I visited The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro (@WORKSBURGER) a few weeks ago with my cousins. To be honest, I’m not too huge on burgers – either I’ve never come across a burger that has completely blown me away or I’m just extremely picky on how I like it made. Anyways, for whatever reasons it may be – my cousin managed to drag me to The Works (Oakville location) a few weeks ago. My cousin has been a frequent customer of the Oakville location for months now so I guess she didn’t have to quite “drag” me to go as I was quite excited to check out this new hype myself. And also knowing there was a recent opening of The Works in the Danforth I figured I might as well check out a location that is closer to where I live.
The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro is a burger chain that opened its first location in Ottawa. The Works – AKA “World’s Best Burgers” is a proud Canadian company that is dedicated to serving fresh beef, fresh cut fries, classic shakes, Canadian cheese made from 100% Canadian milk.
I visited The Works on a sunny Wednesday evening and oh yes – once you open the door there forms a line of people waiting patiently while studying the menu. The wait was approximately 20-25 minutes.
The interior of the restaurant – Decor here is really neat, atmosphere is casual. They played mostly classic rock & roll and blues music…
Our waitress was very helpful and prompt. Explained everything on the menu and gave us recommendations. Honestly, It was an overwhelming choice when it came to choosing Burger toppings (almost 2 pages)
Peanut Butter Chocolate Class Milkshake 8 oz ($3.97)
- Classic milkshake is started off with real ice cream made from the chilliest Canadian milk to get the richest, smoothest and creamiest texture
- The milkshake was exactly the way it was described on the menu – the peanut butter chocolate tasted very rich, very smooth and yes – very creamy
- Neat how the drinks are served in measuring cups!
Tower – O – Rings ($9.69)
- The Rings are breaded not battered for that big crispy crunch!! – with a choice of 2 dipsticks for dippin’
- I couldn’t stop smiling when the rings were first presented – I mean I’ve never been served rings stacked in a tower
- The rings itself were served piping hot! – Big and crunchy
- Ground Beef (Gluten free)
- Whole Chicken Breast
- Ground Turkey
- Veggie Burger
- Portobello Mushroom Cap
- Fresh cut fries
- Sweet potato strings
- Spicy Die-Cut chips
- Lumpy Mashed
- Green Weeds
- Bold Slaw
- Real mayo, fried egg, ripe red tomato, cheddar cheese & crisp bacon strips
- My cousin opted for the Ground Turkey with lumpy mashed as her side dish
It was her first time ordering Hamburger Mary and she really enjoyed it and glad she had ordered the Ground Turkey!
Fajita Burger ($12.13)
- Caramelized onions & green bell peppers, salsa loco & jack cheese
- My cousin also opted for the Ground Turkey with sweet potato strings
- She gave me a bit of her burger to try and found it absolutely delicious and wished I had ordered this
- The ground turkey was so juicy and tasty! – The caramelized onions & other toppings made this a burger perfection! – it was sort of messy to eat but it was so flavourful
- Very satisfying and filling – Highly recommend!
Smokey Mountain ($12.80)
- Smokey bbq sauce, jack cheese & bacon strips – AKA – the original best seller
- My cousin ordered the ground beef patty with spicy die cut chips
- He seemed pretty satisfied but didn’t have anything amazing to say about it
Art Attack ($12.77)
- Grilled eggplant, fresh avocado, salsa loco & feta cheese – “will get your creative juices flowing”
- Because everyone else had ordered something rather “normal” – I decided to opt for something out of the norm (for me)
- I choose ground beef with a poutine (side dish upgrade $2.96)
- My first bite – I thought the burger was charcoaled nicely – but then after a few more bites I realized how dry the beef patty was – regretted not choosing the ground turkey =S
- The dryness of the ground beef patty ruined the whole burger for me – no juice – almost tasteless
The poutine upgrade was rather another disappointment – It came luke warm – the fries were delicious but I didn’t enjoy the flavour of the gravy – it was a tad too salty?
We all ended up packing away at least half of our burgers! It was honestly a really filling meal…
Overall, I thought the burgers at The Works were just average, wasn’t blown away. There were definitely hits and some misses. I would definitely order a juicy ground turkey patty over the ground beef patty any day! Also, I’m a poutine fanatic … so I was rather disappointed to find that the gravy was too salty? I wouldn’t be rushing back to this place anytime soon but I’ll keep this place in mind if I’m ever craving an uber delicious chocolate peanut butter milkshake! =) I also highly recommend the tower -o- rings & the fajita ground turkey burger!
Towards the end of the night – as we were chatting away with our waitress – she handed me a big envelope with Guest passes and added a friendly “Please write a good review about us!”