Major’s Burgers

It’s always a pleasant surprise when ordering at a burger place and the cashier asks, “Do you want regular fries with that?”

Because what she’s really saying is, “We have something more awesome than regular fries that you can have.”

At Major’s restaurants in Yakima, that means you can upgrade your potatoes to beer-battered, or forgo them all together for onion rings or sweet potato fries for 99 cents more.

Upgrading those fries is saying something, because Major’s regular fries are already pretty good — crispy outsides, warm insides and perfectly seasoned.

As good as the regular fries are, the beer-battered variety are what every potato aspires to. Covered in flavorful batter and deep-fried to perfection, the fries are a meal in themselves.

If you’re up for it, you can also get seasonal asparagus, beer-battered and fried.

Since I love them so much, I actually stuck with the regular fries during a recent trip to Major’s on Lincoln Avenue. The locally owned burger joint also has a location on South Third Avenue.

It’s a typical burger place with a baseball theme and clean, ’50s diner-style seating. The menu may not look that much different than any of the chain shops, but the quality surpasses them. The burgers are enormous and smothered with grilled onions. I recently had a cod basket, and the three fish filets were well-seasoned and perfectly grilled. The fear of ordering fish baskets is that you often get ones with fish pieces that are still uncooked in the middle, but Major’s managed to cook each piece through without burning the breading.

And if you’re looking for sweets, they have hard and soft-serve ice cream and milkshakes, including huckleberry ice cream, my absolute die-hard favorite.

Of course, that’s all assuming you don’t just gorge yourself on the fries.

– Savannah Tranchell

Major’s Burgers

Locations: 1705 W. Lincoln Ave. in Yakima; 1902 S. Third Ave. in Union Gap.

Hours: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays. (Yes, breakfast is served.)

Phone: 509-225-6444 or 509-225-1475.

Prices: Typical for a burger joint. A fish basket is just under $10, cheeseburger combo with fries and a medium drink is $9.49.