Driven by our ceaseless desire to find the perfect Seattle burger shack, the SunBreak Lunch Team headed south to the Seward Park neighborhood to give Bent Burgers a try.

Located at 5100 S Dawson Street, Bent Burgers is a welcome tenant in a burger-starved region of the city. The interior is American burger shack classic with vinyl seats, booths and, critical for Seattle, a generous outdoor seating area. A nice touch is table tops decorated with vintage comic book art.

Bent has a straightforward menu. Four specialty burgers include a Western BBQ, Teriyaki, Mushroom Swiss, and the Bacon Blue Cheese. The menu also included regular, cheese, bacon, veggie, turkey and chicken options. There is a “stacker” option as well. (This is a big burger shack trend in the area and regrettably so. Our experience is that more meat does not equate to more flavor.) The menu also features chicken wings, and fresh shakes and malts.

We grabbed a teriyaki chicken burger, a bacon cheeseburger, a side of BBQ wings, sweet potato fries, and a chocolate malt. The results (just over $32) were a mixed bag, not least because our BBQ sauce and Ranch dressing, which cost extra, weren’t included in the take-out bag we collected. Neither were napkins or Wet-Naps.

On both burgers, the lettuce was crisp and fresh, the pickles were unusually tasty and crunchy, and the bun was lightly toasted. Sadly, the patties didn’t continue the trend. The beef was chewy, a little over-cooked, and lacked flavor; while the chicken breast was both too small for the bun and bland.

On the plus side, the BBQ wings were terrific, the sweet potato fries were wonderfully crisp on the outside and flavorful inside; and the chocolate malt, suitably malty.

Bent Burgers has been open since last October, so they should have had time to work out the kinks by now–certainly the sauce mishap is puzzling (if you’re charging, don’t short-change the customer on their Ranch dressing). Still, with their patio and proximity to Seward Park–crying out for a summer picnic–and no wealth of lunchtime options in the neighborhood, we hope they take another look at the quality control and meat selection.

For now, Bent Burgers remains a fun neighborhood joint, but a little extra care could make them a destination for anyone heading Seward’s way or beyond.

UPDATED (9/19/11):

Bent Burger owner Dan Bent dropped us an email over the weekend and asked the SunBreak Lunch Team to return to his restaurant and give it another try. Being both fair-minded, and hungry, we set off for the Seward Park neighborhood for some burgers.

We’re glad we did.

When we last tried Bent Burgers, we were indeed met with mixed results. While there was a whole lot to love, we found the meat overcooked and a few gaps in to-go service. This time around, I ordered the straight hamburger with lettuce, tomato, and onion, and MvB ordered the Western Burger with candied bacon, BBQ sauce, cheddar and topped with onion rings.

The meat was delicious and perfectly cooked this time around. Dan, who was in the restaurant when we arrived as he is most days, told us that their meat, ordered from Portland, is chopped, not ground. The result is a burger that can be tricky to cook, but when done right is a real treat. Charbroiled, it’s a beautiful flavor you don’t often get at Seattle area burger shacks.

Once again, the sweet potato fries were delicious and all the ingredients were fresh with crispy lettuce, flavorful tomato and a sweet onion that really shined through on both our burgers.

We spent a few minutes talking with Dan who is a 30-year veteran in the restaurant business. Bent Burgers, which he runs with his son (an Iraq War vet), is his first stand-alone restaurant and, as a resident of the neighborhood, Dan was aware that this part of Seattle is notoriously short of great food options. It’s great that he has decided to make a stand there. Dan hires local kids, many working their first jobs, and he has done a nice job training them. The whole place has a great neighborhood feel and the staff there today was friendly, efficient, and pleasant. Dan teased us with plans for coming expansion. Stay tuned.

And go ahead and drop by Bent Burgers. And don’t forget to check out the wings. They are great, too.