Hat Creek Burger Company is rooted in Texas tradition, headquartered in Austin and now numbering 26 locations across the state. So when it came to developing a new limited time offer, CEO Drew Gressett thought, “Why not merge our better burgers with Texas barbecue?”
In Texas, barbecue means brisket, and the team at Hat Creek loved the idea but figured it would be too tough to execute authentic smoked brisket in a fast casual burger restaurant.
“We asked ourselves how we could simplify this operation,” said Gressett, “and at first we thought we could use barbecue sauce to get the flavor profile we wanted. But one of our team members had met the Terry Black’s folks at a food show and we contacted them.” Food lovers travel from near and far for Terry Black’s barbecue brisket. “We’re two locally based, Texas-born companies and we collaborated to make it work,” he added.
Brainstorming the build
The Pitmaster Stack is the result of this collaboration between the two Lone Star icons. “We brainstormed before we even set foot in the kitchen,” said Gressett. “We wanted the build to be simple and not detract from our burger or Terry Black’s famous brisket.”
Like every burger at Hat Creek, the Pitmaster Stack starts with fresh beef sourced from Nolan Ryan Beef Cattle Company, a local producer started by the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher. For this menu item, a double patty forms the base, adding up to a half pound of high-quality, natural beef.
The slow-smoked brisket comes in cooked and chopped, then it’s re-chopped as it heats on the grill. The meat is then tossed with Terry Black’s signature sweet-and-tangy barbecue sauce at each Hat Creek location, and a 3-ounce scoop is piled on the grilled burgers. Cheddar cheese and pickles are added on top and the burger is served on a Martin’s Potato Roll.
Gressett and the Hat Creek team were satisfied with the result, but when the Terry Black’s team tasted the burger, they thought it was missing some crunch. So it was back to the Hat Creek kitchens.
First, the culinary team tested the burger with crisp bacon as a topper, but that didn’t hit the mark. And lettuce and tomato would make the build too big and messy and detract from the barbecue flavor. They then came up with the idea of fried onion rings. These weren’t on the menu, so Hat Creek had to create their own from scratch. The onion slices are coated with a gluten-free batter and fried in beef tallow. Layered with the burger and barbecue, the fried onion rings completed the build.
“When we brought the new version back to the Terry Black’s team, they said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s the crunch.’ And the Pitmaster Stack was born. It was so great to share ideas with other high-caliber operators,” Gressett recalls.
Hat Creek's gluten-free battered onion rings. | Photo courtesy of Hat Creek Burger
The onion rings were developed especially for this LTO but are now on Hat Creek’s permanent menu. The team hit a bit of a speed bump during the cooking process and had to figure out how to surmount it. “We used a camera to discover the bottleneck and asked our longest-term fry cooks how they would break down the process to make it faster,” said Gressett. Getting their buy-in helped solve the problem, he added.
“We fry everything with gluten-free batter — our fried pickles, chicken nuggets and now the onion rings,” Gressett said. “We’re food-allergy friendly, and even though we don’t advertise it, word has gotten out through social media to families looking for that option.” And beef tallow has long been the preferred frying medium at the chain.
The Pitmaster Stack sells for $11.49, a good value for a meaty sandwich in these days of sky-high beef costs. “When we rolled this out we weren’t necessarily looking to grow the bottom line or top line sales; it was more about the partnership with Terry Black’s and staying branded locally,” said Gressett.
Texas-sized hospitality and fans
Terry Black’s has a massive following on social media, he added, and Hat Creek partnered with local influencers as well.
The collaboration bolstered traffic. “Customers came in saying ‘I love Terry Black’s and I love Hat Creek,’ and people wanted to try the LTO and support local brands,” said Gressett. “We’re picking up some really positive feedback on it.”
Hat Creek Burger’s culture is all about delivering home-based hospitality and staying true to its roots. Gressett does face-to-face interviews with every applicant for positions for assistant manager and above — unusual for a CEO — and directors interview all the cashiers.
“It’s not what we sell, it’s how we sell it, and we pride ourselves on that belief,” he said.
Secret shoppers are employed to keep standards elevated, he added.
The restaurants are family-friendly, with playscapes that encourage customers to stay for an hour or more — not true for every fast casual. Plus beer and wine are available for mom and dad.
What’s next
The Pitmaster Stack runs through June, and dirty sodas are on the summer LTO schedule.
“I had to ask ‘what’s that?’ I had to get educated,” said Gressett of the dirty sodas. The team brought some samples over and he realized it was “the coolest thing and mind-blowing how easy it was to create them. When you launch LTOs, you want to keep them easy to execute so you don't screw up operations,” he said.
The six dirty sodas are based on either Fanta or Coca-Cola, and Gressett is “super-excited” about the launch in early July.