Roam Burgers Opens This Weekend In Lafayette

There's a new burger joint in town.

More than 50 people packed into Roam Artisan Burgers on Friday night for an invitation-only first look at Lafayette's newest restaurant.

The owners of the eatery are having another private party on Saturday night and then the restaurant will open to the public at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday.

The restaurant is in La Fiesta Square in the building that used to house A.G. Ferrari Foods, which closed last spring.

Roam Burgers is owned by business partners Josh Spiegelman and Lynn Gorfinkle.

They have two Roam Burger places in San Francisco. The Lafayette location is their third restaurant.

The restaurant features beef burgers from 100 percent grass-feed cows, natural bison burgers, free range turkey burgers, an elk burger and a veggie burger.

There is also a farmers market salad, a children's menu, bottled sodas and seven flavors of milk shakes made with ingredients from the Straus Family Creamery.

There's also five beers and eight wines on tap.

Customers order at the counter and then the meal is brought to them.

Spiegelman said they chose the Lafayette location for several reasons.

One was the number of families that live close by. Another was a community that would support healthy, gourmet burgers.

"Everybody loves burgers, but people also want a burger that is better for you," said Spiegelman. "That's what we do."

The interior of the restaurant has been completely remodeled.

"We wanted to create a fine dining experience in a casual atmosphere," said Spiegelman.

He also noted the location is near a busy corner in Lafayette with plenty of foot traffic and a parking lot next door.

"We saw all this space and thought it was a great place to put this," said Spiegelman.

The crowd on Friday night seemed satisfied.

Janice Furhman, a wine and food writer, was with her son, Nick. She had a beef burger while he tried the elk burger.

"It was really flavorful," said Nick, a freshman at U.C. Santa Cruz. "It really stands out."

Furhman said Roam's Burgers is part of a trend of gourmet burgers that is sweeping the Bay Area.

She believes the place will do well in Lafayette.

"There's a hunger for that kind of food," she said.

John and Theodora Cumbelich were there with their three sons, ages 6 to 13.

The boys were having turkey burgers while their father ate a veggie burger and their mother had a market salad.

John Cumbelich, a real estate agent who helped find the Lafayette location for Roam Burgers, said the affluent, educated clientele in Lamorinda is a solid customer base for the new restaurant.

He also declared the veggie burger to be near perfect.