Sheetz Burgers

Two ways to buy a Sheetz burger

A Sheetz burger starts at $5.99 for the Made To Order Burger, which carries 250 calories as a bare patty and bun before you add anything. That figure is the whole reason Sheetz burger pricing confuses people: the base is genuinely just beef and bread, and everything else is a separate line on the touchscreen.

The alternative is the Sh'tacked range. These are preset recipes that arrive assembled, starting at $7.49 for the standard Sh'tacked Burger at 664 calories and running up to $8.99 for the Meat Sweatz at 945. You are paying for the toppings and the fact that somebody else decided the combination.

The patty is the same in both cases. It is a flat top smashed patty rather than a thick grilled one, cooked through by default, with the crust that comes from pressing beef onto hot steel. It is a better patty than the price suggests and a worse one than a dedicated burger restaurant makes, which is the correct expectation for a convenience store kitchen.

Where Sheetz genuinely competes is on customisation. The build system means a burger with no bun, double patty, no cheese and extra jalapeños is a normal order rather than an argument, and the kiosk prices each change transparently as you make it. Nobody has to explain anything to a member of staff.

Burger Sliderz at $4.99 for 541 calories sit slightly apart. They are the cheapest way into beef on the Sheetz menu and are closer to an appz item than a meal, which is how most people order them.

One thing the calorie column hides: the base figure of 250 is not a light burger, it is an unfinished one. Add cheese, bacon, a sauce and a second patty and you land in the same territory as the preset recipes. Anyone comparing that base number against a rival chain's fully dressed sandwich is comparing two different things.

Build your own or take a preset

Take the base at $5.99 and add cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato and a sauce and you will land close to the standard Sh'tacked price of $7.49. The presets are not overpriced, they are roughly what the same build costs.

The reason to build your own is control rather than savings. If you want double meat and no bun, or four vegetables and no sauce, the base build is the only route that gets you there cleanly.

The reason to take a preset is that the Sh'tacked recipes contain things you cannot easily assemble yourself, particularly the mozzarella sticks in the Big Mozz at $7.99 and the multi meat stack in the Meat Sweatz at $8.99.

Five things worth knowing before you order

Details of the Sheetz burger system that are not obvious from the screen.

• The base calorie figure of 250 is patty and bun only. Do not compare it against a competitor sandwich figure that includes toppings.
• Every topping is priced individually, so a heavily loaded custom burger can exceed the most expensive preset.
• Sliderz at $4.99 are the cheapest beef on the menu at 541 calories, and they take the same sauces as the full burgers.
• Burgers are cooked to order rather than held, so expect a genuine wait at busy times. This is the item most affected by store queue length.
• The Pizza Bagelz Bunz Burger at $7.99 is a limited collaboration build and carries 1,232 calories, the highest of any burger listed.