The name provides a clue as to what's going on inside this restaurant.
"The whole 50/Fifty thing is about blends of flavors," says 50/Fifty's general manager Keith Flaherty.
The restaurant, which opened in early July at the former Hooters location in Spokane Valley, features a burger inventory ($10-$11) with ground, blended-meat patties like half beef and half lamb, half bacon and half beef, and half chicken and half turkey.
Perhaps the most peculiar fusion, the "jealous" peanut butter burger's beef-bacon patty is slathered with peanut butter and strawberry jelly and topped with bacon strips on a brioche bun. The Thanksgiving feast burger only has turkey in the patty, but the toppings are quite a mixture. The mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, brown gravy and Swiss cheese stacked on this mountainous burger makes for a jumble of flavors, like tossing Thanksgiving into a food processor. But instead of coming out as indigestible slop, it gives the burger a warm, gooey and enjoyable layer.
The burger list maintains creativity. In the Angry Lucy, for example, cheese is injected into the beef patty before it's cooked. Then it's battered, breaded, deep-fried, tossed in hot sauce and covered with pepper jack and deep-fried jalapeños, onions and pickles.
"I would tell people it's not for the faint of heart," says Flaherty. "You have to like spicy food, but it's a nice, messy burger."
50/Fifty's four kinds of mac and cheese combine several flavors, including the Tortellini Quattro Mac ($11) of asiago, Parmesan, mascarpone and fontina cheese with artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes.
The full bar boasts 50 brews on tap and sits in the middle of the room, joining the restaurant and the Even Stevens Casino (formerly Owl Club Casino), where you can play poker, blackjack and Spanish 21 at the gaming tables and gaze at the 40-plus televisions throughout the building.
If you want grub while gaming, menus from 50/Fifty and Egg It On — the breakfast restaurant next door, opened by the same owners in May — are available in the casino during the restaurants' hours and after 10 pm, until the casino closes around 2 am. ♦
50/Fifty • 16208 E. Indiana, Spokane Valley • Open daily, 11 am-10 pm • facebook.com/50fiftyspokane • 924-8570
