MoMo's

MoMo's

760 Second Street - San Francisco - 415-227-8660

The ultimate San Francisco sports bar and restaurant featuring Peter Osborne and Bob Mulhern at the helm, and a staff of long term survivors of turf and bar wars the last three decades in this great city. This classy, sassy and masculine joint started when the Giant's were still trying to put together their great new ballpark and Peter Osborne signed a long term lease on faith and vision when the neighborhood was a wasteland. He and his investors built a truly sports bar and imbued it with dark wood, leather, sports memorabilia and character that set the tone for the area that emerged with the building of the stadium that is home to our Giant's. One of the things MoMo's did well from day one was a solid menu that has always featured a great burger. Hand formed and generous, the patty is large and cooked to order by a kitchen that shows respect for their customer and the food they present. Served on a large platter with excellent lettuce, tomato and onion with a nearly perfect bun that is the right consistency to absorb the juices and flavors of the broiled meat and condiments, this is a winner from the first bite to the last.

The French Fries are top notch and also house cut, not frozen, and cooked to order in a healthy oil that isn't laden with flavors of a lot of other fried foods. They offer a full menu and some great desserts as well as good side dishes to go with their terrific burgers. One of the great features of this joint is their large patio across from the ballpark where you can enjoy your burger in the afternoon sun with all the excitement of our national pastime surrounding you. This is the best burger within a stone's throw of our new Giant's ballpark whatever name it is carrying the day you go to MoMo's for their outstanding bur

Cafe Flore

Café Flore
2298 Market Street – San Francisco
415-621-8579

One of the great Castro landmark eateries that has long offered organic, vegetarian and even vegan menu selections to the health conscious residents of the area, but with cache and a unique list of distinctions including a large outdoor patio protected by glass walls and space heaters, a great selection of coffee and tea specialties, great baked goods and superb people watching and eavesdropping. They are part self serve and part table service and it works well considering how busy they almost always are. They have an extensive menu for such a small kitchen and they emphasize healthy, organic selections in everything they offer. The burger is good quality beef although they don’t label it Niman Ranch, thank God! The patty was about 6 oz. and cooked to order and served on a toasted, dense artisan bun with generous slices of good, fresh tomato, onion and chopped lettuce. A Dijon style mayonnaise is spread on the bun and it is a good solid burger. The cheese was perfectly melted white cheddar and they offer pretty standard condiments and it makes for a great experience on their patio on a beautiful warm, clear day.

Café Flore doesn’t serve fries, instead partnering the burger with your choice of soup or salad. The salad is more of the chopped lettuce with the blandest dressing I’ve ever tasted and that was applied so sparingly I had to use my imagination to taste it. Their soups on the other hand are housemade, hearty and robust and are a great value and addition to the burger. It seems to always come back to the seductive and sensual outdoor patio and great people watching at this dynamic outdoor café, but the burger is a good quality, well prepared addition to the burger bible.

Chow

Chow
215 Church Street – San Francisco
415-552-2469

A bastion of burger superiority in a sea of crass, incompetent pretenders with almost every quality that could make a burger enthusiast cry with glee. Located at a major intersection where the 22 Fillmore and Metro meet the old iron monsters at Market and Church near the heart of the Castro and always crowded with people of every age and background eager to enjoy a world class burger which is just another outstanding item on their superb menu which is served continuously morning, noon and night. This great place has a full bar, a patio, great servers, great prices and great ambience and is rocking with positive energy at all times. The burger comes in two basic iterations, their classic is oblong and cooked to order, served on a baguette and they offer a soft, fresh cooked round bun with patty also cooked nearly perfect time after time. Both burgers are made of a large, hand shaped patty of quality meat, and come with your choice of first rate cheese, lettuce, tomato and red onion as well as delicious sliced pickles. The baguette or wonderful soft bun are both grilled to a light golden brown and they serve a housemade mayo and the standard selection of catsup and mustards. One of my favorite places to have a burger here is a window table watching all the pedestrian, vehicle, auto and cycle traffic converging on this dynamic corner having fresh strawberry lemonade or a cold frosty draft beer or even a fairly priced varietal while listening and observing action of all kinds.

Their burgers all come with housecut shoestring French fries which are always cooked to perfection and lightly salted. They also put a small salad on the plate which makes for a damned big and delicious meal. Chow is equally famous for some mighty fine homemade pies and desserts, so try and save room for fresh, homemade seasonal pies and some great ice cream. Cakes are also a specialty and their regular menu is outstanding also and worth a few trips in its own right. This is a great place for a burger in San Francisco, make this a must try.

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.

