December 31, 2017

The Daily Dish: Sweet and Salty Burger at A&B Burgers

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cabot St Beverly’s A&B Burgers.

So let’s start at the beginning – how’d you get into the restaurant business?
I started as a busboy at a restaurant in Hyannis called The Roadhouse Cafe in 1990 and for the next 11 years I worked in every FOH position gaining the experience that has allowed me to be a successful restaurant owner today. I was able to travel all over the world working on the floor or behind the bar learning local cuisines, beverages and most importantly learning about people and how to best serve them. In 2001 I started working with the Lyons Group in Boston, specifically at Sonsie on Newbury St as a server. My GM Steve Coyle offered me a part time brunch manager position which I accepted and realized quickly I loved it and by 2004 I was the General Manager of Sonsie as well as helping Steve as he opened the original Kings in Back Bay and Game On in Fenway Park. I learned so much with Steve and he was definitely the person who was most influential in my growth but by 2007 we had reached a point where I had no where else to grow so we decided to see what was out there for me and I ended up finding a home with Michael Schlow as his Director of Operations at Foxwoods. My first stop was overseeing the build out and opening of Alta Strada at the MGM Grand and then guiding it through the most difficult time for the restaurant business in recent memory as the world economy crashed in the fall of 2008. As things began its slow recovery Michael offered me a partnership and I returned to Boston to open Tico in the Back Bay in 2010 which was a huge success and one of my more fun stops. After 3 years there my wife, Nancy and I decided it was time to do something on our own so I left Good Essen and teamed up with our friend Amy Butler and we opened A&B Burgers in Salem MA. The restaurant was named after our sons Alex (4yo) and Benjamin (8yo) as the main reason I left Michael and the team and brought on a partner was because I really needed to have more of an involvement in my family life and that wasn’t allowed previously. A&B in Salem initially began as a semi-quickserv style restaurant that served only burgers and sides. You ordered at a counter and we delivered your food to you. The opening was a success but quickly learned that this was not a type of service I enjoyed and our guests kept requesting table service so we closed down for two day, did a complete overhaul of space constructing a bar and hiring a waitstaff. Our business was very seasonal and though we were a huge critical success the seasonality and location of the space just did not allow for the proper business growth we expected. At the same time my oldest son, Benjamin was going to a school in Beverly called Mrs Alexanders and at a parents night out event I happened to be seated next to Andy Goldberg. After the obligatory pleasantries and “what do you do’s?” we ended up realizing he had a building and I had the need for a building and we took a tour. It was a long closed landmark grocery store right in the middle of Cabot Street. The location was perfect and the space was a blank canvass for us to build whatever we wanted. After many nights spent alone with a tape measure and blue painters tape I was able to lay out the perfect restaurant space and today it is an exact replica of where that tape was laid to the most tiny piece of equipment. A&B has gone through many changes in it’s 3 years of existence but the final product is exactly what we hoped for and what our guests wanted.

What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced over the years?
I relayed the most significant challenges in the last section but if there was one to highlight it was most definitely the Salem location and the issues created by a less than ideal location, being housed in a landmark 19th century jail that could not be updated to fit our needs and a seasonal restaurant scene that made it very difficult to remain profitable. Our change in location plus our addition of a full menu beyond just burgers really changed who we are. Today our menu consists of a large sharable small plates section, entree salads, entrees and a dessert program in addition to our 13 gourmet burger offerings.

What stands out about A&B Burgers?
The restaurant is dominated by two large black framed glass garage doors which offer tons of light and beautiful street scapes on days they are closed and on days that they can be opened they create an open-air dining experience that emanates throughout the restaurant with fresh air, sounds of the street and even on warm, rainy days you can sit alongside the sidewalks enjoying summer al fresco dining.

We also cook our burgers in a really cool unique way by utilizing a C-Vap oven. The C-vap is a style of cooking similar to Sous Vide where our burgers are cooked at 130 degrees in a moisture driven low heat for 45-60 minutes before they are finished to temp on the flat top grill. Slow cooking burgers with humidity allows us to get the meat to an exact temp from outer surface to center of patty and never drying out the beef, Its an amazing result that sets apart our burgers from most.