Jake and I are both October babies. He asked me this year to sign him up for free birthday goodies and like a good girlfriend, I hooked him up. One thing we were both able to cash in on is the free birthday burger from Red Robin.

In years past, Red Robin sent out an email with a coupon for the birthday burger. You could only view the coupon a few times before it was revoked though and I accidentally voided my coupon before I ever got a chance to print it out. This year Red Robin has instituted a loyalty card. You can order a Red Royalty card online and it will be mailed to your house. As soon as your register the card, you get a free appetizer good for 14 days. Our waitress also told us the birthday burger is good for up to one year to use, though on the website it says only during the month of your birthday.

Our waitress also split our bill, allowing us to use our birthday rewards at the same time, which we really appreciated. The card is only for adults 18 and up and for a 2 adult household to both get birthday burgers, each must have their own card.

[Oktoberfest Burger - Swiss cheese, beer mustard onions and black forest ham on a toasted pretzel bun]

Jake tried the limited time Oktoberfest Burger for his birthday burger. I was tempted to get it as well, just for the pretzel bun, but I’m not a really big ham person. Ham on a burger sounded weird to me. Jake liked it enough and enjoyed it for what it was, but he didn’t feel that it was the best burger he’s ever had.

[Whiskey River BBQ Burger - Whiskey River® BBQ Sauce with Cheddar cheese, crispy onion straws, lettuce, fresh tomatoes & mayo.]

I opted to get the Whiskey River BBQ burger for my birthday burger.

I took a few bites and noticed right away that I tasted no barbeque sauce on my burger. This confused me since, you know. It has “BBQ Sauce” right in the title. The BBQ sauce was only on one side of the burger and I ended up asking for extra BBQ sauce just to get the flavor throughout the burger. After seeing Jake’s pretty lettuce, I was pretty sad to get boring lettuce instead. Sorry iceberg lettuce, I’m not a big fan of you. The onions strings were good at least.

[Garlic Parmesan Fries]

We also enjoyed the garlic parmesan fries, though when you get down to the bottom and you see the amount of butter swimming at the bottom it’s a bit of a turn-off. But they’re still pretty darn tasty and they’re bottomless if you want to munch on a few more fries.

It was a good start to free birthday eats!

>> Get your own birthday burger from Red Robin