The name may be misleading because burgers are not the only thing on the menu.
In fact, the chef recently hosted an "Alpha Gal" dinner without serving any burgers specializing in items for people who can not eat red meat -- "a complete alpha gal friendly five-course meal." One item on the menu was quail with chili dusted popcorn.
(Alpha-gal syndrome is a recently identified type of food allergy to red meat and other products made from mammals. In the United States, the condition is most often caused by a Lone Star tick bite.)
"No cross contamination from red meats, raw sugars, animal dairy or fumes," was the promise.
As guest Jana Summey said: "It was wonderful! The food was fantastic. I cannot express my gratitude enough. A night without worry or having to explain is a true gift. Thank you. We will be back!"
Ted Ringler said: "Just awesome that Jeff has done something like this for folks infected with Alpha-Gal. For the ones that don't know about alpha-gal. Google lone star tick."
B List Burgers, a new restaurant opened by chef Jeff Wetzel, originally from Houston, is in western Bella Vista, about 15 miles from Pea Ridge.
Wetzel said he named his new restaurant "B List Burgers" because he spent most of his career in fine dining with "A List" restaurants. He opened the restaurant in May 2021.
Lance Payerli, customer, said: "I'm here every Wednesday.
"I love that the food is fresh, often local ingredients and it's at a fair price. The staff is welcoming and kind. You get to talk to the chef the whole time and hear about all the different ideas he has.
"It's a fancy restaurant disguised as a burger place," Payerli said.
Staff include Sierra Watkins, front end manager, and her mother Stacie Watkins, server, and kitchen employees Johnny Senasy and Jerred Metcalf.
From a start working as a dishwasher "at a girlfriend's dad's sports bar," Wetzel said he learned to cook then attended the Art Institute in Houston and is "classically French trained."
"I worked for every major chef in Houston at some time," he said, then went to private country clubs and was an executive banquet chef. "I learned more from chefs than I ever did in school."
He moved to northwest Arkansas in 2015 and was chef at Blu Fresh Fish Market in Bentonville, then opened a food truck -- Le Bouvier -- which was a close to saying "cowboy" in French that he could manage.
"I was known as the cowboy chef in Houston because, when I was young, I wore boots, Wranglers and a hat," Wetzel said. "Now, I'm old and my feet hurt. Cowboy don't do it for me in the kitchen. I'm classically French trained and tragically redneck."
"I had no intention of opening a restaurant, but saw this space was available," Wetzel, who said at that time he was catering and considered opening a catering kitchen. "I thought I'd just go look and see and came home with the keys."
"My big thing here is the quality we do, I don't know that everyone appreciates the work we do," Wetzel said.
Although the restaurant name is burgers, there's far more on the menu.
"We make our own buns, grind beef, make own pickles," he said. "We have no freezer. Everything is made fresh every day."
Burgers are made with Angus beef and fresh, locally sourced vegetables. Fries and chips are made in house. There is a burger made with elk and another with fresh ground turkey.
On the regular menu, appetizers are buffalo chicken bites, potato skins and adobo glazed pork belly. There are salads, chicken and sausage gumbo, a pork tenderloin sandwich, a Reuben and a Philly cheese-steak.
And then there are the specials which includes anything from chicken-fried steak, to octopus, calamari, tuna.
"My speciality is delicious. I cook from everywhere. I pull flavors from all over the world," Wetzel said. "I like taking ordinary food and putting my classical fine dining training into it.
Wetzel said availability and price of product affect the menu.
"For example, for my Valentines dinner, I got shorted our chicken... so I couldn't do the chicken dish I wanted to do so I did bone marrow and I did a mirepoix marmalade to go with it," he said. "I explained to everybody the basic building blocks of French cuisine is mirepoix -- celery, carrot, onion -- and your stocks you make with your bones. If I can't showcase the two most important things in a cuisine, then what did I learn from that cuisine?
"One of my chefs taught me a long time ago, you can put 85 things on a plate, anyone can do that. But can you put five things on a plate. There's no where to hide. Everything has to be executed perfectly."
"I don't cook out of spice jars," he said. "I'll find an ingredient that tastes like what I want."
In Bella Vista, the specials are popular.
"Everyone now is more interested in what's not on the menu," Wetzel said. "I couldn't believe we sold 30 pounds of octopus.
"I think Bella Vista is finally starting to trust me as a chef -- to know we can actually execute these dishes and they don't have to go to Bentonville or Rogers ... they've got someplace in their own back yard," he said.