Cafe for all Season's

Café for all Season’s
150 West Portal Avenue – San Francisco
415-665-0900

Located in the heart of a village within San Francisco that seems a lifetime away, yet is a five minute ride on Muni Metro from downtown. It’s an unpretentious, almost bland diner type place that enjoys a large clientele of blue rinsed women of a certain age, but then everything in this neighborhood has that in common. Café for all Season’s has been around a long time, and the upholstered dining room chairs show if with their threadbare fabric. At the same time there is a cleanliness and earnestness that makes this place a welcome return to simpler and better times. The burger is upstanding and also simple with good meat cooked as ordered and served on a toasted baguette with a paper cup of tartar sauce, iceberg lettuce, hot house tomato and institutional pickles joined by two thin slices of red onion and it makes for a hearty and good burger. The place is decorated the way your grandmother’s house might have been in Eisenhower America of the 1950’s and they offer polyester napkins that move mistakes rather than absorb them. They offer a full American style menu and the burger is good but in no way exceptional.

The matchstick French fries are delicious and they claim they use no trans fat oils to cook them. They’re always piping hot when served too which shows good management and staff training although it’s not so obvious in water or coffee refills. They serve breakfast or brunch, lunch and dinner and the prices are moderate. Wine and beer and fountain drinks and homemade desserts which are overpriced and average are available at the restaurant and a deli and ice cream shop with their name up the street. A friendly and warm neighborhood place that serves a good burger.

Dottie's True Blue Cafe

Dottie’s True Blue Café
522 Jones Street – San Francisco, CA
415-885-2767

What’s to say that you haven’t heard about this tiny, heart of the tenderloin café that does some of the best food in San Francisco, and burgers are no exception. Although it can be an adventure getting to the front door of this great American diner, and then learning you’re going to stand outside waiting for a seat, any seat, in this always packed place you are in for a great treat if you’re willing to go through all the hurdles to eating here. Tiny and homey, the scent of fresh baked goods wafting everywhere, smiling faces, animated conversations drowning out the pain that howls through this tough, dope riddled area where you almost stumble over crackheads and junkies smoking and shooting their way to messy oblivion the food here is uplifting and almost heavenly. The exposed kitchen reveals a lone, lean man working a series of stoves and grills making a vast array of food they serve from early morning to lid afternoon as they serve breakfast and lunch only and are closed on Tuesday’s. Their lunch menu offers up their Niman Ranch burger and it’s made to order and the vision behind it is rock solid and an inspiration to burger lovers anywhere who demand respect for this most important food offering. A lightly buttered bun, able to hold the delicious juices and moisture from the lettuce, tomato and condiments you choose to apply to your burger is a perfect counterpoint to the good meat cooked just right.

Dottie’s uses the best of everything and cooks it all with great dedication and passion so what you get is always several notches above the rest of the burger joints mentioned here so this is a benchmark place you can use to rate the others with authority. They offer up some great home fries most of the time or a small salad with impeccable ingredients and sometimes I’m told they offer great fries but not on my visits. They also offer tremendous breakfasts, desserts, baked goods and even have their own mini gift store that sells branded items to the throngs of tourists who stand in line every day to get in for their great food. This is a must visit.

Burgermeister

Burger Meister
138 Church Street – San Francisco, CA
415-437-2874
86 Carl Street
415-566-1274
759 Columbus Avenue
415-296-9907

Another mini chain, locally based with great vision and delivery on that vision, they operate three places now in the City and are sure to keep expanding. Using really good ingredients, cooking them to order and serving them with the best condiments, pickles in warm, inviting burger joint surroundings that are clean and well maintained, this operation shines in San Francisco burger ratings. The beef is excellent and served in a couple sizes, all fresh and hand formed to generous bun fitting and mouth watering proportions then char grilled to perfection as you order. The bun is generous and stands up to the rich, flavorful juices that are absorbed and integrated in the bun and lettuce, tomato and onion and your choice of condiments which are premium and well chosen.

They offer turkey, veggie and a chicken sandwich as well as the basic Burgermeister burger which is a winner. Their fries are hand cut and blanched as well as cooked to order and disposed of before getting old and soggy. They offer some good salads and other items like onion rings a different version of potato as well as a good variety of fountain drinks and milk shakes. The staff are well trained, clean, respectful and do a very good job. This is a well intentioned and managed mini chain offering up some great burgers and diner fare.

Original Joe's

Original Joe’s
144 Taylor Street – San Francisco, CA
415-775-4877
Started by the father and grandfather of the family now running this classic Italian restaurant located in the heart of the tenderloin, Original Joe's serves one of the best burgers ever produced in San Francisco. Marie Duggan, her husband, daughter and son can be found working this pioneer of mesquite grilling they've done since 1936. Booths are the seating arrangements unless you opt for the bar or counter fronting the exposed kitchen.

Sitting at that counter is one of the great educational and inspirational experiences a person who loves food can have. A white clad and mature chef within five feet of you will take the order for your burger and grab a huge handful of premium ground chuck and form it into a football field sized patty he then puts on the mesquite grill to start sizzling and crackling. He then grabs a whole loaf of fresh French bread, cuts it in half and then again lengthwise for the bread part of the meal you're soon going to enjoy. The only cheese option is an equally enormous slab of good jack cheese which is too think to actually melt but does start bending by the time the cheese covered meat is placed upon that fresh bread.

