Why it's called underground

It started at a campfire

Joe grew up outside Detroit, Michigan, where burgers meant Bob's Big Boy. He came to Puerto Morelos to open a bar with some other guys. The bar didn't work out.

Then one night, at a house he was renting near the beach just out of town, they grilled burgers on an open campfire. Everybody was eating, and Joe said it out loud: we could really sell these in town. There was no burger here that tasted like these.

Nobody knew where we were

The first burgers cost 100 or 110 pesos. Orders came in through Facebook and WhatsApp, cooked in the backyard and on the porch, and Joe delivered them himself. To get people talking, they went to the local happy hours and gave away 75 burgers for free.

There was no restaurant to go to, and that became the joke. One of the first customers told Joe that his friends in town had heard about these burgers and asked where they were. His answer: “I don't know. You just text them and they bring these awesome burgers.”

That's the underground. The name stuck.

A real restaurant

In 2018 it became a real restaurant on Niños Héroes, on the port side. In December 2020 it moved to Av. Javier Rojo Gómez, where it is today. The menu kept growing, and the burgers kept the names they were given along the way. See the menu.

“It's where you go for a burger”

A new burger place opened in town once, and closed. A regular walked in afterwards and told Joe: “I tried the new place. Don't worry, they aren't any good. We come here for a burger.” It's been the line ever since.

What doesn't change

Costs go up every year. The meat will never change, and neither will the attention to quality.