Guy’s Burger Joint, the onboard casual burger eatery created in 2011 through a partnership between Carnival Cruise Line and celebrity chef Guy Fieri has become a staple on Carnival cruises.
In addition to being available on all Carnival cruise ships, the popularity of the burgers has even led to nine land-based locations in airports, casinos, and resorts in the U.S. and abroad.
The menu is a fairly simple one. There are five different burgers to choose from, all of which use an 80/20 ground chuck beef patty, and all burgers are served with Guy’s hand-cut fries. There’s also an impressive topping and condiment station that offers a variety of veggies, sauces, and more to add to your burger. There is also a veggie burger available that isn’t on the menu, although it isn’t technically a Guy Fieri-endorsed product.
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While the menu selections and condiment bar are enough to satisfy the vast majority of burger aficionados, one thing that Guy’s Burger Joint doesn’t do much of is customization. If you ask, they’ll cook you a fresh beef patty or fries to order, and you can certainly choose to leave off a topping that typically comes on a certain burger. But that’s about it.
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Guy Fieri also has a deal with Caesar’s Entertainment.
Image source: Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Caesars Entertainment
You won’t see red in Guy’s burgers – even if you want to
Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald regularly answers cruisers’ questions on his Facebook page, and with Guy Fieri recording a cruise-focused special aboard Carnival’s Mardi Gras, which aired on Food Network and is available for streaming on Max, burgers have been a popular topic recently.
One cruiser, whose name Heald did not share (he rarely does), had a complaint about not being able to get his burger cooked to his specifications.
“On the Valor now, and I was told it was against Carnival rules to have my burger served medium rare. They would only give me one that was medium or medium well. Each time I gave it back,” they wrote.
The passenger was not willing to take the truth for an answer.
“Don’t tell me the reason that they will not do burgers this way is that it is a health reason. All American land-based restaurants will give you a rare or medium rare burger. These burgers would be more popular if we could all get rare or medium rare burgers,” they added.
Heald replied that it is indeed a public health issue. Carnival’s menus (and even those of most land-based restaurants) warn against eating undercooked meat.
“Do people really want a burger cooked medium rare? To me, it would look like an episode of The Walking Dead, but then again, I like all my meat well done,” he shared.
Why can’t Carnival make medium-rare burgers?
To be fair to the commentor, it’s absolutely true that many land-based restaurants (in the U.S. at least) will cook a burger however you want it.
And, despite Heald’s comment, many people do want burgers cooked medium rare. After all, Jimmy Buffett’s famous song “Cheeseburger in Paradise” specifically references medium-rare burgers.
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However, that doesn’t mean that Carnival doesn’t have a good reason for refusing to cook its burgers any less than medium. For one thing, if you get sick from eating undercooked meat on land, it’s far easier (and more cost-effective) to get medical treatment, and any food poisoning won’t be made worse by being on a rocking ship.
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Plus, as a former restaurant manager, I can tell you the specific type of beef and how it was processed and stored plays a role in how rare you can safely eat meat. If you’re curious, steaks are safer to eat rare mainly because it’s a solid piece of meat and there are fewer places for bacteria to hide.
With ground beef, the meat grinder used to process it is a common source of contamination, so if you didn’t physically clean the machinery and grind the meat yourself, you’re taking a chance. So, when it comes to ground beef, making a medium-rare burger out of high-grade meat that was freshly ground an hour ago in a small batch is one thing. Using meat that comes from a large processing plant is something else.
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