Hamburger Hamlet

So… I missed my turn onto the street I was headed to and happen to look up and see Hamburger Hamlet. Ok being from Los Angeles might as well see if The Hamlet is still the same as I remember. Yep, was the same and even brought back all the memories. I was surprised that it was so empty. But it was close to closing time which I guess would be expected (not really but whatever).
Service was good and food was consistent. The menu had changed but they still have a few Hamlet staples.
Hamlet thanks for the flashback…

Great food and relaxed atmosphere. Kids had a good time and we’ll be back. Especially since we can come anytime. :)

They’re closed, the long nightmare is over…

Dear Hamlet,
I have been coming here since I was 14. You were a great restaurant once. Now you are the poop stained remains of a good memory. Today you have no beers on tap… No freaking beers on tap!!! Why you won’t you just die already? You have quickly become a sick relative living up the street that I feel forced to visit because of our history together. But the trips not worth it if I have to be sober. No freaking beer!!! Come on!!! Zero stars if possible fools!
Ok Hamlet… Please just hold your breath till things go dark already. I asked nicely so you should be ok with this request.
Hello, Clyde’s? I have got a great location for you. Please come here and fix this place.

I’m not sure why Hamburger Hamlet can’t be better, but somehow it just stays what it always has been, just another chain-​eating joint.
This small chain has gone though a few menu overhauls over the past decade, and i can’t see how any of them improved things. Now, they have pies in the lobby, which is great (there is a decided lack of pies in the 20 817) but I’m not sure HH is where I plan on going when I need a pie. Know what I mean?
The service is always a little spotty. Our guy was doing fine until he got a few tables and then it was impossible to pay the check. (the lady behind us who needed every single hamburger explained to her did not help – hint – its a hamburger!!!)
Also, the menu is a bit all over the place. Try making the best hamburger in town and keep it centered around that. Otherwise, its just another TGIFridays.

I was very surprised to see all the bad comments this places has. One of my favorites in the area, service was great, friendly and professional staff, the interior decoration is quite old but looks like is meant to be like that, very clean and my order took a considerable amount of time to be ready.
Zucchinis are great highly recommended!!! Orange juice 100% natural was also great. Too bad I don’t live in Bethesda but for sure will be back when I visit!

After being away from the DC-​area for many years, I was surprised to see that HH was still around, given the competitive market for restaurants offering a similar product. The food choices and preparation is still quite good, although the place just feels a little dated. Regardless, power to the non-​national chains!
I’m tired of all the look-​alike/​taste-​alike establishments that seem to dominate every metropolitan area…

It takes a lot — and I mean a whole heck of A LOT — to compel me to get onto Unilocal and post a review on a Friday night. About 45 minutes ago, I stopped by Hamburger Hamlet on my way home to grab some wings. I walked in and stood by the empty hostess stand/​pie fridge for a good 10 minutes before someone even acknowledged me. That should have been my red flag to leave, but I was starving, and my options were pretty limited this time of night in MoCo. Finally I was able to get a menu and I placed an order for their 8-​piece fried wings from the appetizer section — to go — and requested both sauces to come with it. The server took my order and said it would be about 8 – 10 minutes. No problem. I went and sat on the benches across from the hostess stand to wait. 8 – 10 minutes passed, and no sign of my wings. After a little over 20 minutes, someone finally brought them out and I was good to go. Great.
I rushed home, which is only a few miles away, and sat down to start grubbin. When I opened the container, I realized they only gave me 1 of the sauces I requested (they call it rooster sauce, it’s just f’ing hot sauce, not even actual «rooster sauce»). No biggie. I figured the apricot sauce was just blah and they didn’t want me to waste my time with it. The wings themselves looked so big and juicy, I didn’t even think I was going to need the hot sauce. Boy was I wrong! I bit into the first one and immediately nothing but blandness hit my taste buds. I mean, we’re talking I could have bit into a styrofoam cup and it would have tasted better than this. As I’m chewing though, I realize part of the meat in my mouth is cold. I look at the rest of the wing in my hand and what do you know, cold to the touch and still pink. Yuck. I spit out what was left in my mouth and came back to the table to dissect the other 7 wings. Every single one of them was the same way. Fried on the outside, cold, pink and slimy on the inside. Fan-f*$king-tastic! With this salmonella scare going around the country, I’m probably f*$ked!
I console myself by saying at least I had only swallowed a small amount of one but who knows how salmonella works? I got up, grabbed the first bottle of liquor I could — tequila — and took a huge swig, hoping the alcohol would kill the toxins in my mouth and down my esophagus. I took a few more swigs for good measure and then called the restaurant. The first person who picked up was friendly, and I explained to him the situation and at first his response was «okay, sorry.» Um, what?! That’s it?! When he saw I wasn’t getting off the line he told me that if I came back in, they would fix the order. Dude, it’s been raining for 4 days in DC, it’s pouring out right now, and do you really think I want to try my luck at salmonella wings a 2^nd time? I told him that wouldn’t be happening so he asked me to hang on while he got someone else. I don’t know who this someone else was (manager/​another server/​etc) but he offered to refund my credit card for the purchase or to give me a complimentary entrée next time I came in. Next time? Are you serious? I asked him to just go ahead and refund my card because I won’t be back. He grabbed the receipts, found mine, verified the card information and explained to me how I’d see the refund on my statement. Very nice of him. He apologized again and that was that.
And now here I am on Unilocal,writing my review at 11:25 pm on a Friday night while surfing WebMD to familiarize myself with all the various symptoms of salmonella poisoning in case I die. If I could have given this spot 0 stars, I would have, because frankly, they don’t even deserve 1.

