Johnny Pump

Burgers and shakes, but I’m left shaking my head.
I wanted to like Johnny Pump; they have excellent customer service from the moment you peak through the window to responding back to reviews online. The owner values feedback and wants to continue to improve his offering.
The café is deceivingly small from the front, when you walk in; it’s strikingly large with plenty of room to dine in with nice styled wooden table and chairs.
The menu caters for a whole range of tastes having a huge American inspired breakfast selection with a lunch menu that introduces some Italian dishes in there. There’s also a dinner menu as well. There’s so much to have here, this review will focus on its main attraction of burgers and shakes.
I had the Burger Me Up Scotty, with Wagyu beef, grilled tomato, iceberg lettuce, caramelised onions, ranch sauce, American cheese melt, pineapple slice, soft brioche bun and fries.
This is where my excitement was quickly soured by a disappointing burger experience. As much as the owner would like to say this is a brioche bun, it’s not. It’s a seeded bun. A brioche bun is high in egg and butter content and this wasn’t. If you’re not going to use one, remove it from the menu. If customers don’t like it because it’s heavy, then they shouldn’t be ordering a brioche bun to begin with.
The Wagyu beef crumbled all over my wooden plate, this was perhaps the most frustrating part of this burger. The patty didn’t hold and was half the size of the bun, making this burger almost impossible to put in your mouth. Why not make the patty the same size as the circumference of the bun? My burger had no caramelised onions and little to no ranch sauce (I could barely taste it).
The American cheese melt was not melted; it was as if they put the cheese on in the last minute which made the burger dry. The Wagyu beef, although crumbled, was tasty and juicy, that was the only highlight.
The waiter asked if everything was okay, I replied with my feedback and he responded with other customers also had issues with the bun. The owner later expressed this as well.
The chips were nice, but seemed like they were soaking in oil? They had a strange green/​yellow tinge to them, reminiscent of using vegetable oil. For $ 17.95 including the burger, I thought the amount of chips were small. I still don’t understand why some cafes still cheap out on the chips.
We ordered the wild berry smoothie and the Nutella and brownie shake. The wild berry smoothie had little taste, there’s no hit of flavour, it’s almost like you’re drinking skim milk and plain yogurt with a plethora of seeds.
The Nutella and brownie shake was nice, although, I was disappointed the chocolate sauce on the cup was not Nutella. The brownie was okay, but overall the presentation didn’t reflect the taste.
There’s a lot of work to be done here, the burger is not up to café quality if you’re paying this much for it.
Getting the basics right is something Johnny Pump needs to do to improve.
I can’t recommend the Burger Me Up Scotty in this current state.