I hadn’t planned on visiting Big Bob’s City Grill for this week’s column. I had my sights set on another restaurant.
A last-minute Google search, however, revealed some unsettling sanitation information about this other restaurant—a low score paired with details about a non-functioning freezer—that sent me pivoting toward Big Bob’s, a Hillsborough establishment I found while searching online listings.
Housed in a brick building with matching brick-red shingles, Big Bob’s sits just off Highway 70 across the street from a laundromat and catty-corner from a taqueria. The restaurant’s website described it as being “in the heart of Hillsborough,” which typically signals a downtown location. That’s not quite the case here, though it could still qualify as the heart—just not the geographic one.
I’m disoriented upon arrival: in the parking lot, cars are parked every which way, and the restaurant’s storefront is swathed with black netting with vertical slits cut to create several different entrances. I’m trying to figure out which slit to walk through when a woman climbing out of her car takes pity on me: “It’s the middle one, baby,” she says.
Inside the restaurant, it’s immediately reassuring to spot not only an acceptable sanitation score (94.0) but also a colorful, third-grade-classroom-esque sign that reads “Spread Kindness Not Germs.”
Big Bob’s has an old school vibe: the floor is checkered, the tables are covered in thick blue vinyl tablecloths, butter yellow chairs are bolted to the ground, and the menu is written on a whiteboard behind the register. It shows evidence of recent price adjustments—smudges of old numbers lurk beneath the new—but most everything still falls within my budget.
À la carte lunch options include a teriyaki chicken sandwich for $10, a bologna sandwich for $5, and a mushroom burger for $9, among other handhelds. The lunch combos, ranging from $10 to $13, offer the best value: a main (pork chops, Philly cheesesteak, cheeseburger, fish sandwich) plus fries and a drink.
The line is long, but there’s plenty to look at while waiting. On the wall, an oil painting depicts a slice of cake beneath a glass cloche; by the register, slices of lemon bundt cake sit in clear plastic clamshells. Beside them, a collection of business cards forms a small shrine to local services: one advertises a bail bondsman named “The Rock”; another promotes a paint and design company called Integrity Coatings. (All the Integrity Coatings cards are stuck together, which feels authentic.)
As I turn my attention toward a TV overhead, where Judge Mablean is presiding over a marital dispute, a man standing in front of me asks where I got my earrings. “I thrifted them,” I say. He gives me an “et tu, Brute?” sort of look but a few minutes later tells me he hopes to see me around.
I finally reach the front of the line and greet the cashier, a man wearing an orange and blue plaid button-down and a newsboy cap. I’d planned to ask him two questions—“Who is Big Bob?” and “I’m really hungry, what should I get?”—but the pace of service doesn’t invite chitchat. I order the cheeseburger combo for $11.99.
go out to eat with lunch money
The cashier hands me a cup of crushed ice and gestures to a row of large drink dispensers: sweet tea, unsweet tea, lemonade, water, and something red that’s probably punch. Then he scribbles “CB” on a guest check pad and rings me up for $13.98. I’d calculated something closer to $12.80 with tax, so there must be a credit card surcharge.
Tips are cash-only. I make a mental note to grab some coins from my car before I leave.
I fill my cup with sweet tea and find a seat. Seven minutes later, the cashier nods at me. I approach the register, and he opens a styrofoam container for inspection. The gesture feels as ceremonial as an upside-down Blizzard demonstration at Dairy Queen. I give him a thumbs up.
Back at my table, which is stocked with paper towels, ketchup, mustard, and Texas Pete, I stare down the most ambitious burger I’ve ever encountered. The size of the patty makes the American cheese on top look like a postage stamp. The onion and tomato slices, too, appear comically undersized.
It’s a solid burger—nothing that’ll send you into a trance, but nothing to fault either. The crinkle-cut fries, dusted with red seasoning and light as clouds inside, steal the show.
I retrieve $2.40 in quarters and dimes from my car and dump them in the tip jar, bringing my total to $16.38. It’s the most I’ve spent on a Lunch Money meal so far. Then again, this is the most substantial meal I’ve gotten.
Big surcharge. Big portions. At Big Bob’s, the name is truth in advertising.
Follow Staff Writer Lena Geller on Bluesky or email [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].