In the greater Portland area, with its abundance of restaurants representing all sorts of culinary niches and global cuisines, deciding where to go on any given night and what to order can frazzle the nerves.
Uncertainty over dinner is the last thing restaurant-goers want in post-pandemic, inflationary times. But the growing dominance of two fast food-inspired comfort classics – flat-patty “smash” burgers and fried chicken sandwiches – seems to indicate that many consumers have found their go-to meals for the moment.
A recent scan of online menus turned up some form of smash burger or fried chicken sandwich – often both – at more than a dozen casual-dining restaurants that have opened locally since the start of the pandemic. The tally doesn’t even include national or regional chains or menus from pubs or breweries, where burgers and chicken sandwiches have always been staples.
Restaurateurs say these new menu must-haves tick off all the right boxes for this point in time: They’re unfussy and quick to prepare, easy to serve and cheaper – for both kitchens and customers – than other meals on casual-dining menus. They also satisfy gnawing cravings and deliver pure comfort in anxious times.
“Sometimes you just want to feel good right now,” said Michael Barbuto, co-owner of CBG, launched in the fall of 2019 on Congress Street in Portland. Sandwich offerings on the CBG menu begin with the heavy hitters: a fried chicken sandwich and the CBG smash burger with extra American cheese and béarnaise sauce.
“People seem a little more stressed out. They’re coming in a little more mentally frazzled. They want a delicious cold beverage, and they want that first sandwich bite where you get the crunch of the chicken or the way the lettuce and tomato hit the burger, that warmth against the cold. And if you can indulge for less than an arm and a leg, why not?”
“If I’ve had a tough day, a smash burger and a beer is pretty much a cure-all,” agreed Ian Andreotta, general manager at Thoroughfare in Yarmouth, where a smash burger and fried chicken sandwich are the top two sellers. “When I was a kid and I was sick, my mom would bring me home a McDonald’s cheeseburger. There’s comfort in that old-school diner or fast food-style burger.”
The Smash Burger at Thoroughfare in Yarmouth. Or should we say the ubiquitous smash burger? Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
RESTAURANTS COMING BACK DOWN TO EARTH
This trend seems to follow the comfort food resurgence of the Great Recession years of 2007-2009. Half-pound pub-style burgers with fancy cheese and brioche buns at elite eateries like New York City’s Spotted Pig and Craigie on Main in Cambridge started to fall from favor as the lines at nascent smash burger chains like Five Guys and Shake Shack grew ever longer. Later in the 2010s, fried chicken sandwiches from fast-food chains like Chick-fil-A and Popeye’s gained cult followings.
Savvy restaurateurs and chefs picked up on the zeitgeist and added the super-popular burgers and sandwiches to their casual-dining menus. Then when the pandemic hit, those dishes went beyond mere trends to become a viable business solution for some struggling restaurateurs.
“We were born out of the pandemic closing The Garrison,” said Thoroughfare’s Andreotta. He recalled how in 2020, chef-owner Christian Hayes temporarily closed his newly opened farm-to-table restaurant featuring an Asian- and Mediterranean-inspired menu and launched Thoroughfare, a to-go restaurant built around burgers, sandwiches and fries.
Ian Andreotta, general manager at Thoroughfare, at the pickup window. Items like smash burgers and fried chicken sandwiches appeal, he says, because people today are looking “to get their money’s worth.” Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
“It was a quick pivot to something he knew people would be able to afford and get at a consistent quality no matter how many times they came a week,” Andreotta said. “I think that’s something people are still looking for right now, to get their money’s worth.”
Andreotta said some of Thoroughfare’s regular customers visit two or three times a week for the burger and fried chicken sandwiches. “They usually get the same thing, because they know what they’re getting. We’re never going to pooh-pooh McDonald’s or Burger King, because that’s what we’ve based this on,” he said, pointing out that Thoroughfare’s fried haddock sandwich, the Filayo, is unapologetically based on McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish.
“They can get something super similar here that’s going to be a little better and more consistent, and people respond to that really well,” Andreotta said.
“The smash burger and the fried chicken sandwich are two dishes everyone can really relate to. They’re understandable and approachable, food that everyone can sit down together and enjoy,” said Carson James, partner and food and beverage director at Sacred Profane Brewing in Biddeford, which opened last fall. “I like the fact that the restaurant scene as it is right now is coming a little bit back down to earth.”
James said since the pandemic, “A lot of chefs and restaurants turned from fine-dining kitchens to serving smash burgers and fried chicken sandwiches. They’re easily transportable. And they appeal to a sense of playfulness and nostalgia.”
James said the Sacred Profane partners hadn’t planned to put a burger on their menu. But they started serving one on Sundays for fun, and their customers couldn’t get enough.
