First of all, I’m not telling you the address or how to get there. Figuring it out is part of the allure, part of the adventure.
Olga and I got lucky. We know Claudia who is a regular and knows Mariah Ayon, the proprietor. Claudia put in a word for us with Mariah. Still, Mariah wasn’t convinced she wanted visitors. It was Friday evening. Her birthday. She wanted to close early and go out to dinner. She had a certain number of orders to fill and then she was closing.
“Besides,” she told us later. “I never let anyone in my house.”
Yes, that’s right, her house. Ayon’s home is in a neat neighborhood of small houses in Coachella. It’s busy on a Friday evening with people getting home from work and trucks backing into short driveways. Ayon’s house looks like any other except for a backlit, ten-foot square banner on the front porch that says, ‘The Burger Spot.’ There are also a few people standing patiently in line on the cement path leading to her front door. We get to the door and knock. A young woman answers and we tell her who we are. She tells us to wait. We wait a long time.
Finally, we are admitted. We enter a small living room where the furniture has been pushed back to create space to the front door from the kitchen and dining area where a long folding table is set up as an assembly area. We are greeted by Mariah, a young, attractive woman who nevertheless has the harried look of someone keeping a dozen balls in the air. Between phone orders, she briefly tells her story. Her original goal was law school and she worked a couple server jobs while doing undergraduate work (It’s the only previous food service experience she’s had), but then her life took a turn and she became a full time nanny. “This started during Covid. Everything crashed down, so I just did it a little on side. But then it started getting bigger and bigger. I finally had to ask two friends to come in and help me. It just became a local hit.”
Ayon’s business is open Wednesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner. Lunch is usually 11:30 to 1 and dinner varies (times are posted weekly on Ayon’s Instagram page), but is generally 4:45 to 9. Ayon makes a set number of burgers and sliders per day and when they sell out (which they do, every day), then she closes. “All our clients are the same clients every week,” she says. “They know what they want and know when to come by and pick it up.”
There is only one way to order: The Burger Spot Instagram site. You peruse the small menu such as the ‘Hit the Spot Burger Box’ ($10.00) or the popular special platters such as ‘6 sliders and buffalo fries all around’ ($45.00), then send a message in your order. If you’re lucky enough to edge out one of the regulars, you get the address, and arrive 25 minutes later. Park in the street and text that you’ve arrived. If your order is ready, you can go to the door. One of Ayon’s friends will take your cash and return with your order.
Ayon says the key to her popularity is that she flavors her food to fix her largely Mexican clientale. The buffalo fries (cut steak style) are topped with grated cheese, her own chipolte and ranch sauce, and parsley. It’s like French fries meets nachos. The ‘Hit the Spot’ is a huge angus patty flavored with piquant spices between a kasier roll that requires both hands. It comes with melted American cheese, pickled red onions, tomato, spicy mayo. I had avocado slices added to mine. It was unctuous and spicey, though not to where it singed my hair. The great mix of flavors and the perfectly cooked meat made it one of the greatest burgers I’ve ever had. How do I know? It was gone in 60 seconds and there was nothing left but spicey mayo on my fingertips.
