Burger Bar In Roy Has Everything From Beef to Boar to Buffalo
If you’ve never tried an Alligator Burger, or one of the 20-plus exotic burgers that rotate monthly at the Burger Bar in Roy, maybe it’s time. For February, you can order a Camel Burger, a 1/3-pound patty made with red pepper hummus, curry sauce, onions, and cucumbers.
The Burger Bar has been a Roy landmark since 1956. Its “exotic meat of the month” is a lot more recent, said Joe Fowler, in the 4th generation of Fowler family to run the Burger Bar. I recently interviewed him for a Standard-Examiner story.
The exotic burgers only make up a small portion of the business, “But it’s something so people will remember us,” he said. “We have some loyal customers who will drive from Provo to get an exotic burger every month.”
Joe Fowler said he came up with the “exotic meat of the month” idea about 10 years ago, when the Riverdale Road interchange was under construction, keeping traffic from the restaurant.
“It hurt us really bad,” Fowler said. “I got the idea of starting something different to put more eyeballs on us. We started with a wild boar burger. People would stop just to ask about it.”
Since then, the Burger Bar has served 20-plus types of exotic burgers, including alligator, llama, crawdads, kangaroo, camel, and crawfish. Buffalo and elk burgers are on the regular menu. All the exotic meats come from suppliers that are regulated and inspected, he said.
“Alligator and kangaroo burger have been our top sellers,” Fowler said.
There was a bit of an outcry in 2020 when the Burger Bar’s meat-of-the-month happened to be kangaroo, just about the same time as Australian wildfires broke out. A few TV news reports criticized the Burger Bar for serving kangaroo meat at a time when wildfire footage showed kangaroos fleeing for safety.
But the meat order had been placed months before the wildfires happened. According to their Facebook post, the Fowlers decided it would be better to serve it rather than let it go to waste. Also, they decided that it would be insensitive to and self-serving to pull their business from Australia at a critical time. And, the meat would just go to waste if they didn’t use it.
The media attention actually drove more business, selling 400 kangaroo burgers in two days, said Joe Fowler.
More people are inclined to order the signature Big Ben burger, named for the Burger Bar’s founder, Ben Fowler. It’s a thin, wide quarter-pound patty, dressed with fry sauce, shredded lettuce and pickles on a toasted bun.
“At the time, there weren’t any burgers built that big,” Joe Fowler said during an interview a few weeks ago for the Standard-Examiner. “It’s a different style, so people who like it can’t get it anywhere else.”
For bigger (and really bigger) appetites, there’s the Double Cheese Ben, the Triple Ben, and the Quad Ben. More variations include the Steak Ben, the Sea Ben and the BBQ Ben.
The Burger Bar itself hasn’t changed much over the years, although a few outdoor benches have been added near the walk-up window. But mostly, you’ll eat in your car, or on the tailgate of your pickup.
Inside, the small building is strategically packed with deep fryers, shake and drink machines, flat-top grill, food storage, bags of buns, etc.
Getting around the narrow work stations is “like a dance almost,” said Joe Fowler. “If you don’t go to the right place, you’ll step on someone.”
The Burger Bar started in 1956 with Ben and Rita Fowler. Ben had been a Navy fighter pilot during World War II, then owned a Wyoming ranch and southern California laundromats. After visiting drive-in burger restaurants in California, he and Rita, decided to start a drive-in burger place of their own in Utah.
Fast food was still evolving in the 1950s. There were lots of drive-in restaurants with carhops; but in California, the original McDonald’s brothers decided to simplify things with a walk-up window.
Ben and Rita ran their Burger Bar for about 25 years, when their son David Fowler took over. David even met his wife, Connie, while she was an employee. Since they retired around 2009, their children, Joe and Jessica, are running it together.
There’s plenty of competition from big national chains. But what sets it apart is partly the nostalgia, “Because people have been coming here their whole lives,” said Joe Fowler. And also, “Our food is cooked fresh, and we try to use local ingredients whenever we can. We use local beef, delivered fresh every day.”
His personal menu favorite is a “Double Cheese Ben, with extra cheese.” “I’ve been eating it since I was a teenager,” he said. His sister Jessica prefers the smaller version of the Big Ben, he said.
The buns come from the Ogden-based Topper Bakery. Although a fire destroyed Topper’s building on Monroe Boulevard in 2021, the company has been baking the buns out of a different space while rebuilding, Fowler said.
The onions, breaded and deep-fried in-house into crunchy onion rings, usually come from Utah or Idaho. In summer, the tomatoes come from local farmers.
All this costs a little more, “but people love the fresh taste,” said Joe Fowler.
The Burger Bar got national praise on two of the Food Network’s series, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and “Triple D Nation.”
The restaurant is open Monday-Saturday. “It’s always been closed on Sunday,” said Fowler. “It would be a busy day for us, but we found it’s beneficial for us to give everybody a rest and not have to worry about that day.”
He said typically he and his sister, Jessica, split shifts throughout the week, “to make sure one of us is here most days. And we have excellent managers who have been here for years, even for decades. We divide the work and play to our strengths.”
Recently the 30-year-old Burger Stop in Layton was sold to the Wright family, and its new owners are expanding into Salt Lake City. But, the Fowler siblings aren’t planning to expand or franchise the Burger Bar. His aunt and uncle, Debbie and Greg Haws, had a similar Burger Bar in Layton, but sold the site about 20 years ago.
“Running a restaurant is not easy,” Joe Fowler said. “We have thought about expanding many times, but I’m not looking to take on a second full-time job. This one would suffer if we tried to expand. We are pleased to be able to have a comfortable life as we are.”