By Lee Hurley
Afew months ago, I started seeing something interesting on my Instagram feed. A middle-aged guy with reading specs on his nose doing hamburger reviews. The clips were irreverent, honest and even educational, and they began to go viral. Nothing like humor and truth to attract a crowd.
I asked around at the pickleball court, and everyone said, “of course I watch him.” His handle is @the_fedneck—TE, which stands for Trey Echols, Well Fed Redneck though he is neither overweight nor a redneck. I spent an hour talking with him then later got to join him at Carliles BBQ to video his review of their burger.
His live reviews do not attract attention. It’s a cell phone and a bite or two of a burger, and mostly he is not recognized. Echols is a born teacher, as anyone who watches his reviews will quickly learn. He knows a lot about a lot—especially finance and food—but he also listens. One of his passions is Jones Valley Teaching Farm where he sits on the board and whose mission is to deliver food-based education to Birmingham schools. Just setting the table.
Give us some background.
I’m 52, I grew up in Mountain Brook, went to Birmingham-Southern wanting to be in finance, and I still am. My experience started in college when I met John Lacey, who’s still a close friend of mine. He was a young broker and I was working at Gus Mayer in the men’s department. John came in and bought a suit, and I became his intern. I did anything but the actual finance work—odd jobs in addition to being a gopher. I put Azalea’s in a guy’s front yard.
Did you take finance jobs out of college?
Absolutely. I graduated in ’96, and that’s when all the bank headquarters were still here, so I took a job at SouthTrust then NBC then Merrill Lynch and loved it. With Merrill, we moved to Atlanta in 2006 then to a management job in Chicago. I was the idiot willing to move in 2008 when the whole world—especially financial services—was melting down. Later we moved to Charlotte, and I went to work for McColl Partners, which was founded by Hugh McColl, the retired CEO of Bank of America. They sold to Deloitte, and I was like, ‘Yeah, here we go again.’ I said to my family, ‘let’s go home.’ I didn’t realize how homesick I was. Back in Birmingham I went to work for Highland Associates, an institutional investment consulting firm. Three guys started it, Bill Terry, Charlie Perry and Bill Mills. It’s a real Birmingham success story. By the time I got there, the business was nearly 30 years old. So, I came in and ran the company. One of my primary objectives was to find an exit plan for the two remaining founders, which culminated with the sale of the business to Regions in 2019. Today I’m working in a real estate development firm we launched called Canvasback Capital.
Switching gears, how did the burger thing come about?
Remember the ice and snow storm in 2013? I was mentoring a group of finance students at Birmingham-Southern that night, and we all got stuck on campus. They were like, ‘come down to Fraternity House.’ I gave them my credit card to go to the Chevron and said ‘buy as much beer as you can carry.’ That night I chronicled my experience in a text chain with my Birmingham-Southern buddies, and they egged me on. Fast forward to the Georgia-Ole Miss game in Oxford that year. I go to this popular burger joint called Handy Andy’s, and I’m sitting at this four-top doing a burger review. I guess the Instagram algorithms worked, because my son walked into his fraternity house later that night, and the guys are like, ‘Hey man, do you know this guy doing a burger review at Handy Andy’s?’”
Why do you think people enjoy your burger reviews?
First I think people love burgers. Second, it’s an independent and uncompromised view. They dang sure know I’m not in cahoots with the chef. There’s no way a restaurant owner would let me talk about their burger like that. And the humor is important.
Was Chez Fon Fon your highest rating for a burger?
Yes, my highest rated burger with a 9.8. I’ve only given out 3 “9’s” in the 40 or so to date. It’s also the review that is my most viewed.
What is a good rating?
I think anything over a 7.5 is a good burger. I reserve the 9’s for very special burgers.
What happens when you say something negative about a burger?
I say negative things about burgers all the time, but I want everyone to try for themselves and many do. This is just my opinion, and I realize that people have their own tastes and preferences. Hopefully, even the negative stuff creates some intrigue for people to try. After all, I am usually going there in the first place because the restaurant already has a good reputation. The smart owners understand that, and they will collaborate or repost the review.
What brings a lower rating for a burger?
I have a few hangups that usually get me riled up. First is the beef quality. Second comes bad bread. Third would be what I refer to as “cute crap.” That could be the wrong cheese, tomatoes, wrong lettuce or some kind of exotic condiment. Talking specifically about the lettuce, Chef Biddy at Little Betty and I had a funny exchange about arugula. I think it’s funky and has the wrong texture for a burger and said it resembled monkey grass. All that said, I love even bad burgers, so we are really drawing some fine lines here.
The tomato people are mad at you?
Yeah, we have fun with that. I rip every tomato right off my burger, and it gets to the tomato lovers. Somebody asked me last weekend why I don’t just ask for the burger without it? Well, it’s part of the schtick now. Tomatoes introduce three things to a burger that I don’t think it needs: mushy texture, moisture and acidity.
Do French fries matter?
Hell yes, they matter, but the way I look at it is you don’t pick a restaurant just for its fries, but you will pick a restaurant just for its burger. So, I stick to the burger reviews. The best fries I have ever had, and I’ve had a bunch, are at River Café Sports Bar & Grill in Adger, Alabama.
Cheese?
Cheese is generally going to help deliver a great texture experience and is not supposed to overpower the beef. The gold standard for me is the Kraft Deli Deluxe American Cheese. This is different from the individually wrapped Kraft Singles. The guys at Alabama Stackers in Jasper do cheese better than anyone.
Where is all this going? Is this a for-fun thing, or do you take it further?
I am not really sure. It gets exciting to think about “doing something” with it, but it has truly been pure joy in its current wacky form. I’ve met interesting people, some of whom have gone with me to be the videographer. I’ve learned a few things along the way. Then, the small business aspect of it has returned me to some of my roots in banking and finance. It hit me while I was standing in line at Tony’s in Pelham. The husband-and-wife team have been doing burgers and dogs together for 23 years. Lines of people gather out the door each day. You have professionals, police, firemen, nurses and people of all stripes in that line. They get up and feed people together, every day, even if they had a spat on the way to work. This is the real America. This kind of melting pot of burger consumption, hard work and zero pretentiousness. I think there is a story somewhere worth telling, because we could use a lot more of it.
