Mike’s St. Cloud Getaway

This past weekend my wife and I, and my daughter and two of my granddaughters, went up to St. Cloud to spend the weekend with my son, his girlfriend and my other granddaughter. He has a nice place on the lake with a beautiful beach that has an old-school playground slide, a nice patio with a fire pit and plenty of room for guests. We stayed one night and spent our Saturday working on installing a new mailbox, had lunch at the newest burger joint in St. Cloud and spent the afternoon playing with the grandkids at River's Edge Park.

World Burger Company, the burger hotspot we visited, is owned and operated by my high school classmate Tracy Lee Karner (Bottke) and her husband, Ken. Ken draws on his years as a chef for several Chicago-area's finest restaurants as well as director of productions at Chateau Louise when Time Magazine named it one of “Twenty-Two Restaurants Well Worth the Trip.” Their world-flavored burgers are created with only certified Angus beef served on fresh-baked buns. They also have a variety of sandwiches and sides. I ordered the Asian Burger with Asian bbq sauce and Asian slaw, which was delicious. A couple of other burgers our party tried were the Carolina Burger with hickory bacon, bbq sauce and American-style coleslaw, and the Swiss Mushroom Burger with sautéed mushrooms in wine sauce and melted Swiss cheese. We added three orders of Fries ala Quebec, smothered in mushroom wine sauce and cheese curds, which was more than enough of the eight of us. The next time I go there I'm going to try the Chicago Wiener Burger, which is exactly what it sounds like, a ​Chicago-style dog with mustard, pickle relish, onion, tomato, poppy seeds and sport peppers on top of a burger along with some more of those yummy Fries ala Quebec.

We decided to wear off that filling meal with a trip to River's Edge Park, which features a splash pad in the summertime. The kids had a blast playing on the slides, swings and other things. I know we'll have to visit this place again in the summer.