Fuddruckers was fairly crowded when we walked in toward the end of the lunch hour. The line went very quickly, so we soon ordered our food and looked for a place to sit. The main room was busy and loud, and there were a lot of people milling about the beautifully restored Chevy Bel Air that sat in the middle of the room, so we opted for the quieter room to the right that was mostly separate from the rest of the place.We soon received our meals and went over to the area in the main room where you could add your favorite toppings (lettuce, onions, tomatoes, etc.). I opted for lettuce only for my half-pound cheeseburger, since there wasn't a whole lot of room for anything else. We were certainly impressed by the food overall, especially considering that this is a chain. The cheese fries with bacon were pretty decadent, but the freshly-made fries were delicious and there wasn't so much cheese and bacon as to overwhelm the dish. The burgers were as good as I remember, with freshly-ground beef used and hamburger buns that were actually made from scratch, which surprised me. And the shakes (which I didn't order) looked positively sinful and received a thumbs-up for taste.
While I like the burgers at Fuddruckers very much, I feel as if I have been spoiled a bit by another chain--Five Guys Burgers, which has a location in Dedham (and will soon have others in the area, including Swampscott). To me, the burgers at Five Guys have a bit more flavor, perhaps from the way they grill them, or maybe from the seasonings (or a mix of the two). But that doesn't take anything away from the Fuddruckers burgers. The one I had the other day could easily be in my top 10 for burgers in the Boston area; and considering all the burgers I have had around Boston, top 10 isn't a bad place to be at all.
