Those Mean Burgirls’ have a new menu that’ll have you turned around and upside down. Burgers still pop off the grill but take a closer look and you — like us — will be waiting for them to change the sign on Speedway 6 to Mean Kitchen Bar & Grille.
Look, this isn’t pizza so don’t get it twisted, the specialty and the hot stepper is still some rendition on the 100% Angus beef patty. The Naked Burger? Sure. Do people use it as a baseline for their Build-A-Burgers? Yes. The Rt 6 Bacon Cheeseburger? Hot cakes, can’t keepem on the shelves. There are freighters in the Pacific at this very moment full of oversized Black Friday Sale TVs that will move fewer units. The SMASH BURGER? Are you mad? Can’t handle the demand. They sell out in Provincetown on any late night or early morning ending in Y. (Shameless plug: ask the ladies for the HyperLocal Special: 2 double smashed sliders and Mean Wedges. Thor approved.)
The good news doesn’t end there: the Hog Island Beer Yard is serving the Mean Burgers menu throughout the summer - a triple feature of everything you could want: Hog Island Beer, Mean Burgers menu, and Cape Cod sun fckn shine. Load up on everything - we wait out 40 weeks for these otherworldly 12, nahmean?
An Evolution in Short Order
The Meanies opened their pop-up Wellfleet this past New Years’ Eve. Co-Chairs of the Lenny Bruce Lighthouse Commission, they figured the first quarter of 2025 would let them know how much they’d be able to Make a Dirty Burger and Influence People. The results were resounding: January, February, and March saw them walk into a warm Wellfleet hug. It worked out that Jony, like the smahty she is, could roll up the almost 10 years at Bayside Betsy’s (under the mercurial Chef Mike Sysco, natch), and put it all to good use.
It was simple off the rip: first, Denya LeVine & Tim Dickey led a small village of musicians into the dining room every Tuesday night to tear through Irish, Country, and Folks tunes (which they still do, and will still do … check your social listings for details on which Tuesdays). That regular appointment brought a strong loyal base along with it and Jony popped out from the kitchen, took one look, and made a decision: Shepherd’s Pie.
Shepherd’s Pie was a rib sticker covered in au jus and it lasted through the Spring solstice. But by then Diana, Jodi, and Lady Chefington back there somehow figured out that Prime Rib was the magic word. They started serving, and selling out of, a pair of prime rib weekly. What I like about the story is that, if you ask the ladies, they’ll tell you that it wasn’t about the dish, it was about the kitchen. And they host a mean kitchen. And that same kitchen will also turn out a superior Fish Fry-day, which arrived for Lent and stayed long after the Resurrection.
I’m told a couple other places on the strip within arm’s reach did their best to navigate the rocky surf of the same special but couldn’t hang and the plate was short on the market for them. So it goes; good business is as good business does — fail quickly and move on, good work Unnamed Friendly Neighborhood Competitors. To that end, our heroines kept the live music coming in during those cold months: Derek Dibbern, Natalia Bonfini, Josh Ayala, Jim Nosler, Beau, Nolan Driscoll, Jefferey Clayton, Yordan Renzi, even DJ Danny descended from the misty mountaintops to host Karaoke … after being brought into the fold, Mean Burgers did their best to carry their end of the ‘keep the Wellfleet off-season’s heart beating’ couch.
Adapt or Die: She Always Hangs In A Buffalo Stance
Enter Cowboy Butter Bites, Cajun Salmon, and the Mac Bites Burger ... What you glean, watching Jony behind the flattop, if she’s not dancing, is a consistent problem solving glare. Half the time you talk to her, she’s on vacation in her noodle trying to figure out how to mix and match and pair and split any number of ingredients. This is how she decided to air out the Steak Frites, which is how we’ve been blessed with Cowboy Butter Bites. Sure Steak Frites was doing fine, but the Prime Rib was a star, it had the IT factor. The market is corrected. Supergroups don’t last, how many lead guitarists can you have? Figure it out.
This was also around the time the beautifully delicate Cajun Salmon (shown here over a Caesar Salad) entered the fray. It’s wonderful but it may be in storage until the fall. You have to imagine it’s hard to justify bringing Maui black sand to Newcomb Hollow Beach- is it majestic? yes, but you’re potentially overthinking the simple beauty of what’s already there for you in abundance. We of course are referring to the fried seafood plate with all of the standards you want, tasting like all of your favorite Cape Cod summer memories. But think about how nice it must be to be able to parade out the cajun salmon on a whim. Ahhh to carry such a trump card around.
BREAKING - we now go live to the floor where Jodi emerges from the kitchen with a dream called the Fisherman’s Fury — a spicy tomato based stew loaded down with cod, mussels, clams, scallops, and shrimp. Those shrimp are served with the head on so … let’s be grown ups about this alright? Let’s face what it is we’re eating, let’s decide, between us, to eat a NAKED LUNCH, to do as the old man says, and experience that frozen moment when we look down and see what’s really at the end of our forks — spicy soaked local fish delivering flavor that can only be expressed with an ecstatic groan and the face contorted only as someone who’s been fully won over can contort. I agree with the regulars who told me that, yes, embracing the honesty of the food chain is an act of bravery. Eat the shrimp, suck the heads, use all parts of the animal. It’s brave. I’m brave.
Or for the more faint of heart, maybe Portuguese Clams …
Lest we forget the hero of the story, at least in this timeline, is still the burger. So Jony, Jodi, and Diana (‘Mama’ or ‘Miss Bliss’) will find a couple hours of down time during the 5 or 6 or 7 days they’re open to do some experimenting, as Will & Robbie would say, BEFORE THE SUMMERTIME FLOOD and see what textures and seasonings speak to each other. And that’s exactly how we’re able to enjoy the Mac Bites Burger. We’re talking about a not-so-easily-developed project that presented the challenge of taking a wild mix of seemingly homerun ingredients and pulling the right taste from them. It turned into the arduous process of herding cats: finding a way to make the mac & cheese bites show up in the bite’s flavor profile when it’s needed but still not be overpowered itself by the pickle.
You think this is easy?
Take the Rest Home
You're full, you’re about to burst, you have to inhale too deeply to get your belt fastened leaving the bathroom because they won’t stop feedin you and feedin you and feedin you. So we’ll spare you the item by item run down of their menus in Wellfleet and Provincetown.
We’ll leave like this:
- Wellfleet, the restaurant: open for Lunch & Dinner Tues-Sun, music inside and outside - check social listings for details
- Provincetown, the shop: open for Lunch & Dinner 7 days: no Mean Kitchen cuisine but dancing is encouraged, especially when accompanied by order-window grooving. Slushies served, and impressions of any sort are encouraged. Don’t tell anybody but you can get full size smash burgers or (GASP!) double smash burgers in Ptown on the reg-y.
The majesty of a monster kitchen, the scope of chef Jony’s ambition, and the opportunity to sit with an adult beverage to absorb them is only available in Wellfleet this summer, so stop in and see for yourself. Maybe you’ll catch some live music, likely you’ll feel the warmth of Vitamin D in the yard or on the patio, and you’ll fulfill the full-on rewards of the sit down experience.
Jony, Jodi, and Diana will tell you it’s Mean Burger SZN and that they’re revving up a machine to power their menu, their staff, and their Mean Kitchen. It’s going to be a Cruel Summer.
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