On the way home from 24 Hour Fitness in Walnut Creek today, I noticed activity in The Counter.

The Counter – Custom Built Burgers – is located in the new Mercer building at California and Trinity in Walnut Creek, CA. I had the thought as I passed by that maybe I would go down there for a burger later.

As it happened, Jane was at a funeral in Sacramento and went by the Squeezed Inn to check it out. We had seen the Squeezed Inn Featured on Diners, Dives and Drive-Ins with wild man Guy Fieri and had talked about driving up there to sample their “heart attack burger,” a flat grill burger with an abundance of melted cheddar on it.

So Jane brings me a burger from Sacramento, but no fries. What’s a burger without fries. An hour later, off we go to The Counter for some fries.

As it turned out, The Counter was invitation only, the grand opening is on Monday, June 23^rd. Somehow we manged to convince the staff at The  Counter that we were solid Walnut Creek citizens and hamburger addicts – so they let us in.

This was the last night for training the staff before opening. It was hectic and all proceeds were going to charity. So, what am I going to do – order fries and a coke? No, we ordered a hamburger bowl, fries, a diet coke and a glass of wine.

The Food is great! Here you see our hamburger bowl – a bed of romaine lettuce, a 2/3 pound medium, very juicy broiled burger, with blue cheese, sauteed onions and mushrooms with a peppercorn sauce. Very tasty!

The Counter gives you a form with about 128 choices of ingredients to build yourself a custom burger.

Andrew, seen above on the right behind the counter, waited on us. We told him and Rick Betance, Director of Operations, (right) that we were going to do our part to make the world aware of the gourmet burgers available in Walnut Creek by plastering their name all over the Internet – my next stop is Yelp.

My next weekly burger with my buddy Greg Beck of Balloonman fame will be at The Counter. See you there.