TACK ROOM
Hoppen Hierarchy: 7.2
District: Lincoln
Pub Burgers
Perfect For: Casual Dining; Happy Hour; Drinks; Lunch
Standout Dishes: Hamburger
I can’t even count how many times I drove by the Tack Room in Lincoln and failed to ever notice it. I pride myself on being able to find even the most obscure of dives, the places the regulars crave but somehow remain invisible from the general public.
Then again, I can’t beat myself up too hard on missing the Tack Room. The restaurant has no website and its most recent activity on its Facebook page came in 2014. Heck, the outside of the building doesn’t even have a sign. Unless you specifically seek the Tack Room out, you’re simply not finding it.
Try to ignore its humble exterior (and the smoking patrons just outside the door) as you stumble into this shed-sized red building off 14th and Cornhusker in Lincoln. My initial visit was with a few friends, one of whom highly recommended the place, and I’ll admit as I parked I thought, “What the heck are we doing here?”
The inside is just as blue collar as out. It’s a couple of old tables haphazardly spread about the room, each adorned with uneven chairs. It’s incredibly loud when crowded and, at least on the night we visited, horribly understaffed. One poor server was left to take orders, serve food, work the bar, and play the role of cashier. This led to long wait times, and I couldn’t help but feel for the poor waitress/hostess/bartender.
Despite all its rough exterior, the Tack Room offers up a dish delicious enough to overcome all its blemishes: a burger.
It’s become popular in the restaurant business to do stunt burgers these days. These items are more novelty than true taste and often just mask the bland meat under a mountain of toppings. America is now home to burgers complete with Cheetos, black truffles, ice cream, pancakes, and even a bun made out of a Scotch egg, just to name a few. In fact, Lincoln already has one incredibly ridiculous burger itself: a chili-and-cinnamon roll combo at Leadbelly.
The Tack Room goes as far as it can in the other direction. Its burgers have two options: with or without cheese. They are served with pickles on the side and ketchup and mustard on the table. The intended serving is all meat and bun.
For fans of Parks and Recreation, this is Ron Swanson’s perfect burger.
I really don’t know how the overworked cooks in this tiny shack make the Hamburger work, but they really do. The patty is absolutely packed with salty, juicy flavor. The burger itself is enormous, shaped more like a softball than a traditional flatter patty.
Unless you’re one of those weird snakes that can unhinge its jaw, it requires some squishing to even create a feasible bite.
But the extra effort is worth the payoff. The bun is soft yet doesn’t fall apart despite the mass sitting on top of it. This burger honestly shocked me with how delicious it was. It’s gorgeous in its simplicity.
The accompanied Curly Fries are just OK. They’re fried to a nice crisp texture, but the seasoning lacks much flavor, leaving them rather bland without an added condiment.
Shocking as the excellent burger is, the prices were just as pleasing. The Tack Room Burger (a larger version of the original) is just $4, and the fries are $2. You can hardly get a fast food burger and fries for $6 anymore, much less something of this quality.
I find it hard to even compare the Tack Room to other burger spots. The atmosphere and bar-bones approach to toppings are just too different from most places you’ll find in Nebraska. The gritty interior can be a charming or disgusting aspect, depending on your point of view, and the slow service may have been due to an influx of visitors on a random night (we did visit on a Taco Tuesday).
So if you find yourself driving by an unmarked red building some day, feel free to stop. Don’t expect first-rate service or a gourmet meal. But if you want a great burger at an incredible price, this is a place worth trying.