Avenue Ashford 1214I am not a world traveler. I love getting away with J for a vacation but the thought of traveling somewhere I don’t speak the language and may not eat the food has never really appealed to me.
J wanted to go someplace warm for our 10th Anniversary. We looked at several Caribbean Islands but the price was always much more than we wanted to spend.
I was browsing the Costco Travel website and saw a link to Puerto Rico. Technically, it’s still in the United States, most people speak English even though Spanish is the primary language of the Island so I’d be able to communicate, and it was fairly cheap since we were looking to travel during peak hurricane season.
We were a little nervous about the weather since Tropical Storm Karen decided to pass right over the Island the day before we were scheduled to fly out. It looked like it wasn’t going to be a huge deal so we didn’t cancel the trip and flew out of Kalamazoo Wednesday morning. A quick layover at O’Hare then a five our trip to San Juan and we were on vacation.
We stayed at the San Juan Marriott Resort and Stellaris Casino. Our travel package included ground transportation from the airport so we headed straight there and checked in.
We knew Wednesday was going to be a pretty laid back day. We go to Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International AirportKalamazoo-Battle Creek International Airport just before 5:00 AM so we were tired. We weren’t super hungry when we got in because J decided to make our anniversary a little extra special and upgraded our seats to First Class.
Neither of us had ever sat in First Class before and now we never want to go back. In addition to wider, more comfortable seats, we actually got breakfast on the plane. It wasn’t anything super special. I selected the Eggs Benedict and J got the Apple Tart. It was a decent breakfast and held us over until we got settled at the hotel.
There were quite a few restaurants within walking distance of our hotel and multiple options to eat at the hotel itself. We wanted to keep it simple on this first day and as we were driving down the narrow street leading to the Marriott, J noticed a burger shop right across the street from our destination.
BUNS Burger Shop a small chain of four restaurants all in Puerto Rico. There are two in San Juan itself. This one in the Condado sub barrio and one in Viejo San Juan. This one in Condado is on the corner of CII Caribe and Ashford Avenue. It’s right next to the Hard Rock Cafe which we were able to avoid our entire trip to Puerto Rico.
The restaurant is set up with counter service right in the kitchen when you walk in. There is a menu on the wall and paper menus on the counter. The small shop has an indoor dining area with a hodge podge of seating. There was a large picnic table on one end, two tops near the order area and window counter seating all along the outside wall.
We put in our order for sandwiches, fries, and beers then grabbed the buzzer and headed outside to sit on the patio. It took less than ten minutes for the buzzer to go off then I went inside and picked it all up, grabbed some napkins, and headed back out to where J was sitting to eat.
They had a large selection of bottled and canned beer. I picked the one that had Puerto Rico right on the label. I figured it was close enough to October so I picked the Oktoberfest from Old Harbor Brewery in nearby Carolina. It was a fine beer and a tasty Oktoberfest. Easy to sip with a burger and fries.
J asked for one of the ciders, but of course, they didn’t have it. We settled with Raspberry from UFO Beer in New England. It wasn’t local but J likes sweeter beers and to me, this one tasted a lot like Rubaeus.
I ordered the Bacon and Cheese Burger then made it a double. The burger is a fairly then, fresh ground beef patty that was really juicy and just fell apart when I bit into it. The cheese melted the layers of beef together with the layer of bacon. It was all put together with a pretty simple white bread bun. The sandwich is wrapped up tight in foil so everything gets really squished together and the steam helps soften the bun and make the cheese even meltier.
J picked the BUNS Chicken Sandwich. The super tender chicken breast came with lettuce, tomato, onion, Swiss cheese, bacon, and BUNS sauce on the same soft white bun the burgers come on. The chicken was quite a bit bigger than the bun and it was slathered in the BUNS sauce which appeared to be a mayo-ketchup combo…we found that was kind of a thing in Puerto Rico. J compared it to Fry Sauce and really liked it. She asked if there was a place to get more so she could dip her fries.
We each got an order of fries. J did the regular while I did the Cajun. The fries were delicious, greasy, golden brown fresh cut fries. J’s were delicious on their own with just the salt that came on them. Mine were even better with a pretty heavy dusting on Cajun spices on top of them.
So…yeah. We go to Puerto Rico and our first meal is a burger shop. That sounds like us.
Our meal only cost us a little over $35 with the two beers.
BUNS Burger Shop would rival any of the big national burger restaurants and it’s easy for me to say, they are actually better than the big national burger chains they compete with.