First Look: Doinks Burger Joint, Opening Friday, July 28 in Waterloo

Doinks Burger Joint opens Friday, July 28 in Waterloo Credit: Bonn Rassavong

At 4 p.m. Friday, July 28, the brown craft paper will get stripped from the windows, the front door will swing open, and the first official Doinks Burger Joint (15519 Waterloo Rd.) burgers will hit the hot griddle. It will have been about three and a half years since the first Doinks smash burger landed on the griddle in owner Bonn Rassavong’s garage, when he and partner Peter Brown collectively mused, “What the heck, let’s start a burger pop-up.”

“We were both sitting and thinking that we had to do something to keep paying our bills and we decided to start selling burgers and fries out of my garage on 185th,” says Rassavong. “We sold out every weekend for months straight.”

For the past seven months, Rassavong and Brown have been converting a long-vacant storefront a few spots down from Six Shooter Coffee, also owned by Brown, into a burger bar with a modern diner feel. The 1,200-square-foot, 25-seat restaurant features a long bar, some booth seating and a communal table.

At the far end of the space is the open kitchen, which has a counter and a few stools for diners eager to watch and chat.

“We like to keep it super-open because it kind of mimics what we’ve been doing at our pop-ups,” says Rassavong.

The menu is a straightforward mix of burgers, sides, drinks and one dessert. Guests order and pay at the bar and grab a seat. The food can be enjoyed inside or out on the back patio.

The original Doinks burger is a double smash cheeseburger with shredded lettuce, pickles, sauteed onions and special sauce on a Stone Oven brioche bun. Other burgers include a kimchi burger and a banh mi burger topped with pickled veggies, jalapenos, fresh herbs and spicy sauce. Doinks uses an 80/20 blend of Certfied Angus Beef for its 2.5-ounce patties.

Sides include french fries, onion rings, kimchi fries, kimchi mac and cheese, wedge salad and Thai-style spicy pickle salad. For dessert there’s ube cheesecake.

To drink, there are four housemade hard seltzers on tap in flavors like Margarita, Penicillin and Transfusion plus a few beers and basic cocktails.

Rassavong says that the buzz surrounding the opening has been steadily increasing with each passing month.

“I can’t walk down the street without having three, four people asking me when we’re opening or to tell me that they’ve eaten the burgers before – and not just here, but randomly around the city,” he says.

Doinks Burger Joint will be dinner only Tuesday through Saturday.

More photos below: