The Green Room’s Pitch Burger: Classic, simple and satisfying

There are few things as quintessentially American as the cheeseburger. And right now, Kansas City looks like the model for Best All-American City, what with our Royals being the favorite rise-of-the-underdog story this year. It’s fitting, then, that the Pitch Burger at the Green Room is about as straightforward as it gets. 

In honor of our first Burger Week – a bunch of participating restaurants are offering a $5 burger, created just for the occasion – the Green Room has designed us a little slice of nostalgia. The Pitch Burger is a stacked, stout little thing: a double cheeseburger with two quarter-inch-thick patties, sliced pickles, red onions and tomatoes. The Ol’ Yeller sauce that is applied – a Green Room specialty – is essentially a thinned-out version of Thousand Island Dressing, and it is carefully measured. When my burger arrives and I pick it up, a thin line of Ol’ Yeller sauce leaks out onto my hand and drips onto the parchment paper below it. I am a condiment fiend, and before I even taste this burger, I am sorely tempted to ask for another side of the sauce (in case any more of it escapes, obviously). 

I quickly find that I need two hands for this little guy. The Green Room’s patties are so soft and meaty, the potato bun so fresh and delicate, that even my gentle grasp sees the burger sliding and breaking up, pickles and onion pieces free-falling into my french fries ($1 extra, and well worth it, too).

Once I get hold of things, I take stock of the flavors. The beef patties are so juicy, I’m actually surprised. I usually prefer to tell the server what temp I want it prepared at, because I’m a snob, and I will always ask for rare or, occasionally, medium-rare. Thin patties remind me of McDonald’s, and I just can’t, you know?

But the Green Room gets it. They get it, you guys. And the cheese – two slices of American cheese, the kind of thing your mom shoved between two slices of white bread with bologna and threw in a lunchbox for you as a kid – actually works here. It’s gooey, melty and looks so bad for you. And it’s delicious. 

I finish off the burger before I can even think about working on the fries (not my M.O., either, for what it’s worth). The Green Room’s Pitch burger is the kind of thing I would expect from a roadside diner on an abandoned stretch of a highway, dropped off by a rose-cheeked, bedraggled waitress. It’s as classic as a scene like that. 

“How was the burger?” asks one of the Green Room’s servers. I look at him. I kind of shrug. Is my life changed? No. But is my faith in America restored? Yeah, a little bit. “Burger-y?” he asks, interpreting my expression. 

Burger-y, I agree. I look down. Nothing but grease spots remain in my basket. 

The Pitch’s Burger Week ends Sunday, October 26. Check out the list of participating restaurants and deals here.