Tahoe’s Lucky Beaver Now A Serious New Contender in Reno’s ‘Best Burger’ Battle

Move over Awful-Awful, Lake Tahoe’s best burger is now the new burger in town in ‘the biggest little city’ and has its sights set on the ‘Reno’s Best Burger’ crown, and it’s only available at the new Reno location of the Lucky Beaver Bar & Burger.

What makes this newcomer think its Beaver Burger can unseat the decades old reputation of the Awful-Awful as Reno’s best? “It’s the meat that matters,” says Lucky Beaver co-founder Mike Leeper.

Mike and his partner, Home Depot co-founder Pat Farrah, opened the Lucky Beaver location near the stateline in South Shore in 2010 and found instant success with the bar & burger crowd by offering a one-of-a-kind tasting burger in a fun 24 hour-a-day atmosphere. Now they hope their business and culinary priorities will resonate with Reno’s growing gourmet culture movement. Job one, says Pat, is to offer the best burger patty ever. “That was our model at Home Depot, we always offered the better products.” So with partner U.S. Foods, they sought out Pat La Freida, the New York City ‘celebrity’ butcher who invented the Black Label Burger served only at Minetta’s and widely acclaimed as the world’s best tasting, and most expensive burger.

It was a unique experience. “That we could develop our own proprietary blend of beef cuts that were of the absolute highest quality was an amazing opportunity for our brand,” Mike says, “It’s so sweet and juicy.” “We tasted everything,” Pat adds, “and the combination of the rib roast and chuck was… (pausing to find just the right words) so…damned…GOOD!”

So, what’s the secret of the Beaver Burger? Mark Pastore is the president of Pat LaFreida Meats. “My cousin, Pat LaFreida, is very creative and he works with things.” The New York Times calls him the “Magician of Meat”. “The keys are the recipe he creates and the technique. We start with 100% Black Angus Choice, Upper Choice and Prime cuts, the highest quality from first to last ingredient. Then, we don’t grind, we chop. The amount of times the beef is chopped, the temperature of the beef, the fat-to-meat ratio and the fact that we use only whole muscle, no scrap, which almost no one does because it’s pricey.” There’s also magic is in there, somewhere.

Farrah agrees. “We all loved it. It was a buck more per patty at wholesale but I said “So? That’s what we’re gonna do. Always offer the very best!”

Whether the Beaver Burger can steal the thunder of the Awful-Awful as Reno’s best is still to be determined. Diners at the Lake already know what diners in the Truckee Meadows are soon to learn, and now can enjoy the Basin’s best burger when they drop into the Lucky Beaver Bar & Burger, now open 24 hours a day at 3655 S Virginia St, across from the Atlantis during Hot August Nights and other Reno events.

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