The Counter Mountain View

YUM– So Good and the menu is much bigger than before and now caters to Veggies like me:)

My friend and I visited this place today. and they made us wait for 2 hours for our order. That’s right — 2 hours! The burgers were great, but 2 other groups of people came and left while the time we were waiting for our order. I reached out and asked a couple of times. but still no service. The food was great, but I sincerely hope the lack of service was a one time thing

In A Nutshell:
–The Counter is another burger-​joint among the many, but does stand-​out.
–They serve booze :)
–You could go with their menu and their self-​compiled listing of various burgers OR you can grab the paper menu and pencil on the table and create your own burger.
–The menu looks complicated, but it’s actually fairly organized (i.e. burger size, meat choice, bun (if any) choices, condiments, veggies, etc…
–Whatever burger you choose or create DO NOT FORGET TO ADD A FRIED EGG. The most beautiful fried egg you can imagine was made here (just look at my pic).
–Also, the «Shoestring Fries» are to die-​for. They were so good, I had to order some to-​go. I recommend eating them fresh though as they got a little soggy after bringing them home — you could pop them in the mini-​oven though.
Overall, The Counter is worth checking out if you wish to indulge in what makes America great — eating lots of FAT. Don’t forget the EGG and Shoestring Fries.

Edit: Bumping them up a star for good customer service.
Original Review:
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This could easily be a 5-​star burger joint.
2 problems:
Last night one of my $ 17 burgers was –very– badly burned (at medium-​well). Took 1 bite and it was over.
Couple weeks ago, one of my $ 17 burgers was almost totally raw inside (at medium).
However, when done correctly, the food can be AMAZING. If it wasn’t for the fact that I ordered delivery through doordash on both occasions, maybe I could have rectified the burger mistakes. Outside of that, I’ve effectively wasted $ 34 so far on this place.

Awesome food great service always come here for a good time. Employees well trained. Foods great!!!

As a vegetarian, The Counter is one of my favorite places to go. I’m very glad this one opened in Mountain View so I don’t have to go all the way to the Palo Alto one to get my veggie burger fix. My non-​vegetarian partner loves it too, as there is great food for both of us. We always leave happy and full.
We always start off with an order of half sweet potato fries/​half regular fries. The fries have always been amazing and fresh.
My favorite thing about this place is that you build your own burger. They have a plethora of toppings to choose from, and being vegetarian, it’s nice to be able to choose EXACTLY what goes on your burger. (Tillamook cheese!) They have vegan and gluten free options too.
My order has never been wrong. Staff has always been friendly and helpful.
The only reason I’m taking off a star is that this particular location seems to be awkwardly set up. Right through the middle of the restaurant is a narrow pathway sandwiched between a long line of tables and the lenth of the bar. Customers and staff seem to have a hard time navigating through that part of the restaurant, especially since it’s the middle of the whole place. It gets pretty cramped in there.
Also, they took black olives off the menu, which went great with a veggie burger in a bowl. Sadface.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this place whether you’re a vegan, vegetarian, or meat-​eater. Great staff and great food!

I’ve never experienced such terrible service. There are some things I can understand –like dry burgers or a busy staff– but this was pretty awful. After waiting for some period of time, my girlfriend and I finally caught someone’s attention and ordered two burgers and fries. The fries never came, though other customers received theirs. Throughout the meal, no one refilled our water or checked on our table, and after we finished our burgers, we sat there for several minutes without anyone offering us the check. Finally, I raised my hand to catch someone’s attention. Several staff members noticed this, but ignored us. I eventually flagged down the manager and let him know that the fries had never arrived. He said «Okay» and just brought us the bill without offering an apology. Wow.

Took my family, including a toddler and a 4 year old. Ordered fries and drinks while sorting through an overly complicated menu. Drinks came out half an hour after the fries, and only after I grabbed the waiter. Burgers took 45 minutes and us threatening to leave. Table next to us waited even longer. In the end, it was only mediocre. And expensive.
(The staff said something about needing to enter the order online. Old fashioned paper handed off to a short order cook would have done the job faster. Thats an apt metaphor for the whole concept. It is too complicated: the menu, the ordering system, the zone-​defense style staffing.)