The burgers here are amazing! I can’t wait to try all of them. They are well balanced in flavor and just tastes incredible. I don’t know if they do but I really hope they let me make my own burger. It is on the expensive side to have it on the daily (compared to typical burger places like five guys), but they have a larger variety of choices and ingredients and tastes good enough to distinguish themselves from other burger places. This place is a must try!

Waited 10 minutes to get a beer that came in a bottle. When I finally got my crab cake sandwich it was dry and had no taste. I will never come back here again. Then we asked for the manager and the guy takes forever to get the manager…

Excellent fresh food with large portions. I was impressed. The banana bread is super dry so pass on it and the coffee. I had the steak sandwich and I could cut the sandwich in half easily with a butter knife. The NY strip was nearly an inch thick on that sandwich! And, the bread was freshly baked. The orange juice was freshly squeezed and very sweet. I will be back. I also found out that it is open 24 hours so I can stop by for a quick Danish on my way to my office in Bethesda. Good find. I do not miss the old hamlet. In with the new.

I’m sort of surprised by all of the negative reviews of this place. I came here with my brother & we found it to be quite nice. My brother ordered one of their famous gigantic burgers & it was cooked perfectly & was dripping with toppings!!! It looked really, really good. I ordered the BLT with avocado & the avocado was perfectly ripe and delicious. Our server was a little weird, not the most attentive but all in all not so bad. I’d definitely come back! The pancakes that the people across from us ordered looked amazing– I’d say this place is worth a try!

