Mark Pachankis and his 10-year-old son, Liam, have been eating a lot of hamburgers lately. Mark is a local teacher who took advantage of his summer off – as well as his son’s interest in Youtube – to set out on a quest to review seven local hamburger joints in a series of Youtube videos. Recent reviews include Silver Star Grille, Papa & Company, The Blind Tiger and Superior Grill. The videos aren’t fancy or professionally produced, but there’s just something cool about seeing a father-and-son team sharing their appreciation for local hamburger joints with the world.
“He loves to make videos, so we decided to do a video series on local burger places,” Mark told me. “Originally, we were going to do seven burgers in seven days, but that’s a lot of money…and a lot of burgers.”
Mark is clearly trying to support local businesses and explore new parts of the community with his son while encouraging others to support local eateries. Liam just seems happy to be creating new content for his dad’s Youtube channel.
“Now that I think about it, we probably should be uploading these videos to my Youtube channel, because it’s kind of more successful than his,” Liam said.
On the day that I met up with them, they were reviewing Rollin’ in the Dough, a beloved hamburger spot in Shreveport’s Shreve Island neighborhood. Liam, who approaches Youtube with an entrepreneurial spirit, shared that he’d just received his first royalty check from Youtube – for $0.80. While Liam’s main Youtube channel is more of a video blog dedicated to reviewing pop music videos, he’s enough of a burger connoisseur to go along with the idea of the local burger video series.
“I’m looking for good buns, that’s the first thing that I look for,” Liam said. “And then I look for well-cooked meat that isn’t cooked too much or extremely under-cooked…but a good burger depends on what your personal taste is, more than anything.”
Has Liam learned anything from producing this video series with his dad?
“I’ve learned that Shreveport has good burgers,” Liam said.
There are definitely worse things that you could do over summer break.
So, what was the verdict on Rollin’ in the Dough’s famous burger from Mark and Liam? Two thumbs up:
