Despite steady wind and rain, students and businesspeople lined up for their fix of a classic American burger Jan. 11, outside of the Venture II building on Centennial Campus.
However, it was a food truck and not a typical restaurant that drew crowds. Only Burger, a food truck, the latest addition to Centennial Campus. Only Burger, a business based in Durham, has been coming to Centennial Campus every Wednesday from 11:30 a.m . to around 2:00 p.m .
“I come here for the convenience,” Edward Hsu , a Ph.D student in electrical engineering who enjoyed a burger with grilled peppers, said. “Everything else is far from here.”
However, for some customers, the experience is more than just the novelty and the convenience.
Daniel Hamilton, a freshman in computer science, has a different explanation for the crowd of people who come to grab a burger from the food truck.
“[Burgers] are an American classic,” Hamilton said. “They’re simple, they kind of have a guilty pleasure aspect [to them]… it’s very customizable and it goes well with all kinds of food.”
It was this “comfort” aspect of the American burger that initially led Brian Bottger , owner of Only Burger, to get involved in the food truck business for the first time.
“I’ve been in restaurants for about 25 years now on and off, primarily in fine dining [prior to Only Burger],” Bottger said. “I had never done fast food and certainly nothing done on a truck, but I thought it was a good opportunity to do something unique and different…and despite the economy, burgers, being America’s all-encompassing comfort food, would be a great way to go about creating a really cool business.”
Coming from Southern California where, according to Bottger , the current food truck craze originated from, Bottger learned to appreciate the customer interaction and community that is part of the Southern Californian food truck scene. When he moved to Durham, Bottger found a desire for classic comfort food in the city.
“I felt like, in [Durham], I could do a shack… a pick up place,” Bottger said. When I saw the food trucks come out of Southern California, [where] they were doing sort of different unique stuff that wasn’t specifically [taco] focused, I went, ‘Oh, [Only Burger] has a really good idea out. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to get the word out and using Facebook and Twitter seemed like a really logical way to approach that.'”
So ever since 2009, Only Burger fans have been able to take comfort in knowing exactly where to find a delicious and fresh burger in the Triangle area.
“We do what I consider an ‘old-school,’ classic, American hamburger that was made fresh from really good meat and it was made fresh to order for you,” Bottger said. “So to me, [that means] a soft bun, good meat, freshly cooked… [and] as fast as we can make it without pre-making food.”
For Hamilton, the freshness and the quality was easy to taste.
“The burger was delicious,” Hamilton said. “[It] made me stop and be like, ‘Hmmm, this is really good… [Although I have no classes at Centennial] I might be willing to make a trip just for the burgers.”
Luckily for Hamilton and other customers, Bottger hopes Only Burger’s service to N.C . State will expand.
“We intend to continue coming down to Centennial Campus for as long as we’re permitted and for as long as people are happy to have us,” Bottger said. “We love coming down there and we look forward to continuing coming down there, and we hope that they’ll open more of the campus and give us more opportunities to come to Raleigh.”
