Road trip! Next Level Burger in Concord

When I went vegan many years ago, one of the things I really missed was a good burger. The soggy bean burgers or frozen processed veggie disks that restaurants passed off as their vegan options held no appeal for me. The recent appearance of extremely beef-like Beyond Burgers and Impossible Burgers in some local restaurants has been a dream come true for me.

Then I started hearing about the Next Level Burger chain, and was happy to discover they had opened a restaurant in Concord. I drove down a few days ago to meet my parents there for lunch. The restaurant offers burgers, sandwiches, salads, fries, hot dogs, and shakes, and everything on the menu is vegan. Since my parents aren't vegan, I suggested they order the classic burger, with the Beyond Burger patty option. I decided to try the savory meaty patty with my classic burger. We also ordered shakes, two chocolate and one salted caramel and peanut, all made with coconut ice cream (they also had a soy ice cream option). In addition, we shared an order of tater tots, which could be deep fried or baked.

The food was really good. If the bar hadn't been raised so high by the Impossible and Beyond burgers, I would have said the savory meaty patty was the best veggie burger I'd had. The tater tots were excellent, and the shakes were thick and delicious. It was a real treat to be able to eat at a burger joint without having to question the ingredients or make substitutions, and I'm sure this was just my first of many visits to Next Level Burger.

The Next Level Burger restaurant in Concord is located inside the Whole Foods Market at 2085 Diamond Boulevard, and their phone number is 925-215-7779. Their website address is http://www.nextlevelburger.com/, and their Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/nextlevelburgerconcord/. The restaurant is open daily from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.