Gabba -Great American Burger Boutique & Ale

Food: 2
Service: 1
Value: 2
I know the reviewer under mine states he had a good service experience, but unfortunately that is probably the minority.
Walking into a place called the GREAT AMERICAN BURGER BOUTIQUE one would naturally set a pretty high expectation for a burger. If not, why not goto Wendys then instead?
I went in on a Friday night and there were barely any people inside. Bad sign. Then after ordering, the waitress came back several minutes later stating my burger type was not available. Thanks lady for not telling me immediately. I ended up with a burger I didn’t care much to order. Our food came to us well after we hoped given the fact the place was nearly empty. My wife couldn’t even eat hers and mine was mediocre. Our drinks were rarely refilled.
At the end, I literally had to get out of my seat and find the waitress because she was nowhere to be found.
If this place is actually shut down then I’m not surprised one bit. I still felt the need to write the review. lol!
More like HABBA or TABBA or CABBA or SABBA, ANYTHING OTHER THAN GABBA (I’ll let your imagination do the interpreation)

So another one bites the dust. GABBA has been gone for a while now. I wonder if anyone else will try to open something up there. The biggest problem with this particular shopping center is that they had only one restaurant. A Pakistani restaurant and grocery (two separate businesses) have opened in the same building, but that won’t make for the critical mass needed to bring business to all of them. This would be a good mall, on the homeward side of a very busy road, for a handful of restaurants to open. As a group they could draw diners for lunch and dinner.

Something always goes wrong here since my first visit — from non-​existent wait staff, long delays to receive food or incorrect orders (mostly sides). It’s pretty dead in here –most times I’ve been; I can see why.
The most recent time I came here hungry — big mistake! Waited a while for a server to come to table to take order. Ordered an appetizer to try to get something to eat quicker (as I was already too hungry) and no app came. We got a few — sorry your food is coming or one cook had to leave so its just one person cooking everything tonight. We almost walked out but it was late and not much else was open.
FINALLY got our food and app at SAME time. App was decent, burger so-​so. Not worth the wait — and no offers to give us our app free bc it came with food 30 – 40 minutes after we ordered it.
Don’t bother! Many better burger places out there with less stressful environments :)

Come here often for trivia but wait staff constantly changes. Unfortunately food quality has constantly gone down.

Came here as part of a large group. Food was ok. Menu is kinda limited. Service could have been better. I like the patio outside.

Food was great, service not so much, but they were sponsoring a benefit, and were not prepared for the jump in business. I had the chicken burger, my two buds had standard burgers, and all were happy. Nice atmosphere, too.

The reviews of this place are quite interesting… and varied. Here is my experience today…
Went in… and it was EMPTY! I do not mean a «few people»…I WAS THE ONLY PATRON! At 12:30 on a Sunday! Interesting! By the time I left, there were two couples there… but still only 5 people… in the WHOLE PLACE! One of the waiters stated that «it is early»…I kind of laughed at that!
Service…lots of reviewers have had problems… well…not me… I sat immediately (imagine that!)…was served immediately and had my burger within about 10 minutes (which, to me, is good…). After finishing my dinner, my check was a bit slow (couple minutes), but not bad.
Food…I got the Southerner with Pimento Cheese and Bacon Marmalade… and it was a VERY good burger. The meat was seasoned well… and cooked exactly as I ordered it. The fries, which came with the burger, were quite good as well.
So…not sure about the others that have had problems… but…my experience was very good. That being said… with the number of people NOT there… I pretty much expect that when I go back, it will be closed…

Food is good, menu is not very big. They have some good original burgers, like the pimento cheese bacon marmalade burger (The Southerner). Every time I’m here the place is dead and he service is kinda slow. One time it took 38 minutes from order to table, and there was only one other table there.

