Find Burger Bliss at Flower Mound’s The Tavern at Lakeside

Restaurant Ventures Unlimited (or RVU), a restaurant group from Flower Mound, is expanding the thriving food and drink scenes in Flower Mound and Southlake.

Tycoon, Volstead (a Prohibition-era-themed bar and kitchen) and The Tavern at Lakeside are central players in RVU’s portfolio. Tycoon and The Tavern at Lakeside are in Flower Mound, and Volstead is in Southlake.

Sunday brunch hours were in effect, and a glance at The Tavern at Lakeside’s brunch menu (10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays) was all the enticement needed to convince us to make the nearly 30-mile jaunt from Dallas northwest to Flower Mound. The Tavern at Lakeside specializes in from-scratch American fare, and among the everyday menu offerings are sweet chili cauliflower bites, Texas gulf redfish, rye maple bacon wings, seared ahi tuna salad and a meatloaf tower topped with brown gravy and onion strings atop a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and wilted spinach.

For brunch, there are a “hangover combo” (two eggs any style, applewood smoked bacon, house hash and toast), jalapeño honey butter chicken biscuit sandwich, biscuits in spicy sausage gravy, blueberry pancakes, brioche French toast, ocean-farmed salmon eggs Benedict and Texas breakfast tacos (and more).

The space leans rustic-chic. There’s a pet-friendly patio to enjoy before the relentless summer heatwave beats every North Texas patio into submission, and this is a great spot to meet up for a game (there are 25 TVs throughout).

We started with one of the brunch selections, chicken and waffles ($16), which consisted of country-fried chicken breast topped with Shiner Bock gravy and two eggs any style, all atop a house-made waffle and served with a side of maple syrup. This was a very respectable riff on this classic Southern dish, and at $16, it wasn’t a bad deal.

For our next order, we strayed from the brunch menu. After some waffling (no pun intended), we settled on the Creamy Mushroom Swiss Burger ($18). With this order, you’ll choose beer-battered or sweet potato fries (we went with sweet potato) as your side. This burger includes fresh ground sirloin, melted Swiss, and sautéed mushrooms.

In this line of work, you eat a lot of burgers. Most are fine. Few, though, are worth writing home about.

This one was worth writing home about.

A quality, juicy beef patty with just a touch of pink inside (it was cooked to perfection) arrived on a stellar bun with a simple yet outstanding supporting cast in the melted Swiss and sautéed shrooms. This burger will be hard to pass up when we’re back in Flower Mound.

Happy hour is 2-6 p.m. weekdays, with weekly specials and half-off signature entrees every Tuesday. There’s a good selection of wines, bourbons and house cocktails such as “adult Capri Suns,” the cucumber and watermelon mule (Por Osos vodka, cucumber, watermelon, lime, and Fever Tree ginger beer) and Hibiscus Mojito.

The Tavern at Lakeside, 2600 Lakeside Parkway, No. 100, Flower Mound. Monday – Wednesday, 11 a.m. – 11 p.m.; Thursday – Friday, 11 a.m. – midnight; Saturday, 10 a.m. – midnight; Sunday, 10 a.m. – 11 p.m.