Was out with colleagues for a birthday to a local burger place. My food was delicious, service was OK. My VERY last bite I felt something hard, dismissed it as being a burnt piece of burger, and swallowed hard. I immediately realized something was wrong, and choked the offending object back up into my napkin (at the table!!). I was horrified to find a LARGE piece of wire.
I was starting to panic a little, and wasn’t sure if I swallowed more metal or not. My colleagues were very concerned as well (as i basically threw up in front of them!), and I decided to go to the bathroom and throw up more. I didn’t see anything else metal in the toilet, and my supervisor came in to check on me. I came out a few moments later, watery eyed, red faced, and feeling a little scared that maybe I hadn’t gotten everything out.
My boss said she called the manager, and told him what happened. He came to me a few seconds later, and had an incident report. He had filled out a description of what happened, but instead of indicating that I SWALLOWED the metal, he said I «bit» into it. I explained, and I wrote down a description of the event for his incident report (of which I have a copy). No apology from general manager.
A couple minutes later, another man showed up (later I learned he was the owner, Mr. Biff). He says to the table, «I hear someone may get stopped at airport security’s x-​ray machines!», and laughed quite hard. I was still upset, but now I was offended. He offered nothing by way of apology. I showed him the offending article, and suggested it might be off a wire brush used to clean the grills (this is what my colleagues thought it was). He said, «We dont use those, they take the teflon off the pans!» (this didn’t make sense to me, surely they don’t cook their burgers in pans? how else would you clean the grill?..), so I said, «well, that’s even more concerning that you don’t have wire brushes, because then WHERE did this metal come from?», he says, «looks like part of a screen, maybe from a house», then glared at me.
He indicated he would be comping my meal, but said it in a way that assumed I should be GRATEFUL for this gesture. A moment later, our server returned. He put his arm around her and exclaimed, «And this is our BEST waitress, she was employee of the month last month! It’s unfortunate that this has happened in her section!».
Our check arrives, my meal is comped, but NOT my iced tea. Again, because I was with coworkers, I threw in my $ 3 for the drink. I could not believe how tacky this was to charge me for ANYTHING. Everyone at the table was horrified at what was happening, but we all just wanted to leave.
I am absolutely DISGUSTED by the owner of this restaurant, and would warn anyone to think twice about visiting. Consequently, no one from the restaurant has called to confirm that I am OK. If this had been a child, or someone else not capable of throwing up the offending object so quickly, this incident may have been much more serious.

I have been here twice since it has merged with Dupar’s in Los Angeles. The food was okay, the service lacking, and the interior of this restaurant needs a makeover.
Dupar’s is «known» for their pancakes according to the menu and yes they are tasty, but both times they weren’t served hot only warm. My friend got an omelete which was just warm served with hash browns that were cold. greasy, and raw tasting. We had to repeatedly ask for coffee refills and our initial cup of Jo was warm if not cold??? Needless to say we were not impressed and our waiter was not very helpful or even adequate to take care of our needs in this dated restaurant. I was looking forward to a place where you can stop in late at night that wasn’t a diner, but this restaurant won’t fit the bill because it would be better to go hungry than to sit and wait for cold food that isn’t good to begin with. I will be surprised if it can stay open unless some drastic improvements are made. Good luck Hamburger Hamlet — you used to be the go to dining in our neighborhood.

we to HH for dinner. hadn’t been there in a year or two. Was surprised to see the change in ownership. New menu. New desserts which looked great, but we didn’t try it.
service: friendly and attentive. but the food was slow to come.
atmosphere: same HH. some minor design changes. silverware and napkins were all diner grade or less. utensils were clean minus some dishwater spots. not an problem.
bathrooms: generally clean and well kept
food:
soup: tasted like it came DIRECTLY from a can. identical to a can of campbells. i am sure of it. wasn’t bad, but clearly not made from scratch.
salad: fresh veg. nicely arranged. good flavor. not to heavy
entrée: boring. and expensive for frankly diner grade food.
hamburger: meh. five guys is exponentially better and less expensive.
didn’t try the breakfast items or desserts. Have to say it was a bit of a let down. NOT a bad experience, and the food was ok, but not worth the high prices. There are a LOT of better options which have better cuisine at lower prices. I doubt Hamburger Hamlet will survive for long under the new management. sad.

We have tried to come to Hamburger Hamlet before, but unfortunately when we got there it was closed for the night. So we finally got a chance to try it.
The atmosphere is family friendly, but surprisingly ornate. The interior appears to be one of a much higher scale restaurant than this type of family restaurant. My fiancé and I ordered the potato skins for a starter. The menu said we would receive 5, we got 6 — a nice bonus. They were very good. He ordered the meatloaf for his meal. The menu said it would come with mash potatoes, but he got fries instead — he was disappointed. I had the Napa burger and was incredibly impressed with it. I also was very pleased with the boysenberry pie.
As we were eating dinner, the owner came by and told us that they had recently become a 24-​hour restaurant, with the full menu available. This is very welcomed as there are few places to each in this area after 8pm.
Definitely a solid experience, but I wish there menu was more accurate about what you got.

