On Wednesday, Aug. 7, the Brewery District gained a new smash-burger joint on 460 S. Front St. called Smash Buddies, founded by two friends Kole Neuhs ("Buddy One") and Jared France ("Buddy Two"), military veterans and transplants from the Pacific Northwest who moved to Columbus in 2022 for a job opportunity.
The burger that started it all? A smashburger crafted in their garage with the help of a YouTube tutorial.
Since then, they've been moving fast toward their vision, quitting their jobs to pursue the truck, securing it within five weeks to attend their first event as Smash Buddies, getting recognized as the Best Burger in Columbus for a local competition put on by TriMark and moving into their home in the Brewery District spot just last month — all this with no prior experience in the food industry.
Expansions:Resch's Bakery to open second location in Gahanna next year
"People think we're crazy, but they also like the food — and it's working," France said.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
According to France and Neuhs, their first days have gone smoothly, with big lunch and dinner rushes thanks to its location in a corporate-heavy area. But the two were also drawn to the Brewery District for its potential to rebuild the bustling scene that existed before much of it shifted toward the Short North.
True to its food-truck origins, the restaurant offers a simple but refined menu of four burgers: the "Original," the "All-American" and "Patty Melt," with single, double or triple patty options, and the fourth is a kids' single beef-and-cheese burger with ketchup.
While the "Original" and "Patty Melt" are likely familiar to fans of the food truck, the "All-American," which comes with familiar toppings like tomato, lettuce, onion and pickles, is an addition to the restaurant's permanent menu.
Neuhs highlighted the "Original" as the embodiment of all that smashburgers offer, its flat patty acting as a canvas to highlight different flavors.
"We describe it to people like a freshly cooked doughnut right off the line. It just melts in your mouth. Each bite is just unctuous and just delicious, and you just can't get enough until it's gone," Neuhs said.
"When you make a smashburger, you smash all the meat, so you get the most surface area on the griddle. You get that maximal Maillard reaction, all that char and all the fat renders, and you get these lacy edges on the side. It's a texture thing, it's a flavor thing. It locks in all the juices, delicious, and it's just the perfect vehicle for all kinds of different sandwiches."
"We wanted to try them, so we watched a YouTube video," France said. "We made them in my garage like, twice, and then we were like, 'These are really good. We should quit our jobs and start selling them.' It's a wild story, but it's accurate."
Local fame:Food Network to feature Columbus favorite
The "Original" and the "Patty Melt" harness these flavors with the help of the sweet sauce, which has a honey base. While they don't sell the sauce like they do with their meat seasoning blend, France said they've gotten plenty of requests for it, and it may come to the store soon.
In addition to burgers, the restaurant also offers sides, which include Garage Beers, regular or loaded tater tots and a nostalgic $1 ice-cream cup with wooden spoons. Though the duo will be holding off on the food trucks for now to get settled into a brick-and-mortar business, they said they're trying to maintain all the elements that fans appreciated when they were on the road.
"One of the big things with opening the restaurant is we didn't want to raise our prices from what they were in the food truck because a lot of people liked our truck because it's good, fresh food, but it's also affordable," France said.
"Even though we took on more expenses going in here with a full restaurant and more staff, we wanted to keep our prices the same, as low as possible."
Smash Buddies is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 11 a.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and from 12 to 8 p.m. on Sundays.
For more information, visit the website at sbohio.com.
elim@dispatch.com
