Dining Spotlight of the Week: With Love, Always at The Bend

Twelve editions in, and this series has eaten its way through Thai at Weera Thai, tonkatsu at Ton Ton Katsuya, hand-pulled noodles at Shang Artisan Noodle, wood-fired Mexican at Mijo, tacos from Villa's, ramen at Marufuku, Korean BBQ at Master Kim's, a steakhouse at Butcher & Thief, pho at Diamond Pho, omakase at Doanburi, and Mediterranean small plates at Anima by EDO. Every single one of those places earns its spot. But this week I am doing something the series has not done yet: a proper American smash burger with a local cult following, at the brand-new intersection that is reshaping this whole side of town.

With Love, Always sits at The Bend, 8670 W Sunset Rd, Suite H-110, right at the corner of Sunset and Durango, and it opened just after the holidays on December 27, 2025. That makes it one of the first wave of restaurants in The Bend, and honestly it set the tone for everything that has followed. If you have shown a home, closed a deal, or even just driven the corridor in the last year, you have probably seen the line. Here is why it is worth standing in.

The Bend is five minutes from the Durango Casino & Resort, a short drive from Southern Highlands, Mountain's Edge, Rhodes Ranch, and Spanish Trail, and it sits right off the 215 Beltway. You can walk out of a showing in the afternoon, grab a burger that is better than anything on the Strip at twice the price, and be back at the office before the comps print. That is the kind of neighborhood restaurant the Southwest was missing, and now it is here.

What Makes It Special

With Love, Always started in 2021 as a parking-lot pop-up, and it is widely credited with pioneering the modern smash burger scene in Las Vegas. That origin story matters. The people behind it spent years cooking burgers in parking lots for anyone who would line up, dialed in every detail, and then brought that same energy to a real location in Centennial Hills before opening the second one here at The Bend. This is not a chain concept. This is a local burger movement that earned its spot one crispy edge at a time.

The signature is the S.O.B., the Smashed Onion Burger: two fresh Black Angus patties pressed thin on the griddle with paper-thin onions smashed right into the beef, so the onion caramelizes into the crust. Add American cheese, pickles, and the house Love Sauce on a griddled Martin's potato roll, and you have a burger with a shatteringly crisp, dark, salty edge and a soft, squishy center. It is the texture combination that made smash burgers famous, and this might be the best version of it in the valley.

The details are where they win. The fries are cut thin and fried in beef tallow for that extra-rich flavor. The soft serve comes with an Oreo dunk if you want it. They pour beer. And the people behind the counter treat every order like it is going out to a friend, because the whole brand is built on that idea. The name is the mission statement: with love, always.

The recognition has followed. The Las Vegas Review-Journal named With Love, Always to its Top 100 Restaurants for 2025, and the ratings back it up: around 4.3 stars on Yelp from 796-plus reviews across locations, 4.4 on Google, and a steady stream of locals who will defend these burgers like family. A burger place in a suburban shopping plaza outrating most of the Strip says a lot about where this part of town is headed.

Must-Try Dishes

I have been to With Love, Always more times than I can count, and the menu rewards sticking to the fundamentals. Here is what I would tell a friend to order on the first visit:

The Vibe

With Love, Always is fast-casual with a cult following, which means two things: the energy is high, and the line can be real. On weekends especially, expect a wait, sometimes an hour or more at peak times, because word has traveled across the whole valley. My honest advice is to go early, go on a weekday, or plan to hang out while you wait. The Bend makes waiting easy: there are shops, other restaurants, and coffee nearby, so the line is part of the afternoon, not the whole afternoon.

The room itself is bright, casual, and unpretentious, all about the food and the people eating it. Families, golfers, agents grabbing lunch between showings, teenagers on their first solo order, everyone feels at home here. That is the magic of a great neighborhood burger spot. It does not try to be anything other than excellent at one thing.

This is also a place that got better as the corridor around it got better. When it opened in late December 2025, The Bend was just coming alive. Now the plaza has ramen, steak, Thai, pizza, coffee, and a bakery around it, and the burger counter is the anchor that keeps the whole thing buzzing. Eating here feels like being in on the ground floor of something, because you are.

Why This Matters for Southwest Las Vegas

Here is the part I care most about as a resident and as a Realtor. The Bend at Sunset and Durango is becoming the dining and entertainment heart of Southwest Las Vegas, and With Love, Always is one of the reasons buyers ask about this corridor before they even look at a home. A locally born, critically praised smash burger spot with real lines, in a brand-new plaza five minutes from a world-class casino, that is the kind of amenity that moves the needle when families choose where to live.

I have said it in every edition of this series and I will keep saying it: the food in Southwest Las Vegas now rivals, and in many ways beats, what Summerlin offers. The Bend, The UnCommons, and the Durango corridor together give us a density of great restaurants, from quick smash burgers to Michelin-recognized tasting menus, that you simply do not find in most suburbs. That matters to buyers. When I show homes across the Southwest, one of the first questions is always what is nearby, and the answer keeps getting better.

New roads, new parks, new construction, and restaurants this good, it all adds up to a neighborhood with a real future. With Love, Always is proof that the Southwest is not just a place to live. It is a place where even the burger counter sets the standard for the whole valley.

A Personal Take

I have eaten a lot of burgers in a lot of cities, including the ones everyone argues about, and I will put the S.O.B. up against any of them. The crust is dark and craggy, the center stays juicy, the sauce and pickles cut through the richness, and the soft roll holds it all together without getting soggy. It is the kind of simple thing that is actually incredibly hard to do this well, which is why so few places pull it off.

My favorite move is simple: show a couple of homes in Southern Highlands in the morning, bring the buyers to With Love, Always for lunch so they can taste what the neighborhood is about, and watch them fall in love with the area over a smash burger. It works every time. Burgers may not be the headline reason someone buys a house, but they are absolutely part of how a neighborhood becomes home.

If you are thinking about making Southwest Las Vegas home, I would love to walk you through our communities, show you the new construction happening across the corridor, and yes, take you for a burger at The Bend afterward. Order the S.O.B. and the tallow fries. Get the soft serve for the table. You will thank me later.