My friend and I split the Red Eye (cheddar, tomato, bacon, sunny-​side-​up egg, sweet sriracha sauce on an english muffin) and the Bacon2 BBQ Burgers (cheddar, tomato, bacon x 2, onion strings, BBQ on a brioche bun). Both were perfectly cooked medium rare. The quality of the meat was surprisingly good, and the balance of flavors was quite delicious. The sriracha sauce totally made the Red Eye burger, even though the egg should’ve been a little runnier. Overall, better than expected, and I could definitely see myself coming back.

I’ve been here many times and haven’t had any problem so far. :) The staff is friendly, meal is great, and dining area is clean and modern.

No stars is what this place deserves.
You have a system set up that ensures that every burger is made correctly but when a Black Man walks into your establishment, you fuck up the order.
Why is that ?
Everyone else was having a great time while eating burgers but I bite into mine and it’s so bloody I thought the meat was still somewhat alive.
I walk to the restroom to rinse the animal blood from my mouth and my lady had already told you ppl to make it again but I’m sorry
Go fuck yourself since you couldn’t make it right the first time as you did so with every other order that was placed before I entered your establishment
How about you just place a sign in the window that reads «NO BLACKS ALLOWED»
This would ensure you don’t get orders wrong that are checked off with a pencil on a sheet that you provide and ppl like myself will not waste our time or money

I’ve been to the Counter numerous times and have always enjoyed my food, along with the service. However, today’s dinner experience with my family left me very disappointed.
My dad, my brother, and I were seated at around 6:30 pm. Our initial server was a guy, who brought us water and took our appetizer order of french fries. After that, a female server came and took our burger orders. (I think the two servers were either a tag team or one was being trained by the other because it seemed like they were following each other the whole time.)
Our fries arrived almost immediately after we gave our burger orders. Awesome. I LOVE the fries at The Counter. I think shoestring fries are awesome and The Counter fries them just right.
We devoured the fries fairly quickly and then the wait for our burgers began…
We waited for about 30 minutes before anyone came to check on us. It was actually sort of amusing because the guy server saw us sitting there with an empty fry bowl and empty small plates and asked if the female server had already taken care of us and if we were waiting for our check. He had a very surprised look on his face when I told him that we hadn’t received our food yet. I saw him immediately go find the female server and talk to her. Next thing you know, I see her walking towards the register and inputting some orders in. My guess is… she forgot to put our orders in!
While she was putting orders in, the guy server came over. He apologized and said our food would be ready in 5 minutes. The female server came over after she was done with the register and apologized for the delay. We waited another 20 – 25 minutes and our burgers still had not arrived. Other parties who had been seated after us had already been served their burgers and were halfway done with their meal. My dad was fed up by then and we got up to leave. I went over to tell our servers that we were cancelling our order because we had been waiting for way too long.
I do have to give the manager of the night props for handling the situation well. He happened to be there when I was talking to the servers and took over from there. In the end, our burgers seemed to magically be done as we were heading out the door, so we took them to go (on the house) and ate them at home. Unfortunately, my brother wasn’t too happy with his burger because it was missing half the toppings he requested, along with a mysterious addition of artichokes. So either he got the wrong burger or the cooks didn’t dress it correctly because they were being rushed. We walked out of the restaurant at 7:45 pm.
Trying to decide a star rating is hard after today’s experience, especially when all my past experiences have been great. Quite honestly, I would have appreciated if the server was just honest with us and told us about her mistake in forgetting to put our order in. We probably would’ve been willing to wait. However, a «sorry for the delay» is just not going to cut it, especially when the delay is almost an hour long.
I wish I could give half stars because my rating is actually 2.5 stars. Positive experiences in the past bumped it up to a 3.

Have eaten at the Counter and ordered burgers to-​go several times in the past few months, as my mother recently moved to Palo Alto and loves the burgers. I’ve ordered the traditional Counter Burger, which comes with onion strings on the sandwich. It’s a little pricey, but I definitely don’t feel hungry after devouring one of their burgers.
I love that they have easy online ordering, and you can swing by and pick up your meal on the way home.

