Fantastic Burgers

Gather 'round, little Yelpers, as your favorite Elite Yelp correspondent takes you waaay back in time when he was a mere whipper-snapper, a wannabe Elite Yelper at San Pedro High School, circa 1986-88. Back then, Ronald Reagan sat in the Oval Office, NBC sitcoms Cheers and The Cosby Show ruled the boob tube and you could order the "Special Combo Plate" at Fantastic Cafe for only $3.65. That would getcha a ¼ pounder burger/cheeseburger, fries, onion rings, a salad and a large soft drink. You'd quaff one of those on your lunch break, and suddenly the prospect of AP Gov and AP Lit in fifth and sixth periods didn't seem sooo dreadfully unimportant! Guess what, kiddos? Fantastic Cafe, or like this location has rechristened itself, Fantastic Burgers, will still unspool this extraordinarily filling meal straight offve their sizzling hot plancha (flat top grill)...but it'll setya back $16.85 plus tax. My youngest son Brad & I were on our way back home when we hung a left onto Cherry from Wardlow when we both noticed the biig blue "Fantastic" letters calling to us. My three kids have HEARD enough stories of my halcyon high school days, that they all vividly recognize the NAME, even if none of em had tried it...til today! Brad and I both ordered the same special plate, hold the tomatoes, with salads drenched in thousand. The caliber of food is...good. Not hold onto your pillowcase and squeeze tight INCREDIBLE, but good. The burgers still have that uncanny char taste, the onion rings simply breaded in a thin, lacquered breading that shatters when you snap into them. But the unexpected STAR of our meal? The fries. Shocked to be writing that- Cause for 30+ years the Fantastic Cafe brethren of restaurants served steak fries...which I generally detest. Not so, anymore! Tonight's fries arrived as slender, golden brown stalks generously slathered with seasoned salt, dancing like Rockettes from the plate to our mouths! The salads were the duds of the meal. While the size and chilled temperature of the salads are still excellent, tonight's lettuce, carrots, tomato + cucumber arrived a wee overripe. The service is still very good- Fantastic encourages guests to leave their dirty dishes at the table and they'll even ferry your piping hot plate from plancha to table. Why not five stars? Because of the wonky salads and for violating a cardinal law of dessert. Lemme explain. Fantastic serves decadent Thrifty Drugs Ice Cream...which any longtime Los Angeleno will tellya is THE WORLD CHAMPION DODGERS of ice creams. But these jabronies are selling it for a ghastly $5.25/single scoop cone!! That's practically Baskin Robbins level of extortion!! Especially cuz Thrifty was famous for dishing out their delish cones for only $0.35/cone during my whipper-snapper days of high school then USC. Sheeeeeeeeeiiit. Even now, I can still find Thrifty ice cream at Rite Aids for circa $1.85/scoop. So- For nearly tripling the go to price of my fave ice cream and serving "Reagan era" salads, Fantastic Burgers gets dinged one star. But otherwise? If you're feeling a wee malnourished, require some good ol' American carb-dense sustenance to stiffen your spine...then seize a Jackson and stroll into Fantastic for a meal that'll leave ya feeling rather, well, fantastic.

I've tried this place several times and ordered several different things.I really wish I could say I like this place and their food but thats just not the case.

November 26th 2024I've eaten at Fantastic Cafe many times over the years and mostly at the San Pedro location and the food has always been good for a fast food restaurant and the prices for the most part were fair. Unfortunately they have gotten ridiculous with their prices here and that's the main reason they get one star. The food was ok, not great but not bad. I had a BLT and a large root beer. No fries, no onion rings, nothing else and the bill was $20.10. That's for one sandwich and a soda. I know, I know inflation but this is over the top! And if that wasn't bad enough, if you want a refill on your soda, that will be an additional $1.50!! Bringing the total to $21.65. Sorry, I won't be back.

