I’ve gone on a rather large number of backpacking trips in Arizona over the years, and I’ve got a tradition that goes back a surprisingly long time (to the 1980s, in fact). Towards the end of every longer trip, you start to tire of backpacking food, and one of the more frequent trail conversations is food cravings for when we get back to civilization, and inevitably the exact same food item comes up: a cheese burger. Specifically, a green chile cheeseburger. It’s the perfect antidote to several days of trail food. Back in the day, this was usually the saloon at Tortilla Flats, but I haven’t been up that way for a few years (the Arizona Trail was out of commission for several years, which made Tortilla Flats a bit of an out-and-back experience not terribly close to most of the trailheads I use in the Superstitions). For some of the more recent trips, this has been Joe’s Farm Grill (which is getting ripe for a re-visit) or Fate Brewing (which between a logistically-good location, has an awesome Hatch chile lager to enjoy with your burger). So, after wrapping up our week hiking in the Grand Canyon, we decided that we needed cheeseburgers, and I know there was just the place for this in Flagstaff: Diablo Burger.
Diablo Burger is located in Old Town Flagstaff, immediately off of Heritage Square, the central town square that’s been somewhat mall-ified over the years to make an outdoor shopping area. The interior of Diablo burger is tiny: it’s a large central ordering counter/bar, and a single arch of 6 top tables inside, but if the weather is nice (which in Flagstaff is a surprisingly large amount of the time, even in the winter and summer months), they’ve got a very nice outdoor patio with a lot of seating. But the interior is cozy enough that they’ve got to maintain pretty strict traffic flow as well, and they do manage to cycle people through the service line quickly.
After only a short wait in line, I ordered up “The Blake”, Diablo’s version of the classic green chile cheeseburger, with Hatch chile mayo, roasted green chiles, and sharp cheddar. While waiting for my burger, I enjoyed a Tips Up Hazy IPA from local brewer Mother Road Brewing. A tropical hazy IPA brewed in collaboration with Arizona Snowbowl, the local ski area, this was a good hazy IPA with some good, crisp hop and nice fruity citrus notes. The perfect antidote to several days of mostly drinking water out of bladders (although in theory I could have enjoyed a beer at Phantom Ranch), and a great beer in its own right. I’ll have to check out the brewery the next time I’m passing through town.
While waiting for my burger, my hiking buddy Sarah decided, in a particularly bold move, then when asked which dipping sauces she wanted for her basket of fries, went all in and got “all the sauces”. All of them. I lost track of which was which, but there were at least ranch, guacamole, Rising Hy (a local condiment company) Spicy Honey Mustard, sriracha mayo, Hatch chile mayo, DB Special Sauce (Thousand Island), curry mayo, chimichurri, coffee BBQ sauce, and at least one other. So we got to enjoy both some excellent fries (freshly cut, double-fried in fresh clean oil, so a nice crisp and a fluffy exterior, and then dusted with herbes de Provence), and sample all of their sauces, with my favorites being the chimichurri, the coffee BBQ, and the Hatch chile mayo.
And then my burger arrived (with yet more fries, I should have coordinated better, although by this point I was several thousand calories down for the week…). Let’s start off with the bun. An interesting choice made by Diablo Burger is that they don’t use buns, they use nicely-grilled English muffins (from local bakery Breadworks AZ). I’m usually a little bit suspect of this, but in this case, it worked well. The muffin is nicely grilled and crispy around the edges with butter, and gives just enough crunch for the burger. For an added bonus, they offer gluten free alternatives to the English muffin, which was particularly helpful since one of our group maintains a gluten-free diet. Next, the burger itself. The meat itself is top notch, a 95% lean beef blend from the nearby Diablo Trust ranches (a ranching trust almost the size of Phoenix) that give their name to the burger joint, it’s a nice, flavorful beef, done to a perfect medium-rare with a nice sear. I’m usually leaning more towards 80/20 beef for a nice, juicy burger, but the folks at Diablo really know how to grill a burger right without squeezing the juices out, so this worked out perfect. Add in some grilled green chiles, a dab of the same Hatch chile mayo from the fry sauce, and some fresh veggies, and this was exactly the sort of chile cheeseburger I was craving. Indeed, this is definitely on my top 10 burger list.
So, as I’ve often said after these backpacking trips, “after the doing, there is the undoing”, and Diablo Burger was an absolutely perfect choice for getting a perfectly cooked, juicy, and well-dressed chile cheeseburger. I’m definitely coming back when I’m next in Flagstaff.
