House O’ Shamrocks: Lucky you.

If you haven’t noticed from my past posts, myself and other members of the Motor City Burger Club are big fans of local dive bars. They have loads of personality, they give you a real taste of what a community is like, and they tend to hide in plain sight with great deals and food. So a suggestion by our Hazel Parker Sala for a trip to House O Shamrocks was welcome. Hazel Park is a working class town, with the Hazel Park Raceway and long stretch of John R with family owned businesses. We stopped here for burgers before at Brayz burgers, a bastion of working class food, and HoS serves the same crowd, but with beer.

While HoS doesn’t quite hit all the marks of a dive – it fits somewhere in between dive and sports bar, and it is kept pretty clean, compared to Hamtramck dives like The Painted Lady and Whiskey in the Jar – all the other marks are there. Locals sitting and drinking, probably too long. Bartenders that know the menu back and forth and spend their time chatting with the barflies. Plenty of weird drink specials and a few craft beers mixed in. HoS is a lot like one of our favorites, Motor City Sports Bar, and the similarities comforted me.

We had a small group, which makes for a much more leisurely burger experience than we are used to – however, the service was still superlative. our bartender went way out of his way to make sure we had everything we needed, bringing us all our food, being patient with our out-of-town questions, and being overall extra nice. That sure wasn’t a dive bar attitude, and it makes a huge difference in perception of quality. While our club comes for the burgers, the burgers don’t mean anything if the service is garbage (see Miller’s for more info).

Their drink list is impressive – instead of only the bud lite and miller lite you might expect, they also have a selection of craft beers on tap and in bottles. Most of them were Michigan local at the time, and inclusion of beers from the nearby Dragonmead and Kuhnhenn breweries were a welcome sight. Kuhnhenn’s DRIPA is always something delicious to look out for, and I was happy to have one with my meal. The prices were good too – between $3-6 per pint depending on the beer.

Their menu is pretty simple – but as you can see below, the burgers are unequivocally king here. Displayed like catholic saints, the quadrumvirate of the Shamrock Burger, the Megatron Burger, the Mighty Quinn, and Ol’ Blue cover most of one side of the menu. And although the photos they chose might be questionable, they are immediately tempting – and you might not notice the regular burger options above them. Sides are available with the burgers – but there is also an extensive appetizer section if you are looking for some deep fried snacks. They include “pepper cheese cubes” on the menu, and you can get 20 of them for $5.25 with ranch, but none of us was able to figure out exactly what they were.

All of us ordered one of the giant specialty burgers listed on the menu, and I personally had the Shamrock burger, which, when executed well is an excellent thing. And while I am generally very happy while eating a burger regardless of what it is, this was mostly perfect. As you can see in the morphing cross section near the bottom, the ingredients were good – moist corned beef, just enough coleslaw (and not too runny), and great grilled onions, enveloped by swiss cheese.

There are also a couple issues, as you may be able to see. I always order my burgers medium rare, and this was not that. While it was still juicy, and with a good sear, some of the natural juices flowed out. The bun, although substantial and mostly very well liked, was in my case a little too much bun on top versus bottom. Even with my juicy burger, again, very well constructed, it didn’t soak through. Others had other issues – an errant piece of tomato cut too close to the stem and rendered basically unchewable, some topping ratios were off, and overall the burgers were a bit overcooked.

The sides were fine – serviceable, tasty, and did the job right. HoS didn’t do anything special with the sides, but they didn’t really need to. The sides, a mere dollar or two dollars added onto an approximately 10 dollar burger, make this a great price point, and for me, is at least two meals.

The burgers were good here, earning a 3.9/5 from the burger club, known to be pretty tough with ratings. This sets it at around the middle of our ratings so far. However, the nature of this bar is likely to change constantly, and different cooks will probably vary as well. I imagine that on certain days here, the burgers are perfectly cooked and topped – but I also think it is worth the gamble here to try for that perfect burger – and still get a more than above average burger on an off day. We absolutely loved the rest of the experience. The food and drinks were a good value, the service was excellent, the bar was immaculately clean, and the huge amount of TVs here would make it an excellent place to watch a game.

All of these factors added up to our new top rating – 4.179/5. Congrats, House of Shamrocks! You do good stuff and I want another of your burgers right now.

Ratings:

Music Report: “All over the place, but solid” – Alice
Burger: 3.90
Service: 4.87
Atmosphere: 4.325
Value: 3.94
Overall Rating: 4.179 <—- new top ranking!

Alice – “Great toppings, bun held up well. Nicer bar than you’d expect from the exterior.” 4.5/5
Bonnie – “Loved the staff, very nice! Good bar food.” 5/5
Erik – “Authentic experience with great service. I’m sure quality varies a lot but that is the charm. The beer list focuses on MI and local beers, showing interest and pride in the community.” 3.5/5
Ian – “The toppings made up for the mediocrity of the meat (although the fried egg got lost in the sauce). It more or less hits the spot.” 3.75/5
Lindsay – “Solid bar burger. I really liked the garlic cheddar spread, but could have used more blue cheese. The tomato was cut too close to the stem, and I didn’t eat it. The burger had a great sear on it!“ 4/5