"What's Buried?" by Evan Kalish

Constructor's Comments

When you construct crosswords, you might begin to develop some interesting mental "background processes."  They might involve subconsciously parsing conversations and TV shows for crossword-friendly phrases, tallying the number of letters in said phrases, and jotting them down on paper or in your phone's Notes app.  Some of these phrases just scream "Crossword theme!"  Such was the case with RUBS THE WRONG WAY, which probably came to mind as I was petting my cat.  The letter string -SBUR- is just common enough that there were a few theme entry options available, yet uncommon enough so as not to be trivial.  The opportunity to give BOB'S BURGERS its cruciverbal debut sealed the deal!

I didn't want to include any two-word phrases wherein the -SBUR- did not span both words (like SALISBURY STEAK or SAINT PETERSBURG), which I considered a bit arbitrary for this context; this left me with no 15-letter counterpart to the revealer.  After testing some options I decided that the -SBUR- answers needed room to breathe—featuring just three entries led to a more satisfying puzzle in terms of fill.  I'm glad David was willing to let me change up the normal layout!