Smash and grub: Two Tides’ onsite food truck, Crispi, brings on the nostalgia

By design, the eponymous smash burger at Crispi is meant to be a nostalgic nosh, a modish double-patty reminder of the best diner and drive-through burgers we have ever eaten.

The pair of patties weigh in at three ounces each before they are mercilessly flattened on the food truck’s searing flat top, and they are then grilled for a few minutes to ensure the crispy exterior. In short, there is no ‘medium’ here. Every patty is well-done, which is well and good for what Steffan Rost wanted to offer.

“It’s not entirely my idea,” he admitted. “James (Massey), who also owns Two Tides, had a big part in wanting the burger done that way.”

The R&D “had to do with finding the right ingredients, the ideal grind of meat, [and] the type of cheese and number of slices,” Rost added.

On the sizzle, the patties are partnered with thinly sliced white onions and two slices of American on the bottom and one more on the top that continue to melt during and after final burger assembly with pickles and house-made Crispi sauce on a butter-grilled Martin’s potato bun.

All that is missing to complete the Mickey D’s jingle of yesteryear is the lettuce and sesame seeds, and though the Crispi smash burger smacks of the Big Mac, it is superior more than it is familiar. Despite the absolutely seared surfaces, this is a napkin-per-bite burger. What unctuousness it lacks in juices seeping from a pinkish inside are replaced by the slippery mélange of sauce and cheese.

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The smash burger trend

This “flagship item” and the rest of Crispi’s prudently modest menu are the conceptions of Rost, late of Big Bon Family, Atlantic, and Husk, who is now overseeing all current and future food operations for Two Tides Brewing Co.

On the horizon for Massey and Rost and the Two Tides team is The Laundry, converting the erstwhile building at 1401 Paulsen St. into an “American-style diner that will also serve Two Tides Brewing Co. beer” while keeping the post-Deco nominative signage. For the time being, Rost’s roost is inside Crispi’s tiny trailer.

In the last few years, the smash burger has become a de rigueur darling, and Savannah is home to several superb versions in both one and two-patty preparations ― too many to list here, including two food trucks that focus on this nouveau American classic.

Because of the trend, Crispi’s signature sammie ($12 before tax and tip) is not entirely unique. Heck, some days, you might walk around the corner and into Starland Yard to queue up for something similar at Ark Royal Burgers or Smashed Savannah.

Then again, Crispi’s existence under the umbrella of and at the bottom of the stairs at Two Tides is brilliant. After a few Sixfoots, where can you grab a good burger and fast? Oh, right down there.

Among the rout and at the same price, Over Yonder’s remains the best burger of this kind, and for just two dollars more, it comes with some fabulous fries. Husk’s is also great but will set you back another $5 because, well, you are eating at Husk.

Which brings me to a final and larger theme: what the Crispi smash burger makes me most nostalgic for is not the familiar flavors but the time when a restaurant burger did not cost an accepted $12 to $20. I know, I know: inflation, the pandemic, supply-and-demand, what the market will bear, yada yada freakin’ yada. A Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal now runs more than six bucks. I get it.

There is no ‘like it or not’ here. I flat out do not like the fact that I live in The Land of the Largely Mediocre $15 Lunch, but that is food for another column.

Like Sam Jackson’s Jules Winnfield, I “do love the taste of a good burger,” but it better be as tasty as the cine-iconic Big Kahuna for me to drop more than an Andrew Jackson on one, which is to say that I would eat Crispi’s superb smash burger ― and any of the rest ― maybe once a month if it were $10.

Sadly, it looks like those soup-and-salad-and-sandwich days have gone the way of the thick patty.

Crispi (12 West 41st Street, located at the bottom of the Two Tides taproom stairs) is open Tuesday through Thursday (12 p.m. to 10 p.m.), Friday and Saturday (12 p.m. to 12 a.m.), and Sunday (12 p.m.  to 10 p.m.).

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah's Two Tides’ food truck, Crispi, brings on the nostalgia