Saturday Eats - Burger Colony and the Bookfield lZoo

Got a trip planned to Chicago's  Brookfield Zoo?  It's a fun place to visit - we go a couple of times a year.  But what if you are hungry as a bear afterward?

 Burger Colony on Ogden Avenue in Brookfield, IL. 

Ogden is easy to access off of 55 running east and West and the Ogden exit off of 294 tollway.  If you are unfamiliar with Chicago, the Western suburbs (where we make our home) are a great place to visit, family oriented with low crime and many, many parks and great schools.

Burger Colony is homed in the cozy former home of Chicago Burgerwurks which closed leaving many of us in the Western Burbs craving a good burger again. Burger Colony is a whole new business that opened in winter. having leased and totally renovated the Burgerwurks building. A short lived management change in March  caused a little bit of a burp in business, when the food was changed to "quicker and easier" but the original manager is back and the original gourmet burgers and hand cut fries are back and better than ever.  This project is "his baby" and he and his gourmet burger chef, Bilal Beniomar, are back in action.

part of the menu from their Facebook page which also highlights daily specials

Their specialties are burgers but they also have the famous Chicago dogs, prepared a number of ways, salad, chicken sandwiches and tenders and a fish sandwich and two vegetarian offerings which the locals tell me are great. They have a counter with eats in front or you can eat outside on the picnic table. It's a small place, and they're happy to serve up orders to go if you don't want to eat in.  

Everything is made fresh and to order with Manager Will Natsheh's (known as Will Nat to the regulars) special blended seasoning infusing each burger, which are then flame grilled by The master of the flame - Bilal. Both men have several years experience in food service, both in the US and abroad and it shows.

My husband had the Hawaiian burger with flame grilled pineapple rings, Swiss cheese and teriyaki sauce on an artisan bun.

The grilled pineapple on there looked good enough to eat all by itself.

I'm sort of a burger "purist" and just get  a tiny dab of Colony sauce, cheese and lettuce on mine so it's not as tall without all the offered toppings but was it GOOD, especially with some of those cooked to order hand cut fries which are similar to Five Guys fries but without all that grease. I'm not sure exactly what "colony sauce" is.  It's not a ketchup clone and it's not mayo-like or sweet but it adds a hint of depth with spice and the barest hint of sweet that''s amazing on the burger. I bet their hand cut onion rings would be awesome dipped in some of that.

Even better - we had more food than we could finish, plus large drinks and arriving with a $20 between us, we still left with some change.

We're going to find an excuse to come on back and eat on another weekend, these are by far the best burgers and fries we've had since moving to Chicago.

Grrrrr, I wanted a Colony Burger!