It's been years since I've been here as it's not as close for me anymore. But if I'm in Long Beach, it's always a must to pick something up. It's always the fires mushroom that calls my name. Also the avocado bacon cheeseburger. They are amazing. It brings back memories of hanging out here for a bite before a night out. Prices are reasonable for what you get. Plenty to choose from ranging from salads, burgers, breakfast and so on.

Tried Fantastic Burgers in Long Beach, CA for the first time and it was really good. The food was cooked to order and the fries were hot. They have great customer service and the staff was very helpful with answering my questions. You definitely get your monies worth. I would recommend this restaurant and would like to try a few other things. They also sell breakfast.

I always get the bacon cheese burger with chili cheese fries. That's my go to order. The only thing that sucks is the pricey charge for ranch and the re-fill price for soda is some of the most expensive I have seen. Other than that the restaurant is clean, restrooms are well kept. There's plenty of seating and food comes out in a timely manner.

Okay service, way overpriced food and by overpriced I mean $17.99 for a pastrami breakfast burrito. Very little meat, very bland, mostly potato. It could have at least been mega loaded with meat for this price. Water and tapatio for the hot sauce. Not even fresh salsa. Definitely a HARD pass or at least for breakfast burritos to be fair!

Ordered food for pick up couple of times. It was ready on time every time. Great tasting burgers and sandwiches! Clean place! Has a drive thru and dedicated parking lot. Will be back again!

Great spot for that yellow basket fix. Chili cheese fries, carne asada burritos, double pastrami burgers, and everything nice. I have sampled their breakfast burritos and they are fire (as the kids say). But my favorite are their Chili Cheese Fries. They have a small and a large size, so I appreciate that a smaller option is available when I don't want a full 1 lb. tray of fried, cheesy carbs. The small does me just fine. The fries are fried up nice and crispy before they add the chili. Chili has a good amount of meat and is spiced well, and the cheese is fully melted. Not this half melted and half raw shredded cheese junk like other spots. Great flavor on the fries, not a bland white, soggy potato, but almost like a seasoned curly fry flavor underneath all the cheese. Not stingy with the cheese either. They are open nice and late (10pm), and their staff is fast and friendly. Don't miss out!

Oh, Fantastic Burgers...a ubiquitous chain of restaurants in the OC/LA county area by name and, in this location specifically, definitely a local legend. I've actually never had burgers here: the hidden gems are the Chili Cheese Fries and the fried mushrooms, but today I am going to review one of a few items that makes me come here occasionally when I'm in town, and that is the breakfast burrito.A breakfast burrito is simple but hard to master: when done poorly, it is a mess, and when done well it becomes much greater than the sum of its parts. In this case, this Fantastic Burgers location has been churning out the latter for as long as I can remember.Their breakfast burrito includes all the minimum necessary components for a good breakfast burrito: breakfast meat (in my case, bacon), eggs, some form of potato (in this case, hash browns which is my preference - I can have extensive arguments on why this is the only correct choice), and plenty of cheese.Breakfast burritos can be categorized into 2 groups: those that make one giant mixture of the ingredients, and those that have all the ingredients separated. This falls into the latter, and personally I think it's much harder to do well but has a nice payoff. The key for that is balance: a good ratio of all of these ingredients, since they're in separate pockets of the burrito. And this burrito had exactly that without needing to fluff up any of the ingredients with gimmicks.What I appreciated most was that the whole burrito mixture was well-enveloped in cheese and that eggs were not overdone which is a common pitfall for a breakfast burrito. The flour tortilla was just stiff enough and just chewy enough to complement everything. Overall, a super solid breakfast burrito that makes you want to come back again when you're craving one. The one gripe I had was that the hash brown did feel a bit mushy, and that wasn't helped by the salsa making it feel like a bit more of a homogenous mixture. Normally it also comes with onions which I usually do not get.For about $11, this burrito is worth the money and could definitely make 2 meals but if you're hungry enough you can finish it in one. Needless to say, this continues to stand the test of time over the years.