The names Carl.....Carls Jr

Do you like burgers? Natural cut chips? Unlimited drink refills?

Then Carls Jr has you sorted. The American burger chain already has a few stores in Australia but just over a week ago it opened a new store in Mount Barker. I popped in on opening day in the afternoon and the place was booming. It seemed like the whole town had turned out to see what the fuss was about including myself.


Super Star with Cheese

The menu description is two chargrilled 100% beef patties, melted American cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, lettuce, mayo and special sauce on a seeded bun.

There are 26 burgers to choose from including the breakfast ones. It was difficult to make a decision but I felt confident going with this choice despite my dislike of pickles. The burger came out extremely fast and I have to be honest, I wouldn't have minded waiting a little longer so that I could have a fresher burger. Whilst the lettuce was crisp, the tomato juicy and the onion crunchy, my cheese was sadly not melted and the beef patties were dry with almost no flavour. It did feel like they had been sitting around for a while. Since it was opening day I could understand that being swamped meant maybe the quality dropped slightly. I feel I need to give them another chance before making up my mind completely as they do have some other choices which look delicious but so far my experience was a little underwhelming. I did enjoy the natural cut chips and loved that they still had the skin on. Soft with some crispy bits, salty but not overly salted, these were a nice addition to the meal.

Hand breaded chicken tenders and hand breaded onion rings

I choose two sides to have with my meal and onion rings are a guilty pleasure of mine so I had to get some. The onion rings in the menu photos looked quite different to what I received and sadly I was pretty disappointed. The breading to onion ration was skewed in the breading's favour. I could hardly taste the onion and at times I was just eating breading. A good concept that sadly was not executed well. The chicken tenders on the other hand were delicious. Juicy and tender with a light coating these come with a choice of three dipping sauces ranch, honey mustard and BBQ, I chose the honey mustard which was nice although a little overpowering. The tenders are nice enough that you don't really need the sauce anyway.

All in all I had a mixed experience, some parts were good such as the chicken tenders and the self serve drink station but I was let down in the burger and onion ring department. I still think I should give them another chance to impress me as I have heard rave reviews about them from other people so I wont place my final judgement and I do still recommend you give them a try. Hopefully next time I can have the amazing burger experience they are known for.