Breakfast Impressions: Biscuits to Burgers

Biscuits to Burgers is one of three restaurants located at the base of RiverCenter in Covington, Kentucky. It was formerly a First Watch. The three restaurants collectively seem to be in a prime location when considering the Embassy Suites and Marriott hotel guests located in the adjoining buildings.

My girlfriend and I stopped by Biscuits to Burgers one early weekend afternoon to gather our first impressions. The place was alive with a room jammed full of people, except near the reception desk, where there was a notable vacuum of humanity. The two of us stood at the empty desk for several long minutes, hoping to catch someone's attention, but it seemed the staff were all staring through us.

"We must be wearing our invisibility cloaks again," I quipped, annoyed. Several more minutes passed before one of the waiters finally acknowledged our presence and said he'd be back to seat us.

He never returned.

Another few minutes later, a woman sauntered behind the desk and asked us if we'd be dining in. "As opposed to...what, exactly?" I thought, biting my lip and staring at the "please wait to be seated" sign we'd been conspicuously standing next to.

She led us to a table and handed us each two separate menus: one for biscuits and a separate one for burgers. The menus were tediously long, each with several pages grouped in confusing sections. They were very much unlike the neat, tidy and succinct menus we had previewed on their website. Why on earth don't they just use their website's clearer menu style, place the biscuits menu on one side and the burger on the other? That way a guest could simply flip back and forth instead of jumbling through four pages between two separate menus.

The biscuits menu was appropriately breakfast-oriented while the burgers menu catered to the lunch and dinner crowd. Both are served all day. Biscuits can be ordered by themselves along with sides of peaches, berries or honey and preserves. There are also chicken and biscuit options, biscuits and gravy and a typical line of breakfast items like bacon, sausage, eggs and omelets, French toast, pancakes and muffins.

The burger menu offers six signature burgers, a sliders platter, assorted sandwiches, fries, salads, soups and "hand-crafted" milkshakes.

The table we sat at wobbled fiercely. No matter how many packets of sugar I placed underneath, they'd get swallowed up by a dark void under the ample leg, never to be seen again. The morning had not gotten off to a great start.

Our waitress arrived promptly to take our orders, which we were thankful for. I chose the chicken and biscuit plate, with Panko-crusted chicken on a biscuit and topped with sausage gravy ($8.99). My girlfriend chose the "traditional" egg platter ($8.99), with two eggs over easy, served with sausage patties, "breakfast potatoes" and a biscuit.

Chicken and biscuit w/sausage gravy

Traditional breakfast platter

Our entrees soon arrived, featuring very large portions. My girlfriend was a bit overwhelmed to behold three sausage patties, a very prominent biscuit and a generous heaping of what appeared to be some sort of creamy, cheesy, scalloped potatoes.

My chicken and biscuit plate was virtually hidden beneath a pool of thick sausage gravy, yet it was still apparent that the biscuits here were nearly twice the size of a typical, standard biscuit.

Unfortunately, the sheer size of the biscuits lent them a very heavy, dense quality, as opposed to the much more pleasing light, flaky, buttery varieties we'd hoped to enjoy. They weren't bad, but their dense consistency was simply not what we'd wanted in a biscuit.

My girlfriend disliked her strange, vaguely cheddar cheesy scalloped potatoes, which seemed out of place for a breakfast platter. She wished there'd instead been a choice of hash browns, home fries or some other fried potato variant.

My chicken was very mildly spiced and not very juicy. It became muddled in the more assertive sausage gravy flavors. The dish overall was served lukewarm. Neither of us finished our meals.

Our first impressions of Biscuits to Burgers were not very complimentary. The food wasn't offensive, and there's a lot of it for the price, but it certainly wasn't part of an overall experience that made us feel inclined to return. The concept is compelling; the execution, not so much.