Foster Burger, Lardo, Little Big Burger By the Numbers

Image of Little Big Burger Division courtesy Avila/EPDX

How many burgers does Foster Burger sell daily? How many pounds of potatoes does Lardo go through each week? How much beef does Little Big Burger griddle? Eater asked these popular burger joints to pony up their poundage numbers for an average week, in this feature dubbed Burgers by the Numbers:

At SE Foster's Foster Burger (which offers six "specialty burgers" in addition to its classic build-your-own Foster Burger model), kitchen manager Mark Markhams breaks it down:

· What's the average number of burgers sold in a week: We average anywhere from 2200 to 2500 burgers a week, the classic "Foster" outsells everything by far.
· Pounds of beef used?: We seem to average about 800 to 850 pounds of beef per week.
· Pounds of cheese?: We are using around 80 pounds of cheese per week.
· What about pickles?: We make our pickled beets [for the "Kiwi Burger"] in 25-pound batches and they last about a week. We fly through about 40 pounds of our house pickles per week as well.
· How big are the batches of "Foster sauce"?: I've been making our barbecue sauce in three-gallon batches and we are going through 15 to 16 gallons of Foster sauce a week.
· How many veggie burgers do you sell a week?: People love our veggie burgers, we sell well over a 100 per week.
· How many pounds of potatoes? We use a solid 900 pounds of potatoes a week!
· Any other numbers to share?: We fly through around 125 shakes per week as well.

Portland's Little Big Burger chainlet offers a famously simple menu at its five area locations — one burger (with four cheese options), one veggie burger, and the option of a bacon-burger with the addition of a bacon slice. According to co-owner Katie Poppe, the flagship Pearl District location is still LBB's busiest, serving the following numbers in the average week:

· On average, how many burgers do you sell a day at your busiest location?: 800ish
· How many pounds of beef do you use in a day?: 200ish
· Pounds of cheese in a week?: 50 pounds. Cheddar is the most popular cheese, chèvre is runner-up.
· Pounds of ketchup?: 400
· What about potatoes?: 1,500 pounds
· How many veggie burgers do you sell in an average day?: 50ish
· Any other numbers to share?: Bonus! [We sell] about 25 lettuce wraps/day.

Rick Gencarelli's sandwich hotspot Lardo serves just one burger, but it's a doozy: using two 3.5-ounce patties and a slab of pork belly on top. Gencarelli provides the numbers:
· What's the average amount of burgers you sell in a week?: We sell 650 burgers per week — it ranks second to the Banh Mi as most popular.
· Is the burger-to-other-sandwich percentage different now that you're in two brick-and-mortars versus the cart?: It was the same in the cart.
· How many pounds of beef do you use in a week?: We go through 350 pounds of beef a week.
· Pounds of lettuce?: 50 pounds of Romaine lettuce.
· In how big a batch do you make Lardo's "secret sauce," and how long does that last?: We make Lardo sauce in two-gallon batches, and it lasts about a day at Hawthorne and two days downtown.
· How many pounds of potatoes do you go through, for fries, in a week?· : We use 1,250 pounds of potatoes a week for our french fries.

· All Burger Week 2013 Coverage [Eater PDX]