LA SALLE, Mich. —  The La Salle Bar is not a burger joint with a bar. It’s bar with burgers.

And when this bar is open, the grill is open, and that’s just the way it should be. Because the best part about a burger bar is of course the burger served at the bar.

If the bartenders at this cozy, single room neighborhood bar on South Dixie Highway know you, then you already know this. 

If they don’t know you, they soon will as you find out this is where some of the best cheeseburgers are served in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. Signed dollar bills as de facto wall paper confirm this as indisputable. It’s the kind of place that serves you the same smile early on Christmas Eve as it does late on New Year’s Eve. 

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The half-pound burgers are hand-packed and always cooked to order — so your bartender may be quite busy.

On a few visits to the small, but obviously well-loved bar we found them outstanding. On one occasion, we happened upon friends and family singing happy birthday and serving a cake they had brought. On another, we walked into a very serious pool tournament dominated by wrist brace-wearing silver seniors who brought their own cues. On a third, it wasn’t biker night formally, but there certainly were a lot of motorcycles. 

It’s a community meeting place. A resting place. A celebrating place. A cheeseburger and fries and easy chatting place. 

The standard cheeseburger ($12) and fixings themselves aren’t stacked neatly top to bottom. Moving upward like a kind of fountain, they loosely orbit the bottom bun, with the patty itself extending well beyond the bun’s jurisdiction. You have to position yourself just right, maybe one straight leg on to the ground and elbow to the counter top for buttressing, to execute the first few bites, which will be juicy, creamy, salty, and surprisingly well-held by the Kaiser bun.

After the bartenders, that bun is probably working the hardest in the building. 

Though one diner found the bacon mushroom burger ($14) leaned a little dry, he noted the mushrooms brought it back, and it was otherwise delightful; and it was also the size of something you should get a T-shirt for finishing in one sitting.  

Hand-cut french fries or hand-battered onion rings are the sides ($4). These are worth the trip alone. Bordering on county fair quality, they’re impossible to not finish. 

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The limited menu features some acceptable and expected appetizers like mozzarella sticks ($7) and mini tacos ($7), a beloved regional staple.  

There are also other sandwiches. We tried the fried chicken sandwich ($13) and the BLT ($11). If you have to pick between those, the BLT wins hands down. 

But really, you should get the burger. 

In ordering each of the other sandwiches, done more out of a duty to try other items than desire to not eat a burger, we were advised to get burgers. When we offered that the chicken sandwich wasn’t as good as the burger, the only push back was that we should have known better and to “get the burger.”

For dessert, there are usually a few different beers on tap. Old Crow also is available. 

The La Salle Bar opened in 2006 under the name MA Doom’s, and the namesake’s kids — the Doom family — still run the business. So, be nice to the bartender, tip them and the walls, try not to lose any money at pool, and get the burger the next time you’re on South Dixie Highway nearing La Salle. 

First Published October 13, 2022, 1:00 p.m.