Oh, so disappointed.
My boyfriend and I drive by this place frequently and have been interested in trying it. We got an idea to do just that today — and the Scoutmob certainly helped push us over the edge.
As I often do, I checked the Unilocal reviews on the way there. Not good. I wanted to give this place a fair shake, despite the awful reviews, and hoped that they were just flukes in service or quality.
Place was quite empty for a Saturday afternoon. We were greeted by a server quickly. Drinks came. All was well. The burger options seemed interesting and the prices pretty reasonable.
I ordered the Popeye burger — turkey burger, cranberry aioli, spinach salad. Should be yummy. Boyfriend ordered the Classic burger, no cheese, with caramelized onions and mushrooms.
It took quite a long time, as far as a burger place goes. Over 25 minutes for our orders to come out. The onions were not on my boyfriend’s burger. I take a few bites of mine and it doesn’t taste like I thought it would. Very bland. Boyfriend’s burger is pretty bland too — very little, if any, seasoning on the the burger patty — and I also realize there are back beans and corn in the «turkey» patty. I am told that the turkey burger has black beans and corn in the patty (which wasn’t mentioned on the menu).
Seriously? Who does that? I really think they gave me a veggie patty (which does advertise as having those ingredients) — but whatever — the server offers to get me something else, which I do. I order the Chicken Burger (no cheese) instead and wait nearly 20 minutes for that one while my boyfriend eats his burger and fries. I get the burger and it has cheese, even though I specifically said not to include it. At this point I’m hungry, I’m ready to go, and I eat it quickly.
The original burger I ordered is taken off and the Scoutmob discount is applied, but how nice it would have been to go in there, have a nice experience, and share it with everyone.
Alas, many of these reviews are spot on. I’m going to give it one more opportunity and hope for the best, but if this new business wants to succeed they REALLY need to get their act together and tackle the blaring quality and service issues.

I have been here twice, thanks to scoutmob, however, there will not be a third.
Atmosphere — Way too big of a space and barely anyone there both times at prime lunch time. maybe 10 guests at most, not counting some work crew that had a separate section. There are TV’s to watch, so that helps in the bar atmosphere.
Food — First time got the burger which is fine, nothing special, and the tots are tots. The second time I got the chicken sandwich, and as other people have said, was quite bland and way over priced ($ 8) for just a grilled chicken breast, with one slice of lettuce, one small tomato, and 2 small onion rings… and for the side $ 3 veggies, which consisted of zucchini and squash, which were okay at best. Should have just swung by Zaxby’s next door and gotten a grilled chicken sandwich.
Service — First time at the bar, the service was mediocre considering I was right there to grab their attention and this last time was not a good experience at all. We got the menu and drinks fairly quickly, but once we placed the order, we waited about 30 minutes for our food (burger and chicken sandwich), plus only 10 people max in the restaurant. Then after we got the food and asked for the check, add about another 10 minutes. No response to see how are food was or anything and did fill up my water once.
Overall — If you want a place to drink and watch a game, have some wings, you should be fine, but wouldn’t recommend this for a dining experience.

It was Scoutmob night at my house last. For those not in the know, that means «we’re too tired/​lazy to cook tonight, let’s see what’s on Scoutmob.» Ness and I decided to try GABBA because the menu looked interesting.
We started with the fried pickles & a pint of Blue Moon (on special for $ 2.50). The fried pickles were tasty, but nowhere near as good as, say, Fox Bros. Smallish pieces, a little heavy on the breading, but still enjoyable. $ 4 would seem more reasonable than $ 6, though.
We each ordered a burger and shared an order of french fries. I’ve seen quite a few reviews mention that «burgers should come with fries.» I guess that a la carte sides are not that weird to me since we also frequent The Counter. It works out well for us since we never actually finish two orders of fries, anyway.
Ness ordered the Socrates and I had the Southerner. I have to be honest here — the burgers were delicious. If I were only rating the burgers, the restaurant would be in the 4 to 5 star range. The bacon marmalade/​pimento cheese combo on the Southerner was melt in my mouth amazing. The Socrates’ feta and olive combo was delicious, too. The burgers were flavorful and cooked exactly right. The fries, however, were lackluster. That particular style of fry has the potential to be superlicious, but they seemed to be just overdone enough to make them mainly a vehicle for dipping in ketchup. Ness loves ketchup.
Service was good. There was an awkward moment at the door where we hovered and waited for someone to acknowledge us, but we were seated and quickly and most requests were handled promptly. A note — if you order a beer here, they will not automatically bring you water. They might not even remember to bring it while you’re eating. And if you want to keep your little cup of mayo, hide it from the server. He is a consummate sauce stealing table cleaner.
We do plan to return here (mainly for the bacon marmalade). Next time we’ll avoid the apps and hope that the sides will be better.

Spacious sports bar theme. Friendly staff. The Socrates burger was tasty, generous portions on the salad.

