Photo by: Dori Zinn

It’s embarrassing, really. It’s shameful, regretful, and even disgraceful. With the legend of Hollywood Beach’s LeTub Saloon, I felt immensely awkward walking in there for the first time this past March.

I’ve been in South Florida 16 years. By unwritten law, that makes me a native. It’s my job, as a “native,” to eat at legendary internationally renowned restaurants like LeTub so I can tell visitors that yes, it is everything it’s cracked up to be. Some time in college, when my fat kid-ism was spreading across dorm rooms, someone asked me if I had ever been to LeTub.

“I could never eat at a place that has a name so pompous, even if it is about a toilet…”

We laughed, and that was the end of that. Currently, I may or may not count that moment as one of the dumbest comments I’ve ever uttered.

In 2006, GQ magazine voted LeTub as having the best burger in America. Immediately following that was an Oprah special on the place.  Since then, General Manager Steve Sidle says the place is constantly swarming with tourists who want to try the famous burger. Three years after the acclamation, I gave in, and there was nothing pompous about it.

Ok so I’m a little late. Don’t judge me because it took me 16 years to eat the 13 ounce sirloin burger. I’m kicking myself hard enough as it is. It may be a massive burger, but when cooked to a medium perfection (medium-rare would make it too raw since it’s so bulky), it oozes with juice and cheese, crunchy lettuce, tomatoes and onions. I sat for an extra 10 minutes after I was finished not because I was enjoying the view of the intercoastal (which I was), but because I physically couldn’t move. If you don’t finish the burger, you haven’t done yourself justice, no matter how full you are. Don’t make the same mistake I did.