Sofa King Juicy Burger, Chattanooga TN

Barbecue in the Chattanooga area might be letting me down, but this city has no shortage of great places to get a burger. A new favorite is one we’ve heard about for years.

Sofa King Juicy Burger wasn’t actually on my immediate to-do list – or even the “you’ve been here four months, maybe you should get around to eating here” list – but one day before I had an early afternoon shift, I decided to treat myself to lunch at the Mojo Burrito on Dayton, only to find it so packed there was no place to park. But right across the road, I could pull in for a burger and a milkshake.

Greg Beairsto, Jeff Brakebill and Tim Kelly, who own Aretha Frankenstein’s as well as a pizza place called Crust which we’ve since visited and will tell you about soon, opened this place at the end of 2012. There was a brief flurry of publicity after a pearl-clutching reporter for the local birdcage liner penned a – literally – “won’t somebody think about the children” story about the restaurant’s cheeky name (no link, because it isn’t worth the traffic) and it got picked up by the Huffington Post. Thousands of dollars’ worth of free publicity turned into a disagreeable level of hype, leading to some pretty disappointed diners. Chattaburger’s story, linked below, is impressively harsh.

Nevertheless, I was certainly aware of the restaurant since it spent most of 2013 atop Urbanspoon Chattanooga’s old Talk of the Town feature, but we never did make it by. Shame. We missed out on some really good mid-priced burgers.

I was really pleased with my lunch, and enjoyed the flavor of the juicy burger a lot. For Atlantans, this is comparable to Yeah! Burger. They run about six bucks here and are very good value for the money. The milkshakes are pretty pricy – they use that liquid nitrogen so beloved by Richard Blais that imparts no discernible difference in the flavor but adds a buck to the cost – but I was in a really good mood that day and felt like splurging.

About a week later, the three of us came back for a late dinner after enjoying “Boo at the Zoo” and Marie was really pleased to see that they have peanut butter as a topping option. This is one of her favorite ways to dress a burger and she absolutely loved it. Our son also said that his was great, although he was a little unhappy about the lack of seating that forced us to use the hightop table.

We shared fries and onion rings – they use the famous Aretha Frankenstein pancake batter and are certainly among the best rings in town – and had a really great meal for under thirty bucks. This is definitely among my favorite burger options in town and we came back for a third visit a few weeks later. I’m sure more trips are in the future.

Sofa King Juicy Burger
1743 Dayton Blvd
Chattanooga, TN 3740

Other blog posts about Sofa King Juicy Burger:

Date Night Dining at Nooga.com (Apr. 4 2013)
Chattaburger (Apr. 11 2013)
Chattavore (June 2 2013)
A Southern Celiac (May 8 2014)

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