Had my bday party here! We packed the place 100+ despite the crowd the service didn’t fail. The burgers were incredible! The owners are awesome and I had a night I will never forget!

Been here twice…
First time was 3 stars, yesterday was 1 star… so we ended up at 2.
Ambiance: It’s been empty the two times we’ve been – once a Thursday around 7 and yesterday, which was a Sunday during the football games.
Food: The first time our burgers were great (had the black and blue and my fiancé had the whimpy). Yesterday, we went with a bunch of people and ordered tons of wings. The only wings that were good (and they were actually REALLY good) were the medium wings. The rest (teriyaki, BBQ, lemon pepper, hot, etc) weren’t anything to write home about. I also had the chicken burger with mac and cheese yesterday. Horrible. The chicken burger was 100% flavorless. The mac and cheese looked and tasted like Kraft that had been sitting out all day. Another guy in the group got the chicken salad and it actually tasted and smelled spoiled!
Service: Prompt and pleasant. Quick refills, etc. They took the spoiled chicken salad off the bill.
Stick to the burgers.

It doesn’t matter how special or gourmet your burgers are — ALL burgers should come with fries or some choice of side. Burgers without fries … indeed.
I ordered the Black and Bleu Burger and GABBA’s equivalent of mozzarella sticks. The cheesesticks were tasty, served on a smattering of salad greens. The tomato sauce to dip them in, however, was less than stellar. It tasted like batteries. Remember when you were a little kid and you put your tongue on both ends of a battery? Well if you want to relive that delicious flavor, come here and order mozz sticks. The reaction isn’t as potent as a battery, but I definitely pulled the food away from my mouth confused by what happened.
The burger came with a pickle spear, which doesn’t make up for the lack of fries, but it’s something, on a huge white empty plate. Even the person that orders the china knew that burgers came with fries, but I digress…
It was just ok, wonderfully lackluster. It came with lettuce, tomato, and onion, which isn’t listed on the menu. I promptly removed the garden I didn’t order and bit into the burger that I did. Medium well does not mean cold. Little pink on the inside, good. Room temp on the outside, bad.
Not sure where the boutique part comes in, unless that means presentation and appearance over substance and satisfaction. Standard beers on tap, plus an Octoberfest, Rogue Dead Guy, and Purple Haze — two of which were out.
Wanted to like this place, but it’ll be hard to justify a trip back.

Well… I am glad I went before reading the reviews… the scout mob app gave me a 50% off deal, so I decided I did not feel like cooking and went in…
The place is really cute… not many people in there, so I was sat right away. I ordered the black and blue burger and tater tots. Both were tasty and the portion was a good size. I would go back for sure. :) Hope you will give it a try

Wish I could somehow give this place a 0-​star.
Went on a Sunday for lunch — arrived early to beat the lunch rush after church. Was promptly seated and ordered our food. Ended up waiting 1.5 hours for our food. I cannot even begin to fully describe the ordeal that played out during the wait.
I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with sweet potato tots. My brother ordered the chicken burger with mac n’ cheese. Ten minutes after ordering, the waiter said the restaurant was out of chicken breast so no grilled chicken sandwich. I asked about the chicken salad sandwich on the baguette and the waiter said she’d have to check with the kitchen to see if that was available. When she came back out, she said they didn’t have the chicken salad but could make it. In the back of my mind, why would I order the chicken salad that the kitchen was going to make when it didn’t have any chicken for my grilled chicken sandwich. I didn’t come to a restaurant to eat chicken out of a can. Ended up ordering a burger instead. About 15 minutes later, the waiter came back out and said the kitchen was out of sweet potato tots. No problem — I got the fried okra.
After a long wait (about 1 hr), our food finally came out. My brother’s plate only had his burger. At that time, waiter told him that they were out of mac n’ cheese. No problem — my brother said give him the french fries. Too bad, they were out of french fries too (what burger place runs out of french fries!!). He ended up nixing any sides.
Literally, upon the last bite of his burger, waiter came out and said they just got more potatoes and could finally do his fries if he wanted. Too late at that point.
Our other guest ordered onion rings which costs $ 3… There were only 4 rings with the order. Are you kidding me — $ 3 for 4 onion rings? And they weren’t even great.
The table next to ours with a party of 10 people (with kids, etc.) had it even worse. Their food came out in piecemeal. Some kids were fed first, others had to wait at least as long as we waiting for our food (1 hr.). It appeared that one of the burgers they ordered came out raw too — which got sent back.
Save your money and time — this place isn’t worth it.