The Dupar takeover and creation of a breakfast menu is not going well. The food is bland and institutional, the service indifferent. I love a good breakfast so I stopped by to try theirs yesterday, admittedly at what would probably be a slow hour (Monday, 9am). The place was abandoned.
Food: eggs overcooked, bacon dry like it had been sitting in a warmer for a couple of hours. Home fries were bland and completely uninteresting. Toast was barely tepid. I am the only freakin’ customer and they can’t get the food served hot?
Service: mehh. Server spilled the coffee in the saucer, which while not a capital offense drives me nuts. Speed and attentiveness were fine, but it would have been nice for them not to overcharge me and for me to point out their error.
The bottom line is that management needs to decide what business they want to be in. This neighborhood could really, really use a good breakfast place and this could be it if they actually decide to make the investment to do it right. Right now it’s no better than a bad Denny’s at higher prices, and who needs that?
Fish or cut bait folks.

Went to this place with the family. The atmosphere is family friendly and the staff is very nice. I found out that they are now open 24 hours which is a plus for this area. Now while the food was mediocre the drink (Patron Margarita) was good and the onion rings (appetizer) were very tasty. I am very picky about onion rings so I usually don’t order them but I was very hungry so I gave it a try and I was glad I did. I think they were double dipped and fried. The kids ordered a vanilla and Oreo milkshake. They weren’t the best milkshakes in the world but they were pleasing to the eye for the kids and inexpensive for mommy so they were ok. The whip cream tasted kinda weird like they make it there self… it was kinda of a weird taste but it worked. I decided to order the Maryland Lump Crab Cake sandwich and was very disappointed. The crab meat definitely was not lump; it wasn’t back fin; it more like minced crab meat which immediately turned me off. It could’ve stayed in the oven a little longer and to top it off they added green peppers to the mix so as I was trying to locate the «lump crab meat» in the not baked enough crab cake all I kept biting into was darn little green peppers! I tried to be a good sport about it but when my daughter tasted her sausage (pork) and was like «ew I don’t like this sausage» I was like ok that’s it. She also order french toast that she didn’t sing praises about so I guess it was ok and the eggs looked to be a little dry. My friend ordered the lobster bisque soup and a hamburger with fries and said it was delicious! He absolutely loved his food! I guess it’s named «HAMBURGER» Hamlet for a reason :-)
Once the waitress came over I told her about the food we didn’t like and she was extremely apologetic and said she would take care of it. About 5 minutes later the manager came over to check to see if all is well and to inform me that he had taken the food we didn’t like off the bill.
Overall the experience was ok. I personally think that if the cooks/​food was better this place would be awesome. They have another area in the back called the «Hamlet Pub» where the bar and T.V.‘s are. I had the kids with me so i didn’t check it out this time but hopefully next time if I decide to go back (and since they are open 24 hours I’m sure I will be back in the near future) I will check out that area.

I’ve been coming here for ten years, maybe a total of… 8 times.
It’s not bad. But it’s not good. It’s like an upscale ruby Tuesdays, or a California Pizza Kitchen without the youthful feel to it. There are a lot of old people that dine here. Not that that’s a bad thing, just not necessarily a good thing.
The prices are higher than I think the food deserves, but the service tends to be good. And it does feel like a ‘local business’ even though it’s a chain. I think that’s what makes Hamburger Hamlet nice. It really is a place only locals go to in Bethesda, unlike the ‘hot spots’ downtown. But if you are a local, be prepared to bump into a highschool ex, or former middle school nemesis. It’ll happen. I promise you.
Also as the name suggests, they have some decent burgers. Overpriced, but actually decent.

Hubby picked this place and the food was average at best. Everything is either not good enough or mediocre. The strawberry daiquiri was the worst I’ve ever had. Couldn’t taste the straw or the berry. Water’d wayyyyy down. The best thing of the evening was the water and the apricot sauce that came with the chicken wings. The wings were blah, blah, blah. Garlic bread without any type of garlic or butter taste at all. Cajun Shrimp Pasta was fresh, needed salt badly. My husbands food was fresh too. I doubt if I’ll be back here… ever. Well I will go back at least once because after we complained about the food the manager offered us a complimentary meal. :-)