A long-cursed restaurant space at a prominent corner of the Mission District is vacant once more, and the curse, it seems, has not left the place.

Hamburger Project, the Mission location anyway, has closed, and the closure happened about a month after an unfortunate delivery snafu that led to another unwanted viral social media moment for its owners, who also own Ju-Ni in NoPa.

In that March incident, a delivery person left four large plastic-wrapped cylinders of ground beef on a hot sidewalk next to a tub of mayonnaise, outside the restaurant door, and someone quickly snapped a photo and posted it to Reddit.

The restaurant quickly explained the situation, blaming their meat-delivery person, and said that all the left-out meat (and mayo) were thrown away.

And the incident may have had little to do with the closure. The space had already been flipped from the Ju-Ni team's original sushi concept, Handroll Project, last summer, after that restaurant wasn't doing the volume of business they hoped. And co-owner Tan Truong tells Eater this week that Hamburger Project also was not "getting the traction needed at that location."

Still, the second closure of a restaurant at 598 Guerrero in less than a year, and the sidewalk meat incident, just adds to the pall that has hung over this space for decades.

As SFist noted when Handroll Project closed, apart from the solid eight-year run of Izakaya Yuzuki (2011-2019), the space has seen a high number of quick restaurant closures. There was the sadly short-lived AL's Deli from chef Aaron London, which debuted in mid-2019 and shut its doors a week before pandemic lockdowns began. A restaurant called Ebb & Flow lasted a mere six months in the space in 2010. And two other short-lived concepts tried to make a go of it there in the aughts, Craig's Place in 2007/08, and Central American restaurant Platanos from 2003 to 2006.

The executive chef of the latter, Carlos Perez, was killed in a fight a few blocks away in 2003, and his death only adds to the curse narrative.

Eater reported in a 2022 story pegged to Halloween that Handroll Project employees reported strange things happening in the restaurant, including a plastic container flying across the room on its own, and someone claimed to have seen an apparition of some kind in the basement.

KQED later reported that the address at 598 Guerrero had been the home and/or place of business of a psychic medium named Mrs. C. Mayo-Steers in 1889.

The original Hamburger Project location at 808 Divisadero remains open, and it too was at the center of a social media uproar about 17 months ago. That uproar began with a slightly negative review posted to Google about the newly opened restaurant by influencer Kat Ensign, which led to her documenting a barrage of harassing messages and insults from chef Geoffrey Lee, which led to Lee stepping down as executive chef at the business and at Ju-Ni. Lee later confirmed that he was back working at the sushi counter at Ju-Ni.

Previously: Photo of Raw Meat and Mayonnaise Left Out In Sun Goes Viral, and Mission Restaurant Hamburger Project Responds

Top image: Photo via Yelp

Maybe it's indicative of larger troubles and maybe it's just a sign of a simple mistake or miscommunication that, unluckily, was caught on camera and went viral. But Hamburger Project in the Mission couldn't catch a break this past weekend.

With the headline "Raw hamburger left in the sun on the sidewalk. Ewww! Double Ewww!!", a Reddit post appeared on Sunday with the photo below, snapped by Redditor BubblegumCircus, showing many pounds of ground beef in plastic tubes left on the hot sidewalk along with a huge tub of mayonnaise, outside Hamburger Project at 598 Guerrero Street.

The Reddit post has garnered over 3,000 downvotes and over 500 comments, including "Hamburger Science Project," and "Eating there is gonna land you in the Mayo Clinic."

And, the original poster commented, "This was outside for an hour, then later meat was gone and mayo was inside on counter. Not sure where the meat is."

This second location of Hamburger Project opened last August, after the team behind Ju-Ni and the former sushi offshoot at this space, Handroll Project, decided to pivot concepts. And that pivot came eight months after a viral incident in which executive chef and partner Geoffrey Lee got into an online kerfuffle with a female influencer that was seen as bullying, and was forced to step away from all three businesses.

Now, the restaurant is facing another, albeit sillier scandal that they are trying to clear up on social media.

In a statement on Instagram, the restaurant say, "We are aware of a photo circulating that shows ground beef left outside our restaurant on Guerrero Street. This was the result of a delivery driver leaving the product unattended after being unable to access the restaurant — something we would never authorize or accept."

