Perry’s Vashon Burgers

Unlike Zombiez across the street which does fancy burgers, soups and awesome deep fried things, Perry’s pretty much focuses on burgers and shakes. It’s only been on the island for 12 years but it looks like it’s been there since the fifties.
These are sort of classic drive in burgers, thin patties, these come with or without cheese from 1 to three patties. Bacon is extra. I’d put it somewhere way above Dick’s; far less greasy.
It’s nothing fancy; aside from Zombies there’s also The Red Bicycle for fancy burgers. But if you just want a bag of burgers and fries this is the place.

A great place to get a real burger fix. It’s simple, it’s straight forward and it’s fast enough to make you want to keep going. Along with its small town charm (due in part to its small location) it gives off the vibe of a bygone idea; that food just needed to be good, and the service was more like a local rather then just a hand pressed person. Because of this, it’s defiantly the place you want to go to get that type of feel if you’ve ever been to places like Dicks.
Downsides are that it only takes cash, so make sure you have a few bills on you before going in.

Classic burger & fries, great shakes and definite character. Once you’ve had a few there’s no going back, the craving is real. Great local business

Best burgers in the island for the last 12 years. When you just want a burger and fries, maybe a milkshake, with no BS this is the place to go.

I travel all across the country for work and everywhere I go I try to find a burger that comes close to JG Melons in New York City. Albeit very different, the two cheese burgers I had here, will stay in my memory for a long time and are well worth the ferry trip over to Vachon.

Not a gourmet burger, but a good one just the same. Enjoy a Dick’s-like burger on a picnic table out front.

Stopped here for a quick bite while staying on the island. How can you mess up a burger? Glad we asked how big the patties were before we ordered. Got the double cheese burger and fries. The burger was under cooked and they charged extra for the ketchup for the fries. REALLY ??? All in all, I won’t be back. Over priced frozen tasting hamburger…

Simply the worst restaurant «food» I have ever eaten. If I had not been starving, I would have thrown it away. The cardboard burger tasted like it had been freezer-​burned for a few years before being dipped in rancid oil and warmed on a hot plate. Truly yuck!

Vashon is basically a home away from home for me. Spent some time up here visiting my sister who lives in the island. Decided to come to this burger place randomly.
The burger patties are really thin so don’t be afraid to get 3 or 4 patties. We also got their fish wich sandwich. It tasted like Golden Arches filet-​o-​fish. Except they use two frozen fish that you can find in the frozen aisle from the supermarket.

Stopped here randomly after a day of hiking and exploring the island. The place is tiny but clean and new looking. Since I was quite hungry I asked about the size of the burgers and was told that they were pretty small «like a Dick’s burger». I found it amusing he would invoke the name of another burger joint to describe their burgers… Decided to go with a double with cheese and bacon. My friend got a regular and we split a large fry.
The burger was indeed small, but it was quite tasty. I totally didn’t even think about what they were going to put on it or ask to leave anything off, so it came with onions which I normally don’t like on burgers. But here it worked, and the sauce or relish or whatever it is they put on is quite yummy. The fries were EXCELLENT. Some of the best I’ve ever had. It helps that everything is cooked fresh upon ordering, so nothing sits around waiting to be served. It was a really good meal and I’d totally go back. Heck, I wanted to go back a couple hours later ;)
Random side note: for reading material they had the local Vashon paper and then a set of The World Book of Knowledge, a kind of encyclopedia that was printed in the 1930s. For fun grab one and read a random article, it’s pretty amusing to see how far we’ve advanced since those were written.

We were the only ones in the shop. It was like a ghost town in there. There was an old fashioned tv playing old tv shows. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Not that great. I’ve definitely had better. All the equipment in the kitchen looked like it was super old and hadn’t been used in 40 years. We even saw a dog in the kitchen while we were eating. Pretty sure that’s against the health code. I wish we would have gone to the Hardware Store instead. I would definitely pay more money for better quality food.

Been going here for years. Its one of the few places that has stayed in business on Vashon. Yes, it is slightly more expensive to get burgers here. DUH, its an island. All food is more expensive there. Go to any store or eatery. It costs more to get the same food as the mainland. People are dumb when they bitch about prices on islands. Perrys is an institution. Great little burgers not unline Frisko Freeze or Dicks. Hmm, those places have been in business since Jesus. Maybe they are doing right? Maybe Perrys is too. Unlike Steve B.‘s multiple failed attemtps.