Now perched on a huge white platter with garnish of onion, lettuce, tomato, peppers, olives our chef reaches for the fryer basket and drops about a pound of the biggest fresh cut French Fries you've ever seen onto the plate so it is more than awesome, it's a mountain of food. I've been going to Original Joe's since 1946 and have only managed to finish a burger a handful of times, but the half I asked to be wrapped up to go home with has been a great and huge meal the next day. This is a great burger and a great place.

Bix

Bix
56 Gold Street – San Francisco
415-433-6300

Nestled away in a tiny alley between bawdy Broadway and the majesty of the Transamerica pyramid is one of San Francisco’s classiest restaurants run by one of our best restaurant owner operators ever to grace the scene hereabouts, Doug Biederbeck. He’s a descendent of the late Bix Biederbeck of the world of Jazz and it shows in the design, décor, distilled spirits menu and the music that fills the elegant dining rooms and bar when its open. In addition to being a really great full service, white linen restaurant, Bix serves up a classic burger that rivals the best to be found at 21 in New York and at the celebrity chef places that dot Las Vegas like fleas on an old dog. Biederbeck is a maestro at everything connected to his restaurants and is always fine tuning and seeking perfection in every aspect of this place. The burger is a large, hand formed hunk of premium ground sirloin that is mesquite gilled to perfection and served on a lightly toasted custom burger roll with excellent lettuce, tomato, onion and pickle as well as the best condiments money can buy. Great hand cut, blanched Idaho russet potatoes are cooked to perfection in a high grade heart healthy oil and what is delivered is about as it gets.

Other sandwiches are offered including a great steak sandwich and they’ll gladly produce a vegetarian or poultry burger to customer specifications. The fries are first rate and come in a copious portion. One of the great and tasty appetizers here are the mini lamb burgers that are addictive and delicious. They’re like sliders and can make a perfect meal in themselves with a side of their great fries. Bix offers a continental menu with a lot of contemporary California and is overall pretty good, but it is the atmosphere most people keep coming back for time and again.

Absinthe

Absinthe
398 Hayes Street – San Francisco
415-551-1590

One of the finest French Bistro’s in San Francisco and they do wonderful things with their version of the burger. They take Niman Ranch ground chuck and make a three or four ounce patty that they lightly season and cook as ordered. They put that with a choice of either gruyere or a good gorgonzola on a brioche like warm bun that holds and absorbs the flavors and nuances of the meat, bread, cheese and condiments. To this can be added some sautéed mushrooms, the pink pickled onions and cornichon already on the stark white platter and you start understanding the slavish devotion so many grown men and women have for the Absinthe burger experience. Add to this a silver chrome martini shaker of their near perfect pommes frites with their four distinct dipping sauces and it starts to become a joyous interlude with sexy food.

The bar and dining rooms are striking and beautiful, rich in wood and brass with gorgeous artifacts, furniture, floors and bar each claiming elegance and luxury in high style and fashion. The bar is always manned by two great looking master mixologists who know what they’re doing and do it very well. The hosts are usually warm and welcoming and the staff is reserved but polite. I don’t have a comparison place of equal or even lesser acclaim, but this is a great San Francisco restaurant that serves up great drinks and food and one of the great small burgers in the city. A must visit.

Houston's

Houston’s
1800 Montgomery Street – San Francisco
415-392-9280

Across the street from Fog City Diner and almost next door to Levi Plaza where it meets the Embarcadero is this chain transplant the has earned the respect and envy of many other local restaurants in the city. Most chains meet with little success in San Francisco but Houston’s was a hit from day one. Housed in a contemporary building facing gardens and the waterfront, this American Bar & Grill with a full bar and top notch steak and chop house menu surprises with a really outstanding burger. A large hand formed patty weighing at least eight ounces and cooked to perfection over mesquite or grilled as you choose, then served on a large toasted bun with a generous slab of cheese of your choice and some good quality lettuce, tomato and onion and a huge portion of house cut thin fries that are addictive, this is heaven for a burger lover. They offer a very good garlic aioli and a big selection of condiments of superior quality and the whole experience is terrific.

This is a big restaurant and bar that also has a large area for eating and drinking outdoors as well as waiting since they don’t accept reservations for parties of less than six. They have a bar staff that knows all the current hot drinks and they make them very well. A full wine list, no corkage for California varietals and a bar menu make this a true destination restaurant that shines in almost all their food and beverage. The burger is a real star and many folks substitute their great mashed potatoes for their equally great fries. They have a beet based veggie burger than many swear by and their fire roasted whole artichoke is another work of art as are some of their desserts.