They add, "When our team arrived at the restaurant and found the product outside, it was immediately discarded as it was obviously compromised by being on the ground, without proper temperature control."

"We take food safety extremely seriously and have already updated our delivery procedures to ensure this does not happen again," the team says.

An additional slide on the Instagram post includes the communication from the delivery driver that came with a photo of the order left on the sidewalk, "Hiiii," it says, "I don't have time."

Someone, either an employee or the delivery person, clearly screwed up here, but has the PR damage already been done? The story has subsequently been picked up by KRON4 and the Chronicle.

If you haven't been following Sam Smith's endearingly "piggy" Instagram account devoted to his food consumption around the Bay Area, you're missing out. And as Smith was getting ready to leave town this week, they posted one last video on the roof of the Castro Theatre.

The account, @samserved, found the singer enjoying wings at San Tung and at Pier 23 Cafe, cured meats at Molinari Delicatessen, sashimi at Castro gem Eiji, and brunch at Shoreline Coffee Shop in Mill Valey.

Now that Smith's five-week residency at the Castro Theatre has just wrapped, they called on fans to recommend the best smashburger in the Bay, and the answer they received was Lovely's, which has locations in Cole Valley and in Oakland.

In the video below, shot on top of the Castro marquee, we see Smith laying out a bevy of delights from Lovely's, including several hot dogs, chili cheese fries, and apparently every burger on the menu.

Smith declares the Chili Willie both "rude," for the name, and "too spicy." But they adore the Drive-Thru burger with American cheese on a sesame bun, calling it "a 10 out of 10 burger."

Most of the bounty of food, Smith says, was going to their team. But the chili cheese fries? "That's not going to my team. That's mine."

A burger pop-up that chef and restaurateur Thomas Keller did back in 2020 is coming back to life in the former home of his Mexican restaurant.

Burgers & Half Bottles comes back to life Saturday, August 2, in Yountville, in the former La Calenda space at 6518 Washington Street. It's a pop-up featuring high-quality Wagyu burgers and crinkle-cut fries that Thomas Keller launched for a six-week run in the fall of 2020 — utilizing, at the time, the Ad Hoc space on the nights that restaurant wasn't operating.

La Calenda closed in November after six years in business.

According to a release, the new iteration of the pop-up will run through Halloween, October 31, and it will feature Wagyu burgers and half-bottles of wine, as well as "local beers served from a vintage 1965 Volkswagen 'Brew Bus.'"

Those rotating local brews will reportedly include Russian River Brewing's Pliny the Elder and STS Pils.

Additionally, the menu will feature a Maine lobster roll and a spicy buttermilk fried chicken sandwich. There will also be house-made milkshakes, and for dessert, the "It’s Ours" ice cream sandwich featuring Bouchon Bakery’s TKO cookie.

The pop-up's website doesn't appear to be live yet, but the Instagram account is here.

Burgers & Half Bottles will be open Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 8 pm — with "Sunday hours subject to adjustment for game-day viewings" during the upcoming football season. It's a walk-in situation, with indoor and outdoor seating.

And on the wine-bottle front, every Thursday will be a BYOB Thursday, with no corkage. There will also be happy hour discounts on Friday from 3 pm to 5 pm. Delivery will be available on DoorDash, and takeout will be available on Toast.

Onsen brings back dinner service, Luka's Taproom is coming back in "remixed" form in Oakland, and Hyphy Burger sets a date for a grand opening after being softly open this month, all in This Week in Food.

Tablehopper brought word this week that Onsen (466 Eddy), the Japanese-style bathhouse in the Tenderloin, is finally bringing back dinner service, which it has not offered since before the pandemic. Dining will be offered as a package when booking a soak, and a rotating schedule of pop-up chefs will be doing the food, on weekends only. While this weekend it will be a return to for Onsen's team, Here Before will take over next weekend, followed by Akus BBQ on August 1 and 2. See the full schedule through the end of August on Instagram, and book your soak-plus-meal here.

As the openings of Parachute Bakery and Arquet approach, likely next month, the SF Business Times has a piece reporting on the daytime foot traffic at the Ferry Building, and how it's on track to exceed what it was before the pandemic this year. Thus, the management has been aiming to get more nighttime traffic coming to the building, which Arquet will help with, and we have news that both Epicurean Trader and Red Bay Coffee plan to offer cocktails soon — with Epicurean Trader also serving Italian food items at their wine bar.

