Before I get in trouble here, let me just say: veggie burgers can be really good. Some Shreveport restaurants, like Well + Fed Louisiana and Twisted Root Burger Company, serve outstanding veggie burgers. But Russ McJunkins, proprietor of Windrush Grill in Shreveport, has a point when he says: “A good veggie patty is good and all, but you know, it’s a veggie patty.”
McJunkins’s restaurant, which is located in the Provenance community in South Shreveport, is now the proud home of northern Louisiana’s only Impossible Burger – in fact, there are no other restaurants that serve the Impossible Burger within 200 miles of Shreveport-Bossier. His restaurant still serves 100% beef burgers – lots of them – but he’s added the Impossible Burger to his lineup.
For those that don’t know about the burger: Impossible Foods created the Impossible Burger in 2016 as an alternative to beef for those who love everything about beef. It has the texture of beef, it develops a crust on the griddle (like you’d find on a good diner burger), it smells like beef when cooked, and – and this is really wild – it even “bleeds” when prepared rare. It’s so much like beef that it is uncanny, but it’s made entirely out of plant proteins, fat from coconut oil, and heme. It does contain gluten and soy.
McJunkins didn’t expect the response to the burger, which has included groups of vegetarian diners driving to Shreveport from Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and other places in order to eat the Impossible Burger.
“We haven’t had a customer yet who didn’t enjoy it, and we’ve sold several hundred of these things,” McJunkins told me.
At Windrush Grill, the standard Impossible Burger is topped with grilled onions, a slice of cheddar cheese, and mayo on a brioche bun. However, the staff will replace the patty on any of their seven other burger styles with an Impossible Burger patty. McJunkins has even sold a couple of hickory burgers (which are topped with very real bacon) with an Impossible Burger patty subbed for the beef. Windrush Grill’s Impossible Burger is $14.
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