Wildburger’s Cheeseburger Salad turns dinner in a bowling alley into artful affair

Upscale-burger spots are all over the place these days, and anyone entering an already crowded field would, I think, struggle to stand out from the crowd. Wildburger did it with its Cheeseburger Salad.

Wildburger is the fairly new chainlet introduced by Station Casinos at their Wildfire properties, of which there are Boulder, Rancho and Sunset, and Wildfire Lanes elsewhere on Sunset Road.

What came to mind as I was pondering a visit was the time, a few years ago, when I asked a visiting niece her family's food traditions for New Year's Day. The answer: "Well, we usually go bowling, so ... bad bowling-alley pizza." It was, therefore, the novelty of dinner in a bowling alley that led me to Wildfire Lanes. And it was novelty, again, that led me to the salad ($7.99).

Here's the menu description: "Char-broiled Angus beef patty topped with slices of Tillamook Cheddar served on a bed of iceberg lettuce, tomato, onion and thousand island dressing." Sounds like a bunless burger plopped atop a mediocre salad, right?

Wrong. What was served has been artfully constructed, with pieces of iceberg cupped and curved to resemble top and bottom buns. Points for originality there. But there were many more points for flavor because when the lettuce top was removed, it revealed the juicy, beefy burger (served medium-rare as ordered) perched on a pile of shredded lettuce and diced tomato, cloaked in the dressing. So it was sort of a cross between In-N-Out's protein and animal styles, only a whole lot better.

Wildburger also offers, as you might expect from an upscale-burger place, a make-your-own burger. We went with the half-pound Angus (chicken, turkey and veggie were the other options), on a wheat bun (brioche, sesame and lettuce wrap were the others), with lettuce and tomato, Maytag blue cheese ($1; other choices are American, Tillamook cheddar, provolone, pepperjack, Swiss and Gruyere, which the menu says is white cheddar but that most decidedly is not) and fried onion strings ($1; other choices are numerous).

And it was just as we wanted it to be, with a generous portion of cheese and onions. Our only quibble was that the bun got soggy quickly; if you're ordering less than well-done you might want to go with the brioche, which I would expect to be a little more substantial.

We also tried the wings (8 for $5.99, 12 for $7.99, 15 for $9.99). We chose boneless (bone-in being the other option), and encountered large chunks of white meat, gently fried and cloaked in the sauce of choice, which in our case was honey-mustard, the others ranging from mild to incendiary with various options in between.

Service through out was fine, but there are a couple of things I need to add about Wildburger. One is that you order at the register at the entrance, which is a sort of weird variation on counter service. You get a number for your table and the food is brought out of the kitchen and delivered to you. That was all at the same time in our case, and I guess it would be in every case.

The other is that while there's no smoking inside Wildburger, there's plenty of smoking inside Wildfire Lanes; we kind of felt like we needed a machete to cut through it. I don't know if that's the case at the other Wildfires, but they are all casinos, so be advised if that's a factor for you.

Las Vegas Review-Journal restaurant reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or email her at
hrinella@reviewjournal.com.