The key, James and others said, is to put a little extra thought and technique into these simple classics. The smash burger technique is standard – take about 3 ounces of ground beef and press it down on a flat top grill to form a patty that develops a caramelized crust as it cooks through. At Sacred Profane, cooks let the melted American cheese develop crisp, lacy edges, too, adding major texture and flavor appeal.
“Ultimately, when you respect the thing you’re making, people will respond to it,” he said. “It’s really nice to have people say, ‘I’ve eaten a lot of burgers and I really enjoy that one.’ ”
Eckerson seasons (with a flourish) malt vinegar french fries. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
PRICE POINTS MATTER
“When places started to adopt fast-casual models, that’s something you can do really well,” said Jason Eckerson, chef and co-owner of Fish & Whistle in Biddeford. “It’s easy to elevate a fried chicken sandwich: get a little better meat, brine it, do the breading a little better, get a better bun and you have a very special thing.”
Eckerson dresses up the Fish & Whistle version by using Japanese milk bread buns baked fresh by his wife and partner Kate Hamm (a James Beard Award Outstanding Pastry Chef nominee for her previous work at Portland’s Leeward). Eckerson dips the chicken in a wet batter, rather than a flour dredge, which forms a thin, shatteringly crisp coating when fried. To gild the lily, he mixes house mayo with reduced chicken stock to create a savory umami-bomb spread, similar to Japanese Kewpie mayo, but minus the MSG.
Fish & Whistle’s bread and butter is fish and chips, of course. Eckerson and Hamm opened the restaurant last year in part because they felt the classic dish was underrepresented in these parts. Since then, though, fish and chips has made more appearances on casual menus in the area, often alongside the smash burgers and fried chicken sandwiches.
Barbuto explained that fish and chips is a solid, approachable meal that usually costs less than many other seafood dishes. “If you’re not in the market to spend $30-$40 for an entrée like sautéed fish in brown butter, skip that, and get fish and chips. With homemade fries, tartar sauce and coleslaw, you can really spruce it up. Restaurants can take a relatively simple dish and turn it into something a little more memorable.
“We’re all more financially conscious these days, and I think that plays into it a lot, especially in this post-pandemic world,” Barbuto continued.
“I think COVID has something to do with (the growing popularity of these dishes), but there also may be some exhaustion with fine dining,” said Eckerson, himself a former fine dining chef. “It may be starting to feel needlessly complicated.
“It’s hard to say if it’s a post-COVID shift in what’s important to people, or if it’s just an aesthetic shift from the early 2000s to now, and that’s just what’s in vogue,” he continued. “But it definitely seem like casual is on the rise.”
Thoroughfare’s fried chicken sandwich is, along with the smash burger, a best seller. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
ELEVATED FLAVOR, BOOSTED MOOD
“Part of it is definitely uncertainty of the economic future and everything else going on in society,” said Joe Fournier, owner of South Portland’s A & C Soda Shop, a burger-and-milkshake hotspot that opened in recently as the latest iteration of A & C Grocery, the former market and sandwich shop he opened in Portland in 2017.
“There’s nothing better than a good cheeseburger, some french fries and ketchup to deliver a little comfort,” Fournier said.
“A cheeseburger never goes out of style. That’s the safe item on every menu. Everyone likes a burger, and you don’t have to do too much to it to make a good one,” agreed Melissa Pappas, managing partner at Full Turn, the new rotating-menu restaurant that replaced Baharat in East Bayside. “And the fried chicken sandwich is so approachable. Everyone knows a value-menu version and an elevated version. You know what you’re getting from it. You don’t have to be feeling adventurous to order one.”
Full Turn’s first menu, called “Staff Favorites,” ran for almost two months and featured a smash burger and a fried chicken sandwich as two of just four entrees. Pappas recalled how she and her work and life partner, Full Turn co-manager Chloe Kessell, were quarantined at the start of COVID, “Fried chicken sandwiches were one of the things we missed the most. So we figured out how to do it at home. And when we had the Staff Favorites menu, we were like, ‘We have to put this on there.’ ”
These iconic dishes are extremely popular within the service industry as well. “It’s what a lot of the cooks want to eat too,” Pappas said.
“Cooks don’t eat a tasting menu when they get off work,” Kessell added.
The theme of Full Turn’s first menu fell right in line with the broader desire for comfort, security and satisfaction that can seem all too elusive right now.
“Amidst all the chaos, we figured, let’s make the food we want to order on a weeknight when we want to be reassured and spend time with friends,” Pappas said. “A lot of the industry is reverting back to the stuff that makes them feel good, because it’s going to make the guest feel good too.”
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