The
East Texas Burger Company has spent decades practicing the fine art of cooking great hamburgers. It’s one of downtown
Mineola’s oldest and most popular feedbags. Expect crowds and a line if you go during meal times.
While burgers are their business, they have a fairly extensive menu of standard American fare and southern favorites.
The decor is typical of a small town Mom & Pop burger shack with one exception. Patrons are encouraged to doodle, scribble or proselytize on their napkins which end up thumb tacked along the walls. This custom wallpaper includes jokes, cartoons, non sequiturs and even political commentary.
Orders are placed and paid for at a counter in the back and patrons can fill up their drinks and pick their table while they wait. Our wait was not very long at all and when our food arrived our feast began. I went with that day's "Special" which was an East Texas version of brunch.
Most people, when they think of brunch, think of a
little bit of breakfast combined with a
little bit of lunch to create a new, light meal for late risers who enjoy leisurely grazing. The “Sunrise Special” takes
all of breakfast and
all of lunch and combines them into an action packed wrestling match of a meal.
By adding bacon, eggs and hash browns to their signature burger they succeeded in creating a stomach expanding colossus that more than makes up for two meals. The bacon is cooked well without being too greasy or too crispy. The addition of fresh fruit may not seem to fit the theme but they work well as a palette cleanser between great big ol' bites. All in all, both the patty and the egg could have benefited from a little less cooking but that may just be personal taste.
So with sufficient street cred in ambiance, history and especially food, the East Texas Burger Company should be your first choice for a meal in Mineola. I still need to go back to try the pie.