Cute local burger joint. Came for a late lunch and were the only customers. Seinfeld was playing on the TV in the small café area and my friend and I both were immediately happy. The menu is super simple. Burger and fries. Burgers come with standard toppings and can include cheese but that’s about it. No nonsense.
Two double burgers with fries and drinks will run you about $ 18. It’s all made to order so we settled into watch Seinfeld while we waited, funny stuff. The food is served in paper wrappers so you can take it to go or eat it there. We stayed to watch Seinfeld. The burgers are small but really good. Soft bun, juicy patty, tasty cheese. I like how the onions were finely chopped and not too strong.
The fries are really good, I ate them all and usually don’t! The ranch dressing was not the best, didn’t taste homemade. I’d probably stick with ketchup the next time. Otherwise, it was pretty good. Maybe a tad expensive for the portions. And they only take cash.

oh brother. pretty lame. the guy behind the counter: surly and lazy. argued with us about a tub of ranch, refused to bring our food out and we were the only ones there. the food: mediocre at best. onion rings: you get 5! per order. pathetic. the burger ¹⁄₁₀^th of a pound. lame bun. fries were ok. avoid.

In reference to a previous review… I am an islander (not that it should matter). Regardless of your view in life or where you live, this place is just bad. I have tried it three times, just to make sure. The buns are storebought and cheap, the patty greasy, and the service is non-​existent. The support staff don’t seem trained well and your order will take forever (even when I was the only person in the place). I’m not sure how this place has survived, but even Zoomies does a better job than this place… and that’s not saying much. Shame on anyone who would compare Perry’s to In-​and-​Out!

I stopped into Perry’s early one recent lunch time because 1) I was hungry, and 2) like another reviewer, I didn’t want to spend $ 10 on the burger up the street at the Hardware Store.
The gentleman behind the counter took my order, made the burger fresh, and got it to me quickly. In addition to being freshly-​prepared, it was quite tasty. It was a little on the «modest» side size-​wise, so next time I’d order the double.
Had the man there put the phone down while taking my order instead of keeping it glued to his ear, I’d probably have given it four stars. But hey, it’s a burger joint. Guess I shouldn’t expect too much.

We stopped in for lunch on a weekend getaway from Seattle. The burgers are simple yet delicious, and cooked right to order. The fries were fresh and hot. We opted for Perry’s rather than spend $ 10 on a burger at one of the bar & grill type places and were definitely pleased. For $ 12 we got a gardenburger, a double cheeseburger and large fries to share. A pretty good deal.

Heh, clandestine burger stops make my day. I was out visiting my folks this weekend and thought, OK this is the time I try Zoomies and Perry’s. I mean I go to the island a lot and have never stopped at either of them and I’m a burger freak!
I went to Zoomies the day before so I figured I’d try Perry’s the next day.
I was very sad when I left this place as it had all the makings for a great burger experience and just fell short.
Luckily I was able to talk to Perry while he was making my burger. I decided to get a bacon cheese burger. The fresh Misty Isle beef was a great surprise, it’s just too bad that griddle isn’t turned up high enough.
The secret to a great burger is plenty of seasoning and cooking it on a very hot griddle to crust the outside while leaving middle slightly pink. Because the griddle at Perry’s isn’t hot enough he has to cook them longer and you don’t get a crust. The seasoning on the burger also seemed to be missing. The bacon disk was a great touch, but sadly pretty floppy since the griddle didn’t cook it well enough. The burgers come with lettuce, tomato, pickle onion, relish, mayo, mustard and ketchup. The bun was a typical FSA bun, but I like those.
Fries were also typical FSA fries and nothing to write home about.
All in all the place is neat (it’s a small house converted to a small hamburger stand), but the burgers just fell short of what they could be.

After a long island adventure with a club of Scooter riders, everyone pulled into Zoomie’s for a burger. After seeing the long time, help wanted sign and run down DQ feel that they left off a few of us headed across the street to get some BBQ. However we were foiled as they didn’t actually open their store at 3pm like the sign said, but lo and behold, what was next door? Perry’s.
This place is tiny and claustrophobic, I could barely pivot in here without bumping someone or something. But the atmosphere was inviting and played more to my sense of entrepreneur in over their head spirit, plus the price was right. My girlfriend and I purchased onion rings, a triple cheese burger with bacon and a chicken sandwich with bacon all for about $ 20.
Everything was served in a white paperbag wrapper, even though we were eating there, no basket just paper waste. They have no napkins or condiments without having to ask for them, not that there is much room for any to be set out.
The small crowd of about 4 orders for 10 people seemed to send the place into a panic as the cashier couldn’t keep up with the cook with prep work and this lead to a lack of focus on how long the fryer had been down making completely overcooked onion rings.
My triple cheese burger with bacon was tasty, served with a almost too large portion of mayo and ketchup that deemed to seep out from the sides. It wasn’t the best, but it was far from terrible. The bacon was so-​so, thin and nothing to write home about.
Given a chance to eat there again, I probably would. However I think I would much rather try the BBQ joint next door that has Brisket on the menu.
I think this place could be served will by someone with a better order taking system. The all great master pad they use keep getting moved around which frustrated the cook as he couldn’t find who needed what.

