Twenty hungry guests, one last-minute phone call, and Press Burger to the rescue

Photo via press burger — Photo via Press Burger

There are certain moments in life when you discover who your real friends are. Moving day is one. A dead car battery at 11 p.m. is another. And then there’s the moment when you realize you’re hosting 20 people and your food plan is somewhere between “not entirely figured out” and “we may have a problem.” That was me. I’ve hosted enough gatherings over the years to know that feeding a crowd isn’t particularly difficult when you plan ahead. You make some calls, place an order, count heads, make lists, and pretend you have everything under control. But the 11th hour is an entirely different animal. Twenty people are coming. Twenty people are going to be hungry. And unless you plan on distracting them with cocktails until they forget dinner was supposed to happen, you need a solution. Fortunately, Wilton has Press Burger. And Press Burger came through.

Not in the “sure, we can probably throw something together” sort of way. They came through in the way every slightly panicked host dreams a restaurant will come through: completely. The assignment was simple enough. Feed 20 people, on very short notice, with food they would actually want to eat. Press Burger put together platters loaded with burgers, chicken sandwiches, and French fries. It was exactly the sort of food that works at a gathering because nobody needs an explanation. There’s no mysterious ingredient requiring a 10-minute conversation. No one needs to Google the menu. You see a great burger, you take the great burger. And these were great burgers. The chicken sandwiches were every bit as popular, and the French fries began disappearing almost immediately, which is generally the most reliable form of restaurant criticism I know. Nobody politely eats three French fries. If they’re good, people keep going back until suddenly there are no French fries. And suddenly, there were no French fries.

Then there was the banana pudding. Twenty servings of banana pudding. Was this strictly necessary? Probably not. Was it absolutely the right decision? Without question. There is something wonderfully old-school and indulgent about finishing a table full of burgers, chicken sandwiches, and fries with banana pudding. By the end of the night, people who had already declared themselves “completely stuffed” somehow discovered previously unknown storage capacity. Funny how that works. But here’s where Press Burger really won me over: they thought beyond the food. They included the plates. They included the napkins. They included the utensils. They sent along a selection of sauces broad enough to satisfy the traditionalists, the adventurous, and those people who apparently believe every individual bite of food requires its own condiment. In other words, they understood the assignment. And if you’ve ever hosted 20 people, you know how much those little details matter. Nobody remembers the napkins when there are napkins. Everybody remembers the napkins when there aren’t.

That attention to detail transformed Press Burger from simply being the place that provided dinner into something much more valuable. They became part of making the event work. And that, to me, is where this becomes more than a review of a good burger. We have plenty of ways to judge restaurants. We talk about ingredients, portions, atmosphere, presentation, service, and whether the fries achieved the proper ratio of crispy exterior to fluffy interior. All of that matters. But there is another measure of a restaurant that doesn’t always make it into a review: What happens when you actually need them? What happens when you call late in the game, with a crowd to feed and very little margin for error? Do they make your problem feel like a problem? Or do they simply say, in one form or another, “We’ve got you.” Press Burger had us. There was no drama. No complicated process. No sense that I was asking them to solve an international diplomatic crisis because I needed dinner for 20 people on short notice. They simply figured it out.

And because they figured it out, I got to do what every host actually wants to do at his own event: enjoy it. That may be the greatest compliment I can give them. A successful party is rarely the result of one big thing going right. It’s a hundred little things going right at roughly the same time. The drinks are cold. The food is good. People are laughing. Nobody is looking at their watch. Someone goes back for another burger. Someone else discovers there’s still banana pudding. And somewhere along the way, the evening develops a life of its own and you realize you can finally stop worrying about it. That’s what happened here. Twenty people came together. We ate. We drank. We laughed. People went back for seconds. And what had threatened to become the most stressful part of the evening became one of the easiest. Much of the credit for that belongs to Press Burger.

There’s also something worth saying about local businesses in moments like this. It’s easy to talk about “supporting local” as though it’s some charitable obligation we perform because we’re good members of the community. But the relationship works both ways. Sometimes local businesses support us. Sometimes they’re the ones answering the phone when you need something. Sometimes they’re the ones figuring out how to make it work. And sometimes, apparently, they show up at the 11th hour with platters of burgers and chicken sandwiches, enough fries to keep 20 people happy, banana pudding for an army, and every plate, fork, napkin, and sauce you forgot you were going to need. Press Burger did exactly that. So yes, go there for the burgers. Absolutely try the chicken. Order the fries, and whatever you do, don’t overlook the banana pudding. But if you’re throwing a party, hosting an event, or suddenly find yourself staring down a crowd of hungry people with considerably less planning than you’d care to admit publicly, it’s worth knowing something else about Press Burger: they’re the kind of place that comes through. And sometimes, especially at the 11th hour, that’s the best thing you can possibly say about a restaurant.

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Twenty hungry guests, one last-minute phone call, and Press Burger to the rescue