One of the regular items on the menu is called the "Miss Piggy" a pork tenderloin sandwich. Wetzel said several customers had asked about whether he served one and one customer actually brought two back from Iowa to try.
"Our menu is a living thing," he said. "Our burger lineup stays consistent. But everything else, it's fair game -- what can I get my hands on."
"Any time I bring in grouper, it doesn't matter how I make it, we'll blow it out as fast as I can make it.
"Same thing with the lobster rolls. When I fly in Maine lobster,we sell those faster than I can cook them," he said.
"I only have those two refrigerators ... it limits how much I can bring in. When it's gone, it's gone," Wetzel said.
He said he wants to keep prices reasonable for his customers.
"Facebook is the best place to keep up with the specials and what we're doing," he said.
Specials have included grouper, striped bass, calamari, stuffed squid, sesame crusted ahi tuna, halibut, jambalaya, crawfish, shrimp, Cioppino (an Italian stew), red curry Alaskan cod, beef cheek birria taco.
Not only are the hamburger buns made fresh, occasionally there are other breads. He makes a rosemary bread for a rosemary BLT.
"I love this job," Sierra said, adding that she loves the Back the Blue burger even though she didn't think she liked blue cheese. She said the first Reuben she ever tasted was made by Wetzel, and now she loves it.
A graduate of Bentonville High School, Sierra said she loves meeting people from the community and is inspired by Wetzel's enthusiasm.
Dessert specials have included chipotle chocolate cake with red chili ganache, bacon, orange zest and strawberry mascarpone.
"I'm not a pastry guy so I have to get out of the box on my desserts," Wetzel explained. "I like spicy and sweet or savory and sweet, not just sugar on sugar. I like a different flavor profile so I try different things."
"We did a whole southeast Asian week," he said, preparing Pho and a Chinese five-spice apple egg roll with a Thai basil creme en glace and a lemongrass caramel.
Wetzel uses lamb from the Hanna Ranch in Benton County and buys as much locally as he can.
A Sunday brunch (10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.) may include smoked pork belly pancakes with bourbon syrup, Creole skillet potatoes with andouille sausage, eggs and Creole remoulade. Other brunch items include crab cake Benedict, potato hash, French toast.
"I kind of make things up as I go, that's why my specials can't ever stay the same, cause I get bored. That's why I can't just do burgers. When I get bored, I get complacent and when I get complacent, the food suffers.
"I've got to be excited about it," he said, adding that he is grateful for his employees who've learned to work with him and his idiosyncrasies. "It kind of makes them crazy."
"Without them, we'd be in real trouble -- these two guys work, me and two guys to run six days a week," Wetzel said. "I've got to have a team behind me. There's no such thing a a great chef without a great team who buys into what you're doing and cares... They catch everything before it even leaves the kitchen. If there's something that's not right, we're remaking it."
"I can write whatever menu you want, but if they're not in here to help execute it ... I'm just one guy, I've got to have a team," he said.
"The actual name B List Burgers doesn't do us justice," he said. "I try to buy as local as I can ... that doesn't mean cheaper."
"Right now, I'm really just trying to feel the market out," he said, adding that one dish that didn't sell well was salmon poke. Frog legs do sell well.
Some things don't make sense, but the average customer doesn't understand that local doesn't make cheaper. He said he wants to be at a reasonable price point. He said he wants people to be able to come eat twice a week rather than just once a month.
"I don't want to break their bank," he said. An average ticket runs about $16 per person.
He said fish and chips is very popular. The Alaskan cod whole filet with beer batter is one of the most popular.
A best selling appetizer is the Gulf coast deviled egg which is currently off the menu because he's struggling to get oysters.
"It's a pickled egg white with a Creole deviled egg filling, a fried oyster, a piece of bacon and some Creole remoulade," he said. "I want Gulf oysters. I like Gulf shrimp and Gulf oysters. When I can't get 'em, then we just don't run it."
"My wife calls this place my mistress," he said, laughing. She and their daughters, Emma, 14, and Payton, 11, have helped.
"We are not just here to take from the community. We try to put back as much if not more than what we take. That's how it should work as a small business. Bella Vista's my backyard just like anybody sitting here," he said, adding that he teams with St. Bernard's Catholic Church to feed veterans and home bound at holidays.
"We try to give back and do the right thing. It's not always about money," he said.
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