[Photograph: David Kover]

Road bikes and spandex shorts don't exactly fly off the shelves when the temperature drops below freezing. So when Billy Olson opened Power House, a high-end bike shop in snow-prone Hailey, Idaho, he hedged his bets. Alongside the bicycles, Olson decided to peddle pints of beer and a selection of pub food. At the front of the shop, customers can sit at the bar and choose from over 130 beers as they eat a burger and watch footage from the Tour de France. The back of the shop features a bike fit studio and an array of bike gear hanging from the walls.

As a sometimes cyclist and an all-times burger eater, I absolutely fell in love with the dual-purpose concept behind Power House. Which may explain why I found myself wanting to climb over the counter and help them fine-tune their imperfect burgers.

When it comes to their ingredients, the folks at Power House absolutely have the right idea. They bring in grass fed beef from Teton Waters Ranch that certainly has some flavor. The 1/3-pound patty arrives on top of a really nice challah bun from local Bigwood Bread—lightly toasted, it offers a papery-crisp skin on the exterior and a squishy interior.

Some tips from the AHT archives might have helped them handle these nice ingredients a bit better though. The meat had been ground too fine and compacted too far, resulting in a patty that, especially after a few moments too long on the grill, came up a bit short on burger juice. And though they'd scattered some pepper on my meat, they'd been shy with the salt, missing an opportunity to pump up the flavor of the quality beef. It didn't help that the cook had played cheeseburger Jenga when assembling my plate, layering the red onion and tomato so that my towering burger took a tumble when I sliced it open. The end result wasn't a bad* burger, just a shoulda-been-better burger.

I worried that Power House's hand-cut fries would suffer from similar cooking flaws. On first touch, they did seem short of ideal crispness. But they ultimately did absolute justice to the Idaho state vegetable, with a deeply potatoey flavor that had been spiked with a generous serving of salt.

In the winter, the dining room tables at Power House encroach on the bike fit room in the back, which sat otherwise unused during my December visit. I imagine that the summer sees a flurry of cycling-related activity back there, with a bike mechanic using blue "shop" towels to wipe the grease off his hands after numerous jobs. Rolls of these same towels sit on the restaurant tables in place of napkins. With just a few tweaks to Power House's cooking process, I could see diners needing these towels to clean up all the excess juices that had dripped off a pretty stellar burger.

* Yelp reviews would even tell you it's the best burger in the Sun Valley region.

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter at @pizzakover or check out Schmendricks, his attempt to bring Booklyn bagels to San Francisco.