I've been going to Yum! pretty much since it opened. It helps that it's a block and a half from where I live, and when it opened, it filled a real niche that the neighborhood needed. It also helps that their food is pretty damn good.

Yum! is a counter-service place that essentially serves upscale comfort foods and tweaked American classics. It is, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, a Food Networky kind of place. They serve a meatloaf sandwich, tweaked in a way that would be called "upscale" except that "upscale" flavors have spent the last decade moving into the mainstream.

The thing I love about Yum! is that for less than what you'd pay per person in an Applebee's or a TGI Friday's, you can walk in, get some satisfying food that didn't come out of a bag injected with tequila-lime marinade at a factory in Nevada, and walk out, either well-fed or with your food in a big paper bag. It's not a place you'd necessarily drive across town to try, but if you live near the eastern edge of St. Louis Park, there are many, many worse places you could end up for a meal.

The menu has settled down a fair amount from the more ambitious, constantly changing menu it had when it opened. In a few cases, that's a damn shame, because as a former Upstate New Yorker, Yum! served the most authintic, true Buffalo wings I've had since moving to the Midwest. I miss them. Fried up, tossed in real butter and Louisiana hot sauce. No jarred goop,. no soggy skins, served with celery and bleu cheese dressing like they're damn well supposed to be. No barbequie sauce option, no ranch option. Real Buffalo wings. I hope they put them back on the menu someday.

On the other hand, the burger is now a permanent part of the menu, and it's a damn fine burger. I know this is the Summer Of The Burger here in the Twin Cities. And having been to two of the three new burger joints that have everyone talking (Burger Jones, Five Guys) and the third having just opened its location near me (Smashburger), I'll be talking about all of those here in due time. But Yum's burger is eminently satisfying - a plain, well-seasoned half-pound of chuck with a nice char on it, served on a house-made bun with lettuce, tomato, and very thinly shaved red onion. And you can get cheddar on it if you'd like. Solidly executed, satisfying, not too expensive. That's Yum! all over.

Some things are hit and miss - their fish and chips or their fries, for example - an unsteady hand at the frier can turn an otherwise delicious dish into a soggy disappointment. But again, even at its worst, it's never as bad as the worst from a chain sit-down restaurant, and most of the time it's considerably better. Especially if you get some mac-and-cheese, which is pure golden awesome.