Update May 21, 2010: This location is now closed. Doc.

Rock-n-Rogers (RnR) is a 50′s style diner located in Plano, Texas and two other locations in Salem, Oregon. The restaurant is family owned and operated since 1987. I was invited to the Plano location to sample their legendary burgers. Their owner, Jamie Hawley, is a man that takes burgers very seriously just like me, so it was obvious for me to accept the invitation.

Rock-n-Rogers, Plano

RnR is a traditional diner that serves food your would expect from a diner, like breakfast all day, burgers, shakes and fries along side with salads, sandwiches and sodas. RnR is a full service restaurant with waiters. It is not a fast food place. You go to RnR to sit down and spend some time with your family and/or friends and at the same time enjoy a fresh made meal. RnR is also serving beer and wine, but not hard liquor.

The Elvis Section

Jamie explained that they opened this location just a year ago and over that year they made changes to their menu to perfect it including their burger menu!

The Diner is decorated with signs, pictures and other memorabilia from the 1950′s and a section of the restaurant is dedicated entirely to Elvis with the King overseeing the section from the kitchen of the restaurant. I thought the entire restaurant looked like something that was taken out of a movie set from Grease.

Decorations inside

RnR has a dress code for their waitstaff and all have to wear a white shirt with a bow tie, black pants and black shoes.

Chris

RnR is proud to provide a unique and more satisfying experience for the diners, by making many of their menu items from fresh. Their shakes are made from fresh ice cream and syrup and mixed by hand. They burgers are made from fresh and never frozen ground beef and their bacon are center cut bacon made from fresh at the time of the order. I inspected the kitchen and all greens were kept cool and fresh.

Greens

Their fries are made from fresh potatoes and cut, rinsed, blanched, cooled in ice water for several hours, dried and fried for a few minutes in 300 degree oil and laid to rest before the final frying in 375 degree oil for 6 minutes. You can’t do more for your fries than that. The onion rings are also freshly made.

Pre-blanched fries

I watched them make me a chocolate shake from scratch and it was quite a time consuming process to make it from fresh. First he scooped ten (or so) scoops of vanilla ice-cream from the freezer plus whole milk into a mixer tin and added the syrup.

Scoping ice cream

Then it went into the mixing machine and churned for the entire time by hand for at least 5 minutes.

Hand mixing the shake

It was finally served with whipped cream and sprinkles. I don’t have a sweet tooth but this shake was super tasty and actually tasted of real ice-cream and chocolate. I didn’t finish it because I had many burgers coming with fries and onion rings. Price: $5.99.

Chocolate Shake... Done.

I was there for the burgers and Jamie brought me five burgers to sample:
1. Double Cheese, a double cheese burger

Double Cheese

2. Mushroom Swiss, with Swiss cheese and fresh mushrooms

Mushroom Swiss

3. Blue Moon, The original topped with blue cheese

Blue Moon

4. Chiliburger, Open-faced burger smothered with chili, cheese and onions

Chiliburger

5. Rock-n-Rogers’ favorite, with ham, bacon and fried egg

Rock-n-Rogers' Favorite

All served with red onions lettuce, cheese and pickle (except the Chiliburger).

Lots of burgers

Wow, this was quite a feast with all these burgers and it might look like a lot of food for most, but I had to dig in and start evaluating.

More burgers

First some general information about the burgers. They are all made from 7 ounce of fresh 73-27% ground beef. The exact mix of meats was a secret. All burgers are made using the smashing technique (Picture of Jimmie the chef) where the burger is brought out of the fridge in a ball and then smashed onto the griddle (see my article on burger styles here). They are also all seasoned with steak seasoning.
The buns are lightly buttered and toasted on the griddle. All burgers (except the Chiliburger) are served with fresh lettuce, tomatoes, red onion and dill pickle.

Jimmie smashing the burgers

Since I was going to have so many burgers I sampled the fries right away. They were medium dark and cut in 1/4 inch thickness. The fries had a good consistency and were very crisp. I would rate them to be very good (7 of 10).

I also tried the fried onions and they were made from fresh cut onions and hand battered in the kitchen before fried to perfection. They were among the best fried onions I’ve ever had. I would rate them to be close to perfect (9 of 10).

Now on to the burgers:
I started with the Double Cheese burger. All I can say about this one was, it was BIG! Two 7 oz patties with double cheese will fill anyone, but I only had a couple of bites. The meat was well done but still very juicy. The smashing technique they used for cooking their burgers worked and made them juicy and full of flavor. The meat was very tasty considering it was cooked on a griddle. The lettuce, onion and tomatoes were very fresh and added good flavor to the cheese burger. In general I think that a cheese burger by itself only has so much taste and that was also the case here. I will rate the cheeseburger as 6.5 out of 10. Price: $8.99 with fries.

Double Cheese

The next burger was the Mushroom Swiss burger. The cheese was not very thick but was still making a difference to the burger. The mushrooms were definitely made from fresh and added a great taste to this burger. Again all the greens were super fresh. Of course you have to like mushrooms to like this burger, but if you do I will recommend this to all mushroom lovers. I will rate it 7 out of 10. Price: $8.29 with fries.

Mushroom Swiss

On to the Blue Moon, a blue cheese burger. Jamie explained to me that they get the blue cheese dressing pre made and add additional blue cheese to it to make it more pungent. After the first bite I definitely noticed the difference from so many other blue cheese burgers. It actually tasted like blue cheese and not some dressing with a hint of blue cheese. If you don’t like blue cheese this burger is not for you, but if you do you will be thrilled to have this one. It was very good and I rate it 8 out of 10. I would add bacon to it to make it even better. Price: $7.99 with fries.

Blue Moon

Are we not done yet? No. Now it was time for the Chiliburger to be tasted. Since this was an open burger you could argue that it wasn’t a burger, but I still thought it qualified. There were no greens on this burger. It was toast with burger and chili, cheese and onions. Nothing more, nothing less. It looked messy but that was also the idea. The chili was good but most likely pre made and not made from fresh in the kitchen. It was not a meal for a warm day (like today), but I am sure this is a hit on a cold winter day. The portion was huge and probably not diet friendly, but who needs that anyway? I would rate it 7 out of 10. Price: $8.99 with fries.

Chiliburger

Last but not least the crown jewel of the day: Rock-n-Rogers’ Favorite and also my favorite. The burger was like the original with 1/4 lbs seasoned honey-cured ham, strips of hickory-smoked center cut bacon and a fried egg. You would think that the bacon would overpower the ham, but it didn’t. The ham and bacon together were quite amazing. The bacon was made from fresh and you could just taste that right away. It was very good. The combination of ham, bacon and egg added a breakfast hint to the burger that was truly great. I will try to add egg to my home made burgers more from now on. The burger was a 8.5 out of 10. Price: $9.99 with fries.

Rock-n-Rogers' Favorite

All in all the burgers were really great at Rock-n-Rogers. I think they have a such a large variety of burgers that anyone can enjoy their favorite burger (except vegans) and have a good time. I am sure their other items on the menu are equally as good, but I didn’t try them this time. I really enjoyed the burgers and will be back again soon.

Rock-n-Rogers Diner
6509 W. Park Blvd
Plano, TX 75093
972-378-0444