First Visit: Hobo's

 Hobo's is a tavern in downtown Fort Mill. It's been open for a while now, but I kept getting information from friends about slow service and uneven food quality. I hadn't heard anything for a while now, so when a group of friends from school wanted to go out after work, I was ready.

I'm always looking for a good bean burger, and they have a house made one on their menu. It's an impressive-looking sandwich on great bread. There is a slice of avocado and tomato on top, as well as some bean sprouts. To be honest, I'm not sure why people feel they must put avocado on a black bean burger. It really doesn't add anything most of the time. If you have a great-tasting patty, it's going to pop with flavor and really nothing you put on top is going to be necessary, unless you add some crisp lettuce for crunch. 

That said, this was not a great-tasting patty. Actually, this patty didn't have much flavor at all. It wasn't terrible, but it really had so much potential for being great. It just was kind of..."there." And it was huge. It seemed almost as if they had some black beans and glued them together with more smashed beans and then shaped a huge patty with the mixture. I'd estimate that the patty was over 1.5 cups in size. I brought half of it home. If they had put a little thought into the patty, such as maybe some garlic, some cilantro...really any kind of aromatic...and then cut the size down by at least a third, maybe a half...they could have had something really good there. Also, a good black bean patty should have a little crispness to it. This did not. Will I have it again? No. But it won't kill anyone. 

The fries were another thing, too. I didn't capture many of them in this shot, but the few that you can see tell the story. They were a bit greasy, not terribly hot, and I think I had the bottom of the batch. I had a lot of little ends and shards in mine. One of the other people at my table had house-made chips and they looked fantastic. I'd definitely go for that next time. I might also try their grown-up grilled cheese next time. The only other vegetarian sandwich option is a portabello mushroom burger. Those have been done to death in the vegetarian world, and most of the time not done well. I have little reason to believe Hobo's would do them any better. I often eat fish when I go to taverns, and a friend of mine says their grouper bites are good, so I might try that or their fish sandwich. 

So yes, I'll probably go back. But it will be because our group would like to go out again and it's a convenient location. I doubt I'd take my guys there or invite friends to go.