It’s been two full years now living in Akron, and I decided that it was finally time to try one of the staple Akron restaurants. With a schedule of Tuesday – Saturday, I never really had time to go venture out for lunch. Partially because I work a few towns over, and the hours are from 10 AM – 4 PM. However, the catch is, if he runs out of burger patties before four, well then your out of luck. 

Luckily for me, that wasn’t the case as I came in with plenty of time to spare around Noon. Also, it’s winter, which, if I am being honest, I wasn’t expecting this place to be open, let alone the amount of people that came in while I was eating! From the outside, you wouldn’t think much of the place if you hadn’t heard of it – it truly is a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ type vibe. As most people say, never judge a book by its cover! Once you enter that door, you can see the character of Bob’s Hamburg come to life. 

For being Akron’s oldest operating restaurant, you wouldn’t be able to tell that this building was original a trolly car. Give the building a look over, they say that you even see the rails still in the floor at some points of the restaurant. However, after taking your first step into the restaurant, it completely changes

Greeted upon entry, is still a nice touch in the restaurant industry. The staff is friendly, and you get to see for yourself just how compact this restaurant is – which is nice. It gives it a very cozy feeling, especially with early diner theme on the inside. The classic checkered floor, a MINI Juke Box, because a big one cannot physically fit inside, and what seems to be period correct boothing & high chairs – you take a trip back in time to see what a diner was supposed to be. 

Flashback to the 1930s, and you can imagine that this place was bumping back then. For a diner, this place is very intimate. With the size of the establishment, there’s only room for several booths and roughly eight seats at the bar. Which is pretty nifty, as you get to see the chef take your patty and cook it right in front of you. It’s not much of a spectacle, but you can watch it happen if that’s your thing!

Once you place your order, it can take a little while especially if there’s a crowd as the food is handmade by order, to spec, in order of order placed. That’s a lot of orders lol. Anyway, depending on how many people were before you is roughly 10ish minute wait. I myself was the first person in, then by the time I left, the small restaurant became busy and packed. As I mentioned above, the grill chef does take your burger make it order, so there’s a lot of steps such as taking the ground beef ball and smashing it on the grill, seasoning the patty, and so forth.

I should mention though, the service was nice. I had no issues getting a refill to my Cola that I had, which I regret getting instead of a milk shake. As I learned after leaving that the Milkshake is the other half of the meal & why people come here for lunch! So next time, I will without a doubt grab a milkshake. However, let’s dig into what I finally ordered.

The menu is fairly small, but has variety and you know what that tells me? That they’re good at what they do, and don’t need to make a hundred things to make up for their main dish lacking, which Bobs Hamburg does not! Quite the opposite actually. I got myself the Undefeated Cheeseburg, and i’ll be honest. It was tasty – but still a burger. I also got a side of fries, which, might I add were banger. A good fry combo is always great, so overall I give this place a 7/10 for the burger. Outside off that, it feels good to be included in part of Akron’s history by checking out this Akron landmark. 

Would I go back? Yeah, I would go back & as I mentioned above I would get a milkshake to compliment the meal this time around. Learn from my mistake! A lot of the other online reviews stay try the peach shake – however, I am a big chocolate guy. So i’ll have to get a traditional chocolate shake next time I step in at Bob’s Hamburg.

Have you been before? What did you think of the place?