I’ll make two assumptions about Perry’s Vashon Burgers and I’d be willing to be my old chef’s tocque on both: 1) the guy who owns this — whom I safely assume was the person who took and prepared our orders — never spent a single day working in a restaurant before opening Perry’s five years ago and 2) If he’s from Seattle, he ate most of his burgers, during his formative years, at either Dick’s or Daly’s.
We had never been to Vashon at all. We chose Perry’s at random and I’ll admit that I went along enthusiastically with my GF’s choice because Perry’s beach-​shacky little hut was exactly the kind of place that, in my native South, so often combines spectacular food with a real down-​home attitude. Of course, it doesn’t ALWAYS work out in the South. And here, it REALLY didn’t.
We ordered two bacon-​cheeseburgers, onion rings, a plain hot dog for our Boxer dog, and a chocolate malted shake. I don’t even know where to begin: the burger patties were so thin that I’d be quite willing to read a contract through one and sign it afterwards. They weren’t so much fried as lightly tanned and they came to us on a cheapo food-​service bun that had probably been frozen, as the golden, uniform crust flaked off in our fingers. The sandwich had the signature Daly’s über-​slather of mayonnaise, at least a rounded tablespoon’s worth, and were topped with a fat fistful of shredded lettuce, the sort of trick places like Daly’s and Perry’s use to add some «heft» to a burger in the absence of any real meat. The bacon was that micro-​thin, undercooked, under-​smoked stuff like Wendy’s uses, which can be okay if it’s fried crisp first but it never is at Wendy’s and wasn’t here. If there was anything else of the burger, it wasn’t there in an amount sufficient to make its presence known.
The onion rings were the basic food-​service rings that are battered with that indestructible, generic, flavorless brown coating and come in bags the size of small mattresses. They’re okay if you’ve never had any other kind of onion ring but they are to real onion rings what a doodle is to Gainsborgough’s «Blue Boy». Even the hot dog, another food-​service generic, was cooked into a shrivelled mess, like an amputee lizard with progeria. Our dog — who is not even remotely a picky eater and, in fact, chews up and ingests knuckle bones — threw the thing up on the back seat about twenty minutes later.
None of this would be cause enough for this lengthy cautionary tale except that — unlike Dick’s, where you know the burgers are that size and that style but they cost $ 1.20 — Perry’s charges $ 4.15 for this tiny little horrendo thing, $ 2.30 for the mini-​order of o-​rings, and $ 2.45 for the deceased hot dog which, had I seen it before my dog got the scent, would have gone straight down Perry’s loo. On top of all this, he forgot our chocolate malt. I had to go in and remind him, at which point he reached into a freezer and handed me a cup with a lid on it. Pre-​made shakes! What’ll they think of next? And that little, barely-​malted thingie was another $ 2.45.
I got the distinct whiff of someone who, there on the fifth anniversary of his business, is going through the motions. IF people will eat that, you’re home free and people on Vashon have obviously decided that Perry’s is okay. They’ve been open for five years, after all. Even the other person who reviewed the place here gave it four stars, saying it reminded her of In’N’Out Burger — which I suppose, if you take away the grilled flavor, better beef, better condiments, hand-​made onion rings, hand-​made shakes, good buns, and hot dogs without the skin condition, I could sorta understand. And, having run a half-​dozen restaurants in which I had a financial stake, I sympathize completely with anyone with the stones to open a café and stick with it. But I don’t think it does anybody — you, Perry, or the next person who walks into his place — ANY good to gloss over the obvious and howling lack of concern for his product that his food clearly shows. Making the kind of food he makes at Perry’s isn’t exactly brain surgery and you simply DON’T HAVE TO resort of that lowest-​common-​denominator food-​service stuff to make money — because better food makes you even MORE MONEY.