Wow… this place is weak. I went on Saturday because of poker and the experience was my first and last there.
Service is horrible — -i waited over 10 minutes (sitting AT THE BAR) and had to go get my own menu, then another 5 minutes before any acknowledgement… why does someone invest ina restaurant and then REFUSE to hire and train for service…
Food is mediocre… i got the $ 8 chicken sandwich, which is all you get for $ 8. no fries or sides. expecting a very serious sandwich, it was on a small size bun and the chicken just fit (meaning small)…it was just a piece of grilled chix, so no real flavor.
You can have onion rings, they are only 3 rings for $ 3…crazy pricing for weak bar food.
I would NOT recommend to anyone.

I work nearby and thus decided to try the latest incarnation of this space. Place was kind of ‘medium’ full at lunch (not unlike lunch time at prior incarnations).
The good: our burgers were solid and tasty, and we also liked the fries, sweet potato tots, and fried okra.
The bad: service was sweet, only semi competent, and it took a long time to get our food (about a half hour). Every time I come here, I get sat at one of the booths along the wall, where cold a/​c is blowing down on me and my food. They really need to tweak the vents to make them quite blowing down on the booths.
I had ordered a $ 7 burger but was given an $ 8 burger with bacon. I took the bacon off and ate it anyway because I didn’t have time to wait around for another burger. I was told there’d be no upcharge, but it was rung up as $ 8 (only noticed after leaving).
There are only 7 or 8 different burgers, so I have no idea how they’re unable to enter the order right, or why they take so long to make.
I think that the ‘pepper burger’ that someone else got was a fluke. Sometimes these places dump a lot of pepper, salt, granulated garlic onto the beef and then mix it up. Someone probably did a poor job of mixing the meat that day.
So overall I’d say that you can get a pretty good burger+side for around 8 – 10 bucks here, which is good, but it may take a while and they may or may not bring out the exact burger you ordered.

I wanted to like this place so badly, but unfortunately it fell short. I went to try GABBA with some friends the other day for the first and last time.
Usually I give a new restaurant a grace period to work out the «new restaurant kinks» if my first experience is not on par, but there was no good reason to do so with GABBA. It started out well. We were greeted by a cheerful waitress, who appeared to be waiting hungrily outside the restaurant for patrons, and led to the same nice booths that Three Dollar Café left behind when they closed.
Our waitress promptly listed off her favorite apps and we selected the fried pickles because she mentioned they were her favorite. Then each of us ordered a boutique burger and separate side item. I decide to get mine on a brioche roll instead of wheat roll.
Our fried pickles arrived and they were fried pickles… Nothing bad and nothing special either. The serving was on the smaller side so don’t plan on splitting them between three adults if you want more than 5 – 7 pickles each. But again I must mention the service was still very good and we remained hopeful at this point.
I did grow a little concerned when 10 minutes passed after we finished our app and still no burgers. I figure if you are running a burger boutique two things should be certain 1) you should have the best dang burger recipe down imaginable and 2) you should be able to crank them out in your sleep.
When my burger arrived it looked nice. I decided to try my tater tots… Yuck!!! They were way over cooked to the point i could tell this new burger joint needed to change their fryer oil already. I don’t know how you charge $ 2 for 15 burned premade freezer section grocery store tater tots
I cut my burger in half and examined the meat. It was cooked perfectly. I assume it is standard practice at a burger joint not to ask the customers how to cook their burger. This burger appeared to be medium, as well as my friends burgers. I am guessing they will cook it anyway you like it if you ask though.
First bite and first thought was, «Holy crap that’s a lot of pepper!». I was praying maybe I had gotten a freak bite of chunked pepper, in part because I was so hungry and wanted to eat the whole thing, but sadly my second bite tasted like someone had mistakenly used a 1:1 ratio of meat to pepper. I peeled the bun back and I could see a billion pepper flakes staring back at me. I took the rest home to my dogs, who think I am crazy for not eating it and they would like to give GABBA a 4 star rating instead of my 2 star rating.
I would however encourage you to try it for yourself. I am just one opinion.