Gold Nugget - Minnetonka, MN

FireRetarded wanted to grab some lunch, so we decided to go to the Gold Nugget. It came highly recommended from RubyVita, so I was looking forward to it. The inside is a standard full-service restaurant without a theme – sort of plain, like Granite City or Houlihans (what Ruby compared it to). The hostess that seated us was super nice and let us pick where we’d like to sit.

The waitress brought menus over and I noticed a sign for Sprecher Cream Soda, so I already knew what I’d be drinking. If you’re unfamiliar with Sprecher, it’s the best cream soda in the world – it’s made with vanilla and honey. They also do amazing rootbeer and beers, but for my money, it’s the cream soda.

Everything on the menu looked delicious. And for a double-sided single-page menu (maybe they have a larger one for dinner, I don’t know), it had a lot of delicious-looking stuff on it. It was really difficult to decide. FireRetarded was feeling a burger and, based on their descriptions, I figured I’d do the same. I got the Smokehouse Burger: choice of cheese, then bbq sauce and bacon. I also needed onion rings, so I got those, as well. You get your choice of a bunch of various cheeses and they have fancy cheese for an upcharge. Very impressive. In fact, FireRetarded ordered a cheeseburger and added his own favorite cheeses – which I of course can’t remember. He also caved and ordered the Mac and Cheese for us to share. I guess “someone” was feeling hungry.


The food came out a little later and I knew this was going to be a winner. We started with the Mac and Cheese, which was probably not the thing to start with because it was absolutely amazing – super cheesey (sharp cheddar, gruyere, and parmesan) and bacon-y and had bread crumbs on top. One of the best I’ve had. The burger was delicious, though it can never live up to the mac and cheese. The burger itself was awesome. Maybe not Top 5 material, but really quite good. Perfectly cooked with the right amount of toppings to be good yet not sloppy. The onion rings were good, but not great. Mostly because when I tried to pull the onions out, they didn’t come out smoothly and I had to get quite messy dismantling them. They were good though. FireRetarded was thrilled with his burger as well, but the best part about the meal was the mac and cheese.

The Gold Nugget was so good in fact, we went back the following week. Neither of us were feeling particularly hungry, so we opted out of the mac and cheese (which was the wrong decision) and just got burgers. They had a special hot sauce-infused burger with jalapenos, cheese and bacon on it (called the “En Fuego”), so I got that.

It was also a delicious burger, to be sure, but not nearly as much heat as either of us would have liked. However, next time we go back, we decided we’d both be getting our own order of mac and cheese and splitting some sort of burger. That’s the way to go at the Gold Nugget.

Top 5 things about the Gold Nugget
1. Mac and Cheese
2. Sprecher Cream Soda
3. Smokehouse Burger
4. En Fuego Burger
5. Onion Rings

Bottom 5 things
1. Again, Gerd would have loved to have lunch with FireRetarded and I, especially for delicious burgers
2. The floor was super slick and I almost bit it walking through the door
3. It’s a tad pricey for lunch (especially if you get mac and cheese in addition to an entrée…)
4. There were so many delicious-looking items to choose from on the menu
5. I keep calling it the Golden Nugget, but that’s a whole different thing

www.goldnuggettavernandgrille.com