Saturday, September 28, 2024 — Not a Damn Chance Burger is, according to their website (and the inside of the burger carton), “a Wagyu cheeseburger collaboration between professional skateboarder Neen Williams and Michelin-starred chef Phillip Frankland Lee of Sushi by Scratch Restaurants & Pasta Bar.”
I first caught wind of this Austin-originated smashburger concept a year ago, and made a mental note to check it out during a future Austin visit. But I haven’t been to ATX since then, and so I was excited when I saw that a location of the hyped burger joint had opened in the Lustre Pearl in EaDo. Located literally across the street from Rodeo Goat—which has charmed many a Houston burger lover (including me), though as a Ft. Worth import is also not homegrown (for those that care about such things)—Houston’s NADC is more of an outpost than a restaurant. But that isn’t stopping it from crafting its tasty burger sandwiches.
There’s only one burger on the menu at NADC Houston: The NADC Burger, which consists of two smashed patties of 100% RC Ranch wagyu beef, American cheese, secret sauce, onions, pickles and what they refer to as slightly tamed jalapeños (you can add a third patty, but the upcharge is $8! I am a beef savage, but extra beef for half the cost of the sandwich is too much even for me).
Using Wagyu is the real differentiator here (or at least, making the usage of Wagyu a key part of their marketing 😊), as the beef was very flavorful and tender, and the secret sauce elevated the proceedings. I also dug the Beast Mode Fries, which were slathered in cheese, diced pickles & jalapeños, special sauce & seasoning.
As Houston’s elite burger scene is already extremely crowded with a salivating number of outstanding options, I don’t know that I’d go out of my way to get NADC’s smashburger—and being three feet from Rodeo Goat makes doing so an even trickier proposition—but the burger is distinctive enough to be worthy of your consideration.
If you dropped this concept somewhere in the Greater Houston area that was completely bereft of elite burgers, I think it would do really well. While Katy currently has no shortage of great burger places, I can’t think of any “drop everything and go there” smashburger options at the moment.
Hopefully it lasts—I feel like they probably need to boost their promotion of the concept (and the Lustre Pearl for that matter, which is actually another really rad food hall-ish type space somewhat reminiscent of Conservatory, though with fewer options) considering me, Houston’s most prominent burger lover (note tongue firmly in cheek), only caught wind of the fact that a beloved Austin instituion opened in Houston because it was mentioned offhandedly somewhere in one of my online content hubs.
I would’ve thought a local location for one of ATXs finest would’ve merited a full-court marketing/PR push (and for all I know, they very well may have done this!) leading to cultish lines out the door; when I showed up at opening time on a Friday afternoon there were literally zero other people there.
In fairness, the NADC Insta, Williams’, and Lee’s accounts did all post about its launch on June 21, and perhaps there was a groundswell of support that simply didn’t hit my social ecosystem at that time—but there doesn’t seem to have been an overwhelming amount of online chatter or marketing for the Houston spot in the ensuing three months since it launched.
And I’ve seen no discourse about NADC Houston in any of the multiple Houston Foodie Facebook groups I’m in, which in my experience tends to be the strongest indicator of what locals are excited about / gravitating toward. The Houston outpost also doesn’t have a location on Google, and on Yelp it’s only rated a 4.2.
But maybe that’s the point. The burger definitely didn’t stand a chance against my unslakable hunger for the finest beef concoctions in the land, and perhaps it doesn’t care if Houstonians flock to it or not.
Best Burgers Near Me 