into the neighborhood. 12th Ave So over the years I have been here has gone from pockets of drug dealers, and a sad beer convenience store, to a neighborhood that is demanding more for a good, safe, and healthy life. 12th Ave So was a food desert, and whole ingredient/food desert for so long, but that that time is done, and we have entered a new era.

I was so excited to talk to Miranda, Chris and Cat, and they are genuinely nice (nice goes a very long way to maintaining a client base), and they invited me to the Friends and Family opening of Burger Up on Friday. By the time I got to Burger Up, it was packed with a ton of friends and family all having a great time chatting, celebrating and loving the food Miranda and Chef Hyler were offering. I looked at the menu, and I decided on a lamb burger and truffled fries. The buns are made in-house, and the meat is free range, and locally sourced where possible. My lamb burger came with wilted arugula, boursin and peppermint dijon. I ordered my lamb burger rare. The truffled fries came with a house made aioli. The fries are fresh cut potatoes, and were cooked to order, so they were nice and hot when they came to the table. On the menu are a wider offerings than meat on a bun and fries. There are salads, including beets, green, iceburg and apple. There are soups. There are fun appetizers that are showing off the low country SC influence of Chef Hyler, including fried oysters, sweet potato fries, and Yazoo beer boiled prawns to name a few. The burgers come in turkey, lamb, beef, quinoa black bean, and mushroom to satisfy any taste. Important for me, I can ask where Burger Up sources their meat, wheat flour and potatoes from, and they can tell me. I am looking forward to trying other types of burgers in the coming months. I am interested in the turkey and veggie burgers to see if they are juicy, tasty and delicious as my lamb burger was.