Retro Burger & Dinner

The restaurant & setting. We're in Prešov, right by the railway and bus station, where an American 1950s-style diner called Retro Burger & Dinner is in business. On the way Martin reminds himself what a diner actually is: simple food, burgers you grab through a window or eat in your car. The restaurant was closed for two years and the owners reopened it only a few months ago. He senses the first problem while still looking for the place, he circles the station for the third time because the restaurant simply can't be seen: "I'll find it, I'm already circling here for the third time."

The people. The place is run by owner Eva together with her partner David, with whom she was a couple even before the business. Eva once worked at Retro and when she heard it was for sale she bought it as her labour of love. David fell for the American concept back in his university days, when he used to visit similar diners in America. The kitchen is held up by a single cook, Daniel, originally from Moscow, with help from Mirko (Miroslav), a Ukrainian who has been in Slovakia for eight years. Two young waitresses, Míša and Viki, work the floor. Both Eva and David have children and took out a loan for the place.

Why they called Martin. The restaurant has a great location by the station, but people only pass by, grab a coffee while waiting for a train, and leave. The place is in the red every day, losing around three thousand euros a month, the owners are already draining their personal accounts, and Eva has spent over five thousand in three months. An electricity bill for 1388 euros has just arrived. "We really didn't reckon it would come to this," Eva admits, firmly believing Martin will come and save it.

The first visit. Martin orders across the menu and the disaster doesn't keep him waiting. The broth is watery, the celery cubes hard as stone, "I almost broke a tooth," the overall flavour zero points. The steak comes with half rice and half fries, a salad smothered under hot meat, and a lukewarm sauce, while the rice is hard and undercooked. The penne in cheese sauce is overcooked "al demente," and Daniel even used up expensive gorgonzola meant for the burgers in it. Almost everything is a ready-made product and salt is missing everywhere. On the venison burger he praises only the meat; the rest is weak. He's most let down by a ready-made chicken burger for eight euros: "And you charge 8 euros for it." When he asks Daniel whether the rice is cooked, the cook insists to camera that it is.

The diagnosis. Martin names the root of the problem and immediately runs into an explosive pair. Daniel won't own his food, blaming the ingredients, the money and the fact that he's a foreigner, and Martin tells him plainly that he judges only the food, not the origin: "Even if you were from Mars, I couldn't care less." A row over unpaid shopping and lies about the rice escalates, and Eva fires her only cook on the spot. Martin sees this as rash, since she's left with an empty kitchen before a crucial evening. Eva is completely broken, and Martin admits he's never had such a tense, "time-bomb" situation.

The reset. Martin visits the competition and buys three Prešov burgers, then compares them with the team against their own. Their burger comes second, just behind the competitor's, which he takes as good news, but he wants it improved. He teaches them to ask the customer how they want the meat done, and cooks a burger "on his knee" from their own ingredients in front of them. He also breathes new hope into them: the girls throw themselves into drinks, photos and social media, and Eva finally smiles. Martin lends the owners money to order ingredients and they promise to repay him from the evening's takings.

New concept & menu. Martin shifts the identity from an ordinary burger joint to a full-fledged American diner, where you get a complete meal from soup to dessert. He replaces the faded billboards and lights up the sign so the place can be seen from the road, and buys a new set of plates and take-away boxes. To the menu he adds a corn cream soup with braised ham, pancakes with bacon, egg and maple syrup, a proper sandwich, a new burger with onion marmalade, brisket with mashed potato and cornbread, apple pie and brownie for dessert, and a build-your-own mini-burger platter for families with kids.

The big night. The gala draws the most people they've ever had, but under stress one thing goes wrong, the burger meat is extremely oversalted. Martin stops the service for a moment, "Stop. Stop.", has half the meat removed and fresh meat mixed in. Some guests leave angry in the meantime, fed up with waiting too long, and Eva goes to apologise to them in person. Martin calms them and praises the owners for rolling up their sleeves themselves after firing the cook. They hold the evening together in the end, the takings are 1197 euros, and Martin leaves the money in the business until his return.

One month later. A month on, Martin returns to Prešov full of expectation and is pleased right away that the place can finally be seen from the road. The owners have adjusted their opening hours, expanded the menu with their own dressings, meat and pancakes with jam, and they work well together, though the place is still only slowly picking up. The soup is well balanced in flavour but, in Martin's view, a touch under-blended; the pancakes are fluffy, and the burger is completely different from the first time, juicy, not oversalted and with no stones in the teeth. The apple pie wins him over entirely: "I don't know when I last ate such a good apple pie."

Verdict: 3 knives. Martin arrives with his heart in his mouth, but the place convinces him, and so he rates Retro Burger & Dinner 3 knives. There's still work to do, but the transformation from oversalted chaos to a working diner with an excellent pie is enough for a good score: "You deserve those three knives." Three is great, he says, still better than two or nothing, and he shamelessly asks for a slice of the pie to take home.