In case you missed it, we noted yesterday via some SF Standard intel that chef Seth Stowaway is opening a new diner concept centered on chicken-fried steak in the former WesBurger space at 2240 Mission Street. It's tentatively called Chicken-Fried Palace, the decor will be kitschy, there will be other chicken-fried items (but maybe not chicken?), and there will reportedly be pie and boozy milkshakes too.

The owner of the beloved former Luka's Taproom & Lounge in Oakland, Rick Mitchell, is returning with a new "remixed" bar and restaurant in a similar vein, dubbed Bar Skula. As the Chronicle reports, Bar Skula will focus on seafood and raw bar items, inspired by Peruvian cevicherias, and will bring back popular Luka's items like the burger, and the shrimp and grits. Mitchell is aiming to open by the end of the year in the former Sidebar space at 542 Grand Avenue.

Also in Oakland, Hyphy Burger (898 West Grand Avenue) is having a grand opening on August 2, after being softly open for a couple of weeks. It's described as a "love letter to Oakland fast food," and SFGate columnist Drew Magary raved about the smashburger there being the best he's ever eaten — which? could it be? As Eater reports, it's the project of local rapper Guap, and Darion Frazier, aka food influencer BayAreaFoodz, and the grand opening will feature two new burgers on the menu, and swag bags.

Chronicle critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan has a rave review this week of La Mar, the 17-year-old cevicheria on the Embarcadero, saying that it convinced her "that restaurants on San Francisco’s Embarcadero should never be counted out as merely for tourists." She praises the work of Victoriano Lopez, who has been the executive chef at this La Mar location for 10 years, and notes that while ceviche is incredibly popular now, it wasn't so much the case when La Mar made its debut almost decades ago. She's also a fan of the lomo saltado, a dish of wok-fried tenderloin steak with tomatoes, oyster sauce, vinegar, and home fries.

Photo via infpeachtea/Reddit

A hankering for a burger is, for many of us, a pretty regular occurrence. And the city of San Francisco is home to many, many good and great ones. But a few have popped on our radar only recently, and we thought you should know.

SFist published a list of the city's 25 best burgers a while back, and with the exception of a couple of places that closed in the pandemic (RIP Maven and Popson's), most of those picks still stand. You certainly won't go wrong with WesBurger's gooey delights, the stellar burger at the Mission's ABV, or the still delicious, off-menu, modest-sized burger at Heirloom Cafe.

But in the last year or so, a few superb burgers have popped onto our radars that you should probably be aware of, when that next craving strikes.

Automat
The double smashburger called the Cheezy Buddy ($17) is a star of the daytime and kids menus at Automat in NoPa — which means it's available all times of day, because adults are permitted to order off the kids menu at night, and you shouldn't sleep on the crispy beef taco either! Two thin, delightfully crisp-edged smashburger patties come topped with garlicky cheddar cheese and pickles, and because this place is also a bakery, the milk bread bun is no joke. It's a must-try, and you may as well get some Frankie's Fries with "automac" sauce too.
1801 McAllister Street at Baker

Bar Agricole
The burger at the relocated and revamped Bar Agricole is no afterthought on consulting chef Nick Balla's menu. It is a deeply flavorful, juicy, craveworthy thing, modest in size and won't weigh you down, and even works as a cocktail snack. It comes topped with aioli, Neal's Yard cheddar, caramelized onions, and pickles, served on a house-made brioche bun, with a side of the restaurant's yummy smoked potatoes. It is, quite possibly, the best new burger to come along in SF in years, and that is saying a lot, but at $29 it is a pricy one to be sure.
1540 Mission Street

Hazie's
Hayes Valley's 10-month-old drinks/dinner/brunch spot Hazie's, located in the old Stacks space overlooking Patricia's Green, is a solid option for happy hour or for a stopover before heading to the opera, symphony, or ballet. And their house burger ($22) is a good one, topped with relish-flecked aioli, your choice of cheese (brie, cheddar, or provolone), housemade pickles, and caramelized onions. Pro tip: The burger's not on the Happy Hour menu, which goes from 4 to 6 p.m. on weekdays, and which includes $10 Martinis and discounted snacