8 Atlanta burger pop-ups you can’t miss as summer approaches
Each week, Punk Foodie highlights Atlanta pop-ups worth catching before they disappear, helping readers find the city’s most interesting chef-driven dining concepts, food trucks, supper clubs and limited-time food events.
This week, we’re changing things up by focusing on burger pop-ups. While Atlanta Burger Week may be over, we still have plenty of burgers to look forward to with Memorial Day coming up, followed by National Burger Day on May 28.
Some of the city’s most compelling burgers are coming from small-batch pop-ups run by wonderfully obsessed burger nerds chasing perfection.
These are chefs who spend months, sometimes years, refining details like beef blends, onion thickness, bun sourcing, smash technique, sauce ratios and cheese placement. They experiment with smoked brisket trimmings, building burgers around Haitian fried plantains or Japanese shio koji fermentation.
In many ways, burger pop-ups are the purest expression of what makes pop-up culture compelling in the first place: Direct access to a creator’s passions in real time as they work on their craft, just as revered Atlanta burger institutions NFA Burger and Smiley’s Burger Club did when they were fledgling pop-ups.
Dipping burgers from Burtgers
Who: Burtgers Food Truck (@burtgers.food.truck) from Robert Bounnakhom.
When/Where: Friday, May 22, 3-9 p.m. Truck and Tap Duluth (@truckandtapduluth). 3137 Main St., Duluth. Saturday, May 23, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Buford Farmers Market at the Buford Youth Community Center. 171 Bona Road, Buford. Sunday, May 24, 1:30-9 p.m. Muscle City Barbell (@musclecitybarbell). 2350 Beaver Ruin Road, Norcross.
Why Go: Bounnakhom’s Burtgers specializes in an unapologetically over-the-top smashburger with a decadent cheese bath for dipping. To finish it off, you can dunk the cheese-covered burger bite into a coating of bacon or chip crumbs (including Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Takis and Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese Doritos) for an extra layer of crunch. Bounnakhom offers a wide lineup of housemade sauces for the burgers, including the creamy truffle Parmesan ruff n’ truff, the moose’s original secret sauce, the habanero-laced hot-Burt-nero, the fresh lightly lemon and the sweet and spicy tango mango.
Angus smashburgers in Lawrenceville from Dr. Smash Burgers
Who: Dr. Smash Burgers (@dr.smash_burgers) from Jef Cruz.
When/Where: Saturday, May 23, 3-9 p.m. Slow Pour Brewing Company (@slowpourbrewing). 407 N. Clayton St., Lawrenceville.
Why go: After researching burgers from Georgia to Boston, Cruz spent months refining the process and recipe behind his smashburgers, which include grinding his own blend of Angus beef in-house and smashing every burger fresh to order. He says the star burger is the OG double burger made with two Angus beef patties, American cheese, seasoned sauteed onions, Dr. Smash seasoning and his homemade BBL sauce on a soft potato bun. The burger is simple, juicy and crispy on the edges.
Shio koji-seasoned burgers from Dank’s Deli
Who: Dank’s Deli (@danks_deli_atl) from Henryk Kumar.
When/Where: Sundays, 8 a.m.-noon. Poco Loco Neighborhood Provisions (@pocolocoatl). 2233 College Ave. NE, Decatur.
Why Go: Kumar goes out of his way to use local Atlanta ingredients and his own sauces and condiments for creative takes on classic sandwiches and burgers. The burger you can get every Sunday is the shio koji patty melt: beef seasoned with shio koji (a traditional Japanese seasoning made from fermented rice, salt and water) and finished with deluxe American cheese, caramelized red onions, Dank sauce on buttered Leftie Lee’s milk bread, with a side of A & H pickles from the company Kumar co-founded. Keep an eye out for the burger made with housemade Coca-Cola jelly, Pine Street Market bacon, fried shallots and Dank sauce.
Burgers from a single steer at Evergreen Butcher and Baker
Who: Evergreen Butcher and Baker (@evergreenbutcherandbaker) from Emma and Sean Schacke.
When/Where: Sundays, 1 p.m. until sold out. Evergreen Butcher + Baker. 2011 Hosea L Williams Drive NE, Kirkwood.
Why Go: Evergreen Butcher and Baker is a whole-animal butcher shop that uses the beef trimmings from the lone steer it processes every week to create its highly sought-after burgers. The burger features two thick patties, grilled onions, housemade pickles, garlic aioli and American cheese on a housemade, long-fermented sesame bun. The Sunday burgers are so popular that they have attracted scalpers, leading the business to limit orders to one per customer. Evergreen makes 175 burgers each Sunday, and if its cheeseburger flag is flying out front, that means it hasn’t sold out. Get there early, as the lines can be long.
Haitian-inspired smashburgers from Frekan Kwizin
Who: Frekan Kwizin (@frekanatl) from Emerson Belizaire.
When/Where: Sunday, May 24, 5 p.m.-midnight. iLounge (@ilounge_taste). 40 Dodd St. SE, Marietta. Thursday, May 28, 5 p.m.-midnight. Block and Drum (@blockanddrum). 5105 Peachtree Blvd., Chamblee.
Why Go: Belizaire blends Haitian cuisine with modern comfort food. His burger offering is the rude stack, a Haitian-inspired smashburger layered with crispy-edged beef patties, a crispy cheese skirt, pickles and a housemade rude sauce. Instead of a traditional bun, Frekan Kwizin uses savory, tostone-style fried plantains to give the burger its signature identity, adding sweetness and texture.
Smoked brisket burgers from Misfitsss BBQ
Who: Misfitsss BBQ (@misfitsssbbq) from Bryan Hull and Tyler Heath.
When/Where: Thursday, May 28, 5-9 p.m. Bellwood Coffee Riverside (@bellwoodcoffee). 2011 Bolton Road NW, Riverside.
Why Go: Misfitsss BBQ is an Atlanta-inspired craft barbecue pop-up that, if you’re lucky, will also serve a smoked burger inspired by the famous smoked brisket burger from LeRoy and Lewis in Austin, Texas. To craft the burger, the team coarsely grinds — twice — the leftover pieces of meat and fat trimmed from either a brisket or shoulder clod, then forms 8-ounce-thick patties, which are rolled in a housemade all-purpose rub and 16-mesh pepper and smoked for two hours. After chilling overnight, the patties are seared on a flattop to medium-rare for a crispy, peppery crust and smoky, juicy interior. The burger is finished with American cheese, housemade bread-and-butter pickles and a special sauce.
While Misfitsss BBQ maintains a regular Saturday residency at Round Trip Brewing in Underwood Hills, the smoked burgers are only available during their bweekly Thursday dinner service at Bellwood Coffee.
Antismash old-fashioned burgers from Thicc Burger
Who: Thicc Burger (@thiccburgers) from Jay Wolfe.
When/Where: Thursdays beginning May 28, 6-10 p.m. Mouthfeel Studios (@mouthfeelsupperclub). 222 Peters St., Castleberry Hill.
Why Go: Wolfe is the founder of Thicc Burger, a concept they launched in their hometown of Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic before bringing their pop-ups to Atlanta. Bucking the trend in burgers, Wolfe says they are staunchly antismash and very pro-thick, an approach that helped put Thicc Burger on the L.A. Times’ 30 Most Iconic Burgers list.
The star of the menu is the OG Thicc burger, which is inspired in part by the burgers at Ann’s Snack Bar on Memorial Drive. The burger features a 4-ounce, handpressed patty made from a house-ground beef blend of brisket, short rib and chuck and is placed on a weight-bearing Holeman and Finch bun from Engelman’s Bakery.
Oklahoma-style onion burgers from Sad Boy Burger Shop
Who: Sad Boy Burger Shop (@sadboyburgershop) from Shain and Katharine Wancio.
When/Where: Fridays beginning May 29, 5 p.m., until sold out. Stout Brothers Smyrna (@smyrnastoutbrothers), 1265 W. Spring St., Smyrna. Sunday, May 31, 5 p.m. until sold out. Green Beans (@greenbeansatl), 760 United Ave., Grant Park. Sunday, June 7, 14 and 21, 1 p.m. until sold out. Proper Hop Taphouse (@properhoproswell), 587 Atlanta St., Roswell.
Why Go: Sad Boy Burger Shop is a pop-up that specializes in Oklahoma onion burgers. The duo keeps their offerings intentionally simple with a hyperfocused menu that serves just three burgers and bagged chips.
To build its signature burger, the team uses a 70/30 beef blend that can be cooked without added fats or oils. The team smashes Vidalia onions directly into the beef to make the patties superthin, then top them with brown mustard, American cheese and pickles. The creation is served on a steamed Big Marty’s sesame seed bun, a choice the founders declare is the best burger bun in the world.
On our radar
- May 23: The largest Chaand Raat festival in the Atlanta area will be held in Norcross, with over 50 food vendors scheduled to participate (see the festival’s Instagram for posts about the individual vendors).
- May 23: Smorgasburg celebrates Asian American and Pacific Islander Month with an East Meets West Night Market in South Downtown.
- May 23: Keenan’s Pit BBQ and Springfield BBQ Co. collaborate at Variant Brewing Company in Roswell.
- May 24: Chef Rodney Smith takes his 1619 dinner series to Dennisur Farm in Powder Springs.
- May 26: Chef Hong Vu hosts Heritage Dinner at Ruby Chow’s in Old Fourth Ward, exploring her Vietnamese and Chinese heritage.
- May 27: Chef Michael Condon hosts a three-course dinner with curated wine pairings at the Reading Room in Decatur.
- May 30: Dank’s Deli collab with Soupbelly at Leftie Lee’s
- June 1: Mighty Hans and Concept Luna are collaborating for a prix-fixe dinner at Tio Luchos in Poncey-Highland.
Note: By their very nature, pop-ups are fluid and subject to the whims of weather. For the latest schedule and information, consult the pop-ups’ Instagram feeds.
About the Author
The Punk Foodie project from Sam Flemming covers Atlanta’s independent chef scene with a focus on the city’s growing world of pop-ups, residencies, and chef-driven dining events. He covers the entrepreneurs and immigrant foodways helping redefine Southern food today. Email sam@punkfoodie.com.
