Centre City Cafe’ – Escondido, CA
Looks can be Deceiving
For this review the UBR staff and the guest reviewer entourage of Darrin, Kevin, Chris and Tim motored down to Escondido to Centre City Café, San Diego Home Cooking’s North County location. As usual Mike, a.k.a. “Capt. Cranky”, was in full pissy mode to start the adventure. This was the first time Darrin had met Mike and he was seriously second guessing if it was worth a free cheeseburger to have to endure a 50 year old man-child’s tantrum. However, once we arrived at our burgering location and met up with the rest of our burger buddies (who came all the way from Florida for this review), Mike’s attitude turned around. Centre City Café has classic 1970’s architecture since it was formally a Sambo’s. It’s also located in an area of Escondido that seems to be unaware that several decades have gone by since Sambos demise. They did however have a few awkwardly placed TV’s that clashed nicely with the randomness of the un-themed painted artwork. While this description sounds like a great place to chow a burger, the restrooms and service speed severely affected the overall restaurant rating (thus the 2.5). If it wasn’t for the cute and very attentive waitress, the restaurant ratings would have been much worse. It should be noted that knucklehead Troy picked this place because they touted their great burgers on a TV ad. Understanding Troy’s pea-brained belief that the TV never lies helps explain his depth of thought and reason. Once the burgers finally arrived, the real disappointment began. Before the burger bash begins, let’s list the good points. It was made of meat, you had several cheese choices, you got a pickle spear, and the presentation and appearance was average. The rest just sucked. It earned a dismal 2.5 on the UBR scale. The post burger was pretty dismal too, and came close to yakking up a 1 on the post burger rating. Then there are the fries. On the surface, the fries should have been great (good curb appeal); the reality was they were disgusting. They completely jacked them up by cooking them into a charred greasy shell. Yeah, they can’t even cook a friggin’ french fry! Probably the best part of this visit was watching the black cat hanging out on the outside awning. You could almost hear his little squeeky kitty voice saying “DON’T ORDER THE BURGER! RUN, RUN NOW!” To our may UBR fans from around the world, you are the reason we do this, and we took one for the team this week. Now you’ll know to pass right by this pathetic burger experience! We’re just glad we didn’t have to pay for this one… Thanks Chris!
Unwitting Darrin
The TV says it's good!