I am a big fan of the Counter burger franchise. Therefore the franchise has added a brand new restaurant inside the revamped San Antonio shopping plaza in Mountain View.
On my debut of the newest restaurant, I ordered the Southern-​style Fried Chicken Sandwich which is the sandwich of the month for September. For $ 9.95, I get Buttermilk brined fried breast with a spicy jalapeño cheese, Vinaigrette cole slaw in a brioche bun. The chicken piece is very crunchy and combined very well with the other condiments. This sandwich is one of the better tasting chicken sandwich I have eaten in a long time. I wished the Counter will continue to offer the specialty sandwich all the time.
There are no combo meals with this sandwich. Therefore I also ordered the Garlic and Parmesan Fries and a Banana Cream Pie milkshake, which is also Milkshake of the month. Every visit to the Counter, I always order the Garlic Fries because it is my favorite and my kryptonite. The milkshake had a very tasty banana flavor. But the Nila wafer decoration on my milkshake was very soggy and tasted old. But that is minor and I still enjoyed my meal.
The bar has a very nice setup with a good selection of wines, top-​rated spirits, updated bottled beers and 12 different kinds on tap. Without a doubt, I will definitely be back and have a brew with my burger.
«Many of you knew that already!»

The Counter is mediocre at best. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to try The Counter and finally I was able to the other night. Walking in, the first thing that caught my eye was the décor. It has a modern feel to it that I really enjoyed. That being said, the best part was probably the décor.
We ordered onion strings and sweet potato combo, the bbq burger with shoe string fries and the build your own with Parmesan fries. For as much as we ordered, all this created an average meal. Everything was really oily and a bit pricey.

This is one of the best burger places I’ve been to. The customisability options are plenty and great.
It’s slightly expensive since they charge for extra sauces and sides are not free.
But the experience is amazing.
Their shakes are good too.

The Counter experiences are often unusual ones. The food is good. Always has been, and hopefully always will be. Yesterday, was another bad experience with the service.
We were on our way to Rave Burger in San Mateo, but due to the living hell that was traffic, we decided to eat here instead. Seated within 20 minutes so that wasn’t too bad. Greeted almost right away, which was perfect and then nothing. Apparently the guy who greeted us wasn’t our waiter and eventually our real waiter showed up. Still everything was at a slugs pace from there. Food, drinks, and even the check took forever. Horrible.
However, the silver lining was that the food was good and tasty as always. They really do make great burgers, and they even have burgers with egg now. Just the way I like it.
The only counter’s where I had a really good experience is the one at Santana Row. That location seems to get everything right. This one, not so much.

I had a fantastic experience here.
We were seated immediately and had no troubles placing our order. My korean influenced burger was perfectly medium. Manfried got one of the burger bowls and was satisfied. And we both loved the devilled eggs. A couple of things that knocked off a star for me: the onion strings were oily to the point of being soggy. The pickles had too much breading and were pretty flavorless – the dip did not help much.
I’d definitely come back, but would avoid the aforementioned disappointments.

Think we’ve come here now 4−5x and each time, I’ve been impressed by the food, which is hard to admit, since our first visit was such an abysmal mess.
Service was a nightmare; the waiter took a decade to bring us our bill (despite multiple requests) and basically nothing seemed to be in order. My girl complained in a review and our 2^nd visit was fantastic, as the manager who responded to her, was present this time and actually came to expedite things for our table. Don’t think he was aware, but was good to see him get down and dirty as a boss/​manager.
Not sure if he’s been there the last few times, as we didn’t any issues, but the attitude amongst the employees’ was quite different when he wasn’t around the first time.
All the burgers here are rock solid for the price ($ 10-​$ 15). They do have a ton of set burgers, but we always go the custom route. I don’t like to add too many toppings, so it isn’t as fun for me as others, but I do enjoy the food here quite a bit and they mail coupons for 2 for 1 burgers $ 5 off, etc. so I’m sure I’ll be back several more times.

Came here on a Friday afternoon for lunch for a coworkers bday celebration. They placed us closer to the front door as we got there fairly early, which was freezing whenever someone would open the door so we all had to wear our rain/​winter jackets while we waited/​ate.
Our server was friendly and nice, and we put in our orders after checking off everything we wanted on our custom burgers/​salads. However, we waited, waited, and waited. An hour later, our food finally arrived. At this time, 3 of our other coworkers, that came after us, were leaving after finishing their food. Unbelievable. Patrons near our table who came 30 – 45 minutes got their food faster! It made us so annoyed as we needed to go back to work and wee starving.
Food was really good, I got the veggie patty on a bed of lettuce with a bunch of toppings and bacon! I also got shoestring fries with cheese which were amazing! Food was all really good, but not sure if I would come back since service was so slow.