The Brick Yard's Breakfast Burger

I’ve been near terrified of any menu item using “breakfast” as an adjective for food that is typically not served before 10:00 AM. There once was a time, in my younger and wilder days, that closing down the bar and heading to the 24-hour gas station for a breakfast pizza was ritual. Those little personal pizzas were always hot and waiting for Tweak and me. We would usually split one, but my last one was an enthusiastic whole pizza to top off a stomach more full than usual of sugary, brightly-colored shots. Since that gastrointestinal adventure years ago, breakfast pizza has become a trigger food for a gag reflex.

Enter The Brick Yard’s Breakfast Burger. Legend reached me of its grandeur, praise enough from friends that it earned my patronage, despite my personal history with its nomenclature.

The Brick Yard Bar & Grille is Hibbing’s hot-spot for college students looking to pick fights and get laid. Every Friday and Saturday night, the dance floor is busy, the bouncers are busier, and the cocktail waitresses are busiest. But during the day the Yard takes on a much more casual tone. Even with the Olympic men’s ice hockey semifinals match between the USA and Canada on one of their large projector screens, the Yard doesn’t draw a huge lunch crowd. This worked out as 12 coworkers and I were easily able to move some tables around and all of us get a good view of the game. The service there is almost always on-spot, though I’m regular enough that it may earn me special treatment. The Brick Yard has daily specials and a relatively new Cajun menu on Thursdays that keeps it a head above other eateries in town (keep an eye out for a future review of Ragin’ Cajun Thursdays!).

I ordered the Breakfast Burger with waffle fries and seasoned sour cream – a favorite side dish among my friends and me. However, you may just want to order the burger by itself. The burger is presented as a cheesy, egg-soaked blanket of ham pieces and hash browns as thick as the large beef patty it covered. Now, I’m not a fan of my egg yolks broken on my burgers – recall the rotational technique for soaking the yolk into the bun I instructed in The Oasis’ Egg Burger review – but when there’s this many hash browns to soak it up, it left the buttered and toasted bun dry and structurally sound. Thick slices of bacon crossed between beef patty and hash browns as if they were crushed railroad ties in an old collapsed mine. I layered my pickles into place and enjoyed it without ketchup, though by the end, once all the excess hash browns dropped onto my plate, it did start getting a little dry.

This is a good burger as a whole, but it’s only the sum of its parts, and the ingredients felt a little bland. The beef was generic and the hash browns could have used some seasoning as well. Perhaps next time I’ll sprinkle some pepper on the burger before digging in. Once constructed, it stands a little too tall. Maybe next time I’ll get less hash browns, or scoop some of them off in lieu of a side of fries. One way or the other, this plate had way too many starchy carbs on it for my liking.

The burger with the fries and sour cream (usually an upcharge from regular fries) was less than the pitcher of Nordeast I bought the table, and my total was just over $20. It’s still early in my cheeseburger ranking process, but I think this one gets into the playoffs, though like the US Men’s hockey team, whether it earns a spot on the podium is hard to say. There’s a handful of local burgers I’ve not yet reviewed that could take it down, but I promise you it’s not going to be as crushing a defeat as Saturday’s bronze medal game!