Lunch Report: Babes on Fred Road

My wife and I, still somewhat dismayed at the lack of a parade for the 4th, decided that we should get out of the house and try something new. She had heard about a Pharmacy over on Fredericksburg Road called Queen's Cottage that was like an old style fountain and malt shop. She wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Supposedly, you can have lunch and purchase some souvenirs and such while you wait for your prescriptions. Though I had none needing filling, I was open to some lunch.

Turns out, they were closed for the 4th. Hello? Queen's Cottage? I'm thinking you need to skip the 4th of July celebration.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that it was raining buckets, we figured that we still needed to get something to eat, so in the same strip center we saw Babe's Old Fashioned Hamburgers.

Two things I liked about it from the word go. First, I like a place where you order your meal, then go pick a seat. You never have to complain about the wait staff, and you don't have to go through the entire song and dance of getting the menu, getting drinks, ordering food, waiting, then waiting and waiting for your check (like what happened to us last week at Chili's on 1604 and Culebra). The other thing I liked was that they had that set-up where the cashier takes your order on a pad, then clips the ticket onto a line and zooms it from the entrance to the grill area. I'm not sure why that entertains me.

So, both my wife and I order up the Guacamole Cheeseburger and we share an order of fries. Another cool thing about this place was that they had flat screen TV's mounted everywhere. I would imagine this place does well during Spurs games. And today, no game to watch, so we enjoyed a good ol' home style spelling bee on ESPN. Since when did spelling become a sport.

Anyway, apparently Babe's may have something to do with Babe Ruth because the tables had enlarged baseball cards to keep you entertained if you had no interest in spelling stuff.

In really no time at all, the grill man yelled out my wife's name and we were ready to dig in. I haven't had a burger in, I don't know, two weeks, and this puppy hit the spot. The bun was fresh and had been toasted on the grill, it was slathered with mayo and the creamiest guacamole, and the fixin's all seemed fresh.

I'm not going to exaggerate and suggest that this is the best burger ever made; it isn't. But it was a damn fine presentation and the atmosphere made lunch comfortable. I would not hesitate to return for lunch, just to try some other the other items on the menu.

Two burgers, an order of fries, one iced tea and a water, and we were out for about $14. Not bad for a tasty treat.

What did you eat for the 4th? Tell me about it.