Champa St. Burger Works

There’s nothing I dislike more than shiny buns. Not those buns, goofball, burger buns. It came out all glistening. A reflector bun. All slippery and slimy. They asked if I wanted any extras on my cheeseburger — I asked what that meant; he said lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mayo, ketchup, etc. I said yes to ketchup and lettuce. The burger came out with lettuce and no ketchup. But there was ketchup at the table, so I’m a little confused as to why this is listed as an extra when they don’t actually put it on.
The burger itself was fine, and the fries were okay. But I dunno, perhaps it was the overly glistening bun, but it just wasn’t appetizing at all. Frankly, I’d much rather go to Five Guys.
The people behind the counter were nice and friendly, the food just didn’t do it for me.

This place has gone in the toilet and needs new management. We used to live in the Belmar area and we went here a couple of times a month and loved it. We just moved back and our two visits have been terrible. The kids who work here are rude, they have delivered the wrong items both times, and they have been out of onion rings and Fat Tire (one of their signature attractions) both times. These are all easily fixable problems, but it needs to start at the top.

Not that impressive. Burger was over cooked, bun was very greasy and the fries we hard and tastless.
Service was nice, but slow.

I expected more from Champa burger works for sure. My burger is dry and bland. The bun stands out more than the burger; which is unfortunate. Fries are good and remind of the old chain, Boardwalk. The southern chicken sandwich is pretty good (had a bite of the wife’s). The fries and chicken sandy and the only reason this joint gets three stars. Spend your money and calories elswhere.

So many bad reviews… I will have to come back on a busy night. I did not have a problem today, stopped in for lunch, had the elk burger which was dry but tasty and thats to be expected from game meat. Ordered the combo, the girl at the counter was very nice. I asked if the combo comes with a beer and she said it doesn’t but go ahead and grab a bottle. Food took a little longer than a burger might ordinarily but not too long. maybe 15 min, though I was one of two parties in the house.
Overall not bad. It’s a burger, I mean whaddya want. The Cheap beer ups the experience a lot.
*update: have been back, still seems pretty good!

Best place in Belmar to drink on the cheap, $ 1.50 craft drafts always and Wednesday is $ 1.50 bottle night, try something new

This is the best A-​OK burger place in Lakewood. It’s not the most outstanding place but definitely has the potential. They definitely take their sweet time making a burger that comes out pretty small and their sides are alright. I like their condiment bar though. This is where I loaded up on pickles. Gotta love pickles! Other than that, the restaurant has a cool retro vibe. Definitely feels like the entire dining room needs to be degreased and washed down. My dining experience was a one trick pony and I’ll leave it at that.

Two times in a week they have not given me the right order. Sort of feel like I have a right to be annoyed. Guy who took my order got aggressive with me. Then he tried to back track «I’m new here.»
Nothing special about this place anyway. I’ll just go somewhere else.

The grilled chicken is surprisingly good quality for a quick place. I’m picky about meat & it’s one of my faves in the area. The price is right. Hubby says the hamburgers are good too. & $ 1.50 draft beer (Tank 7)! Don’t get the grilled cheese. It’s 1 kraft single between 2 pieces of bread. And they used to have the best pickles but switched to the cheap ones. I’m also picky about my pickles

Pretty nice to hang out, have a beer & meet with friends… Never tried their food but overhearing customers talk good about it…

The location is great located in Belmar, and they do have good food and beer for a fair price. Although, I was disappointed they advertised $ 1.00 beers bottles for Wed. on Facebook, and when I arrived the beers were actually, $ 1.50. I always have hated the bait and switch, and it really bothered me when I mentioned it to the cashier, and she just shrugged it off, instead of doing the right thing. Besides my interactions with the cashier not being great, most of the beers are flagship (Garbage) I wouldn’t give my worst enemy. I was able to find three beers I hadn’t tried and they were (Okay), but nothing over 6.5%, so yeah, their beer selection is (Sub-​Par). Probably, due to the person ordering has no clue about a craft beer, and relies on the Coors/​Budweiser distribution sales rep. Since, most of the beers were whack, I think that makes the most sense, because the sales rep are always trying to move the garabage beers to meet sales quotas. Besides the poor service from that one– cashier, I did like the hard work of some of the other woman working, even busing the tables without expecting a tip that was cool. Need some improvement to make a 4 – 5 star!

