Burger-Tron

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Burger-Tron
First appearanceSmall Fry, page 5
May 23, 2014
Related charactersPaulo, James, Miranda, Lauren, Daisy, Mike, Tess, David, Lucy, Ellen, Chris

Burger-Tron is a space-themed fast-food restaurant in Roseville and Paulo's part-time workplace from Small Fry onward. Paulo delivers the pitch himself on panel: "Welcome to Burger-Tron, home of the Astro-Burger Deluxe."[1]

Description

Exterior of the Burger-Tron restaurant building.[2]
Paulo serving a customer at the Burger-Tron counter.[3]

Burger-Tron is a standalone single-story brick building with its own parking lot, within walking distance of Roseville High School.[4][5] A dark purple fascia carries the name in big yellow letters beside a round burger logo, and yellow-and-red striped trim runs along the roofline.[4] Customers come in through glass double doors, and a brick alley with an overflowing dumpster sits behind the building.[6][7]

Inside, cash registers line a long counter beneath the menu board, and booths with green cushions and pale yellow tables fill out a red tiled floor.[6][4] The back of house has a meat slicer and a dish-washing station with a high-pressure spray nozzle,[8] plus the mop, yellow rubber gloves and "CAUTION WET FLOOR" sign that make up a rather large share of Paulo's working life.[9][10] Staff wear a striped shirt, an apron and a dark cap with the burger logo.[1] Miranda manages the place, and the roster over the years has included James and Lauren, who dreads the graveyard shift.[11][12] The restaurant is part of a chain, and a second outlet operates inside the Convention center.[13]

History

James in uniform in the Burger-Tron kitchen.[14]

The gang discovers Paulo's job in Small Fry. Daisy, Mike and Tess wander in after a study session and find him behind the counter in full uniform, playing the perfect greeter.[5][1] The shine wears off pretty quickly. Over the course of the visit he flirts a discount at Tess, weathers a customer's ketchup-packet tirade, and ends up mopping in yellow gloves behind a vomiting child, grumbling, "This is the third time I've cleaned up puke today!"[9] Out in the back alley afterward, he asks Tess for driving lessons and gets thoroughly shouted down.[7]

The chain's convention outlet gets its moment in Guest of Honor. Paulo puts his 20% employee discount to use and surprises Daisy with a milkshake, and the resulting round of wiping ice cream off each other's faces leaves them both blushing.[13][15]

The main restaurant also hosted one of the worst days of Abbey and Daisy's relationship, shown in flashback in Golden Hour. Paulo, on shift at the time, quietly fixed the milkshake order Abbey had gotten wrong for Daisy, then couldn't resist taunting him about it.[16] The argument that followed spiraled well past milkshakes. Abbey declared himself "too much of a FUCKING BURDEN" and accused Daisy of always taking Paulo's side.[17] Daisy slapped him, and Abbey walked out of the restaurant alone.[18][19]

College Material brings Daisy, Lucy, Jordan and Augustus in for post-SAT milkshakes, on Daisy's insistence.[20] Paulo serves them but waves off Daisy's offers of tutoring, telling her, "You got cancers to cure. Not hopeless cases like me."[21] The visit ends better than it starts. While Paulo mops the empty floor, Miranda mentions that her dad's company will be taking resumes over the summer, and that he could hang up the mop and put those people skills to real use.[11]

By Good Enough, James has joined the staff. The chapter opens on the two of them mid-shift. James, lovestruck, serves Mike, Ellen and Chris and arranges a group trip to the movies, while Paulo quietly deflates.[8][22] After close, Paulo hands Daisy a milkshake and admits to her, in a booth, both his crush on James and how worthless he has been feeling.[12] The heart-to-heart lasts right up until David pops out of nowhere to pitch a horror movie night.[23]

Burger-Tron's biggest scene comes in Rain Check. Lucy marches Daisy across the parking lot and up to the counter to make her face Paulo, milkshake pretext and all.[6] It does not go smoothly. Daisy orders "the usual," retreats to a booth, and breaks down over the fact that she loves Paulo and can't even look at him.[24][25] When she bolts out into the rain, Paulo drops his mop and gloves and runs after her.[26] The confession itself happens out on the rainy streets, away from the building, but afterward the brand-new couple walks back into the restaurant together, past a very pleased Lucy.[27] Veronica has pointed to Lucy's ambush here as an example of her benevolent manipulation.[28]

Paulo and Daisy's first official date, a double date with Jordan and Tiff, brings them straight back.[29] Paulo jokes about the venue, and Daisy insists it's actually pretty romantic.[29] By the time they reach the queue, he is fully on board: "This is where we fell in love~! ♥"[30] The rest of the evening is spent in a booth, where Jordan's night with Tiff falls apart and Paulo dispenses relationship advice.[31]

Trivia

Paulo mopping the tiled floor near the counter.[32]
  • The menu keeps to the space theme, from the Astro-Burger Deluxe[1] and a drink called a Blasto[33] to the new Stardust burger that packs the place out during Paulo and Daisy's date.[30] Daisy's beloved shakes, on the other hand, aren't on the menu at all.[20]
  • In the debut chapter's commentary, Paulo's job is described as "Five years in the making," and an early version of the idea had employee Paulo pestering Lucy at the counter rather than Tess.[1]
  • Not every Burger-Tron employee attends Roseville High. The staff mix is modeled on Veronica's own time working at Subway, and James was deliberately placed at a private school so Paulo would have somewhere to hide his crush.[34]
  • For all the name-drops in between, the restaurant itself goes unseen for four publication years, between College Material in 2019 and Good Enough in 2022.[4][8]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Chapter 83: Small Fry, page 6
  2. ↑ Chapter 106: College Material, page 13
  3. ↑ Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 7
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Chapter 106: College Material, page 13
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 83: Small Fry, page 5
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 7
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 83: Small Fry, page 10
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 117: Good Enough, page 1
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 83: Small Fry, page 9
  10. ↑ Chapter 106: College Material, page 16
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 106: College Material, page 17
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 117: Good Enough, page 5
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 16
  14. ↑ Chapter 117: Good Enough, page 1
  15. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 17
  16. ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 21
  17. ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 23
  18. ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 24
  19. ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 26
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Chapter 106: College Material, page 12
  21. ↑ Chapter 106: College Material, page 14
  22. ↑ Chapter 117: Good Enough, page 2
  23. ↑ Chapter 117: Good Enough, page 13
  24. ↑ Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 9
  25. ↑ Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 12
  26. ↑ Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 18
  27. ↑ Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 38
  28. ↑ "Ask response on Lucy's manipulative tendencies". 2026-04-24.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Chapter 128: [Unknown Title, page 19]
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Chapter 128: [Unknown Title, page 21]
  31. ↑ Chapter 128: [Unknown Title, page 22]
  32. ↑ Chapter 106: College Material, page 16
  33. ↑ Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 8
  34. ↑ "Ask response on James and the track team's origins". 2025-10-31.
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