"BLUF: First Ward House is one of the first places you should be stopping in St. Joseph if you are in the area and looking for a classic American lunch. Burgers, fried stuff, lots and lots of booze, etc. Your boy Slim was impressed with First Ward House, and I think you will be too. My drankin ' patna (old T-Pain song) and I were starving in the middle of the workday and whipped out the trusty Yelp machine to help us find the spot to eat. Sure enough, it directed us to First Ward House. You can eat inside or outside, and if I had not been wearing such a suffocatingly hot getup I may have wanted to eat outside. But alas, such is the life of a cowpoke....we don 't wear shorts and flip flops. But I digress. You seat yourself inside, and there is a stage, a huge bar, and a lot of room. My guess is this place is jumping on Friday and Saturday nights. Pretty tame at noon on a Tuesday, but the party walked in with me and Tim Dawg (my drankin ' patna). Pretty cool looking place overall. Service is good too. When they serve a drank at First Ward, even if you get a water (gotta stay hydrated, even when you wanna get crunk), you get it in a huge beer mug. Nice touch. He ordered the patty melt, while my eyes lighted on the SJFD Fireburger. It claimed to be hotter than the Devil 's drawers, which if you throw that down in front of me, I 'm going to say challenge accepted! And I did. We both got fries as well. This is one of the better burgers I have eaten for a while, and probably the best one I have eaten yet in St. Joseph. It was obviously not a frozen patty, and while it may not have been as hot as the Devil 's panties, it had some zip to it. Tim Dawg loved his patty melt, and our fries were excellent as well. They cut them real long but standard width, so they are different from your run of the mill restaurant fries. Finally, the price was right on. The food was about $20 for the two of us. I won 't get into our alcohol bill. All in all I would highly recommend First Ward. Again, I promise this is the best burger I have eaten yet in St. Joseph. And Slim Jim don 't lie! Meet me and Tim Dawg up there some time and we 'll drink like that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Weak souls need not apply!"