Bistro Burger

Bistro Burger
845 Market Street – San Francisco
415-495-2266
333 Bush Street – 415-434-3754
343 Sansome Street – 415-989-7566
21 Drumm Street – 415-772-9974
201 Mission Street - 415-348-8788

An upscale mini chain started in 1993 with the then bold idea of using only the finest ingredients, this is one of the more mediocre burgers offered by a place striving for excellence. Like most of the other upscale burger joints, they use Niman Ranch beef and make their own patties which taste good but that is the end of excellence for this burger lover. Inconsistent cooking always leaves a bad taste in my mouth and this operator either doesn’t train his cooks or they just don’t know how to differentiate between rare and well done. They offer a variety of presentations with the usual geographic names and all are OK when you overlook the game of chance you play asking for your burger medium rare or medium well. The bun is decent but is served cold and nothing adorns the thick, tasteless bread. The lettuce, tomato and onion can be inexcusable and often are because a recent offering came with a wilted, small single outer leaf of romaine, an almost green and rock hard small slice of tomato and a blackened and limp outer edge of red onion, all of which had to be discarded. The condiments are in small plastic packages and the fountain soda came in a small styrofoam cup and was flat due to lack of carbonation.

They also offer the same variety of geographic named chicken sandwiches as well as Salmon and Mahi Mahi and a hot dog. They serve several choices of fries and onion rings as well as frings which is a combo. The fries are house cut and come with a little skin left on but are salty and almost rancid from the cooking oil which is a shame. Service is on a par with your typical Carl’s Jr. in my opinion and again points to poor vision and execution by owner/management. Lack of attention to training and detail makes this a lousy burger choice.