I’ve had Champa Street Burgers on my radar for a while since one of my coworkers told me about it awhile back and told me it’s worth the visit. I’ve passed by it a ton of times while at Belmar but never stopped and finally had a reason to! We came here on a Tuesday night for a celebratory dinner and it was pretty solid… says the girl who didn’t even order a burger! I’m trying to keep it a bit healthier, especially at dinner and was stoked to see they have non-​burger items like chicken sandwiches, salads, etc. I ordered the cobb salad which isn’t the healthiest but tried to modify it by not getting bacon or blue cheese on it (sadly, two of my favorite things in life and the girl who was ringing me up seemed very confused by the whole modification thing). I got extra tomatoes and added a grilled chicken breast for $ 2.99 with balsamic on the side and was pleasantly surprised. The salad was huge and more than enough for me so my belly was full and happy when we left. I love their little condiment bar where you can grab all the pickles, jalapenos, onions, tomatoes and yellow pepper your heart desires. They have draft beers for $ 1.50 so it definitely doesn’t hurt the wallet if you want to go traditional with a beer and burger (Fat Tire is even $ 1.50, love it!). I would stop back for a burger or get a salad again, nice to see alternatives at a burger joint.

The worst hamburger I ever had! The meat looked more like liver or overcooked shoe leather. I know what a good hamburger (ground beef) looks & tastes like and I can tell you that whatever Champ’s is passing off as ground beef sure doesn’t taste or look like it. Horrible burger! Won’t be back! It’s a freakin’ hamburger & you’re a hamburger joint, how hard can it be? I guess you have to have the main ingredient «ground beef» to make a decent hamburger & I don’t know what you’re using!

I always felt that this place doesn’t really care that their food isn’t great but that’s not really what they are going for. Champa tends to get very busy because they have some of the cheapest alcohol you’ll find at any restaurant.
I’ve tried their burgers before and they were pretty poor in general. I’ve tried quite a few things on the menu before resigning to the fact that it’s better to eat before or after I go here. They used to do $ 1 beers on Wednesdays before upping the price to $ 1.50. Not a big deal, but you’re gambling on the selection.
There are nights where they are fully stocked and you have a great selection, but there have also been nights where I couldn’t find anything desirable to drink. The main draw of this place is it’s dirt cheap alcohol, but I don’t really drink much anymore so that’s not really appealing.
If you’re looking for quality food, this isn’t the place. If you’re looking for cheap beer and below average/​overpriced food, this is the place!

Dropped by one busy weekend when the Italian Festival was going.
CB was swamped. Although lines moved fast. Their burger is nothing fancy. I tried some of Adams. If you’re hungry it should work in a pinch.
What bothered me was the lack of a buss boy/​girl. The floor was nasty. The tables were dirty.
Their fries tho… I’m a fan! It’s golden brown and crunchy and salty! I ordered their hotdog. It was very lame. It just sad there. Small and skinny. Not even worth a look. So don’t get it. Don’t be like me! Stick to their burgers!

They say they get all their meat ground then form pattys them selves for their burgers. Who ever «hand formed my burger» left the bone shard in it and served it to me.
When I told them how my hamburger had a bone in it, they did not believe me. They said that it probably was not a piece of bone just a thick piece of gristle. Nope. Just a bone. It was rock hard.
Eat here and you may just be consuming ground up bone in your burger and you may not be able to catch it before you swallow.
Ewww

Went here for the first time tonight! Amazing! They had buffalo, which is always my first choice. My husband also had a burger with very high quality, cooked to perfection, bacon. The buns were grilled and buttery!
The onion rings were over breaded and not very well seasoned, but their fries were hand cut and delicious!
This place is definitely in our rotation

I recently visited this place on Wednesday hoping to have another $ 1 pristine craft beer with a burger only to find the selection of beer has taken a 180. There is no longer Firestone Walker, Stone, or Dogfish Head bottles offered. The cooler is well stocked with crappy domestic Bud, Coors, and Corona. The best they had to offer was a Goose Island IPA :P
I feel my previous review was based too heavily off of the $ 1 quality craft beers and when combined with the food I should have given this place three stars.
Now that they take away the great selection of beer I don’t have much else to rate them on except the burgers they offer. For the price and the time it takes to get your food this place serves two star burgers.

1) Expensive for menu quality.
2) Excessive wait time for basic menu items.
3) They made several mistakes including undercooked beef served without a top bun, dried and overcooked meat on another food belonging to other patrons, snotty attitude from shift leader (completely subjective impression).
After returning our cold, incorrect good several times, a refund was offered and accepted as well as a correctly-​prepared burger to take home.
It was embarrassing to our friend who recommended this spot. And his order had the most number of screw-​ups.
It’s really not my sort of place; I expect my food to be prepared correctly.

Not bad. Not great but not bad. I stopped in here for a quick dinner and ordered the Rajin Cajun with a side salad. The good is that they actually check with you about all of the ingredients that come on it so you aren’t surprised by something you hate. The salad was a very generous size, and the beer is cheap too. There’s also a condiment bar in the middle of the place with pickles, peppers, onion, etc so you can indulge in your favorite toppings.
The burger itself isn’t special, and the bun wasn’t very good, but I certainly wasn’t unhappy with the meal. I’d come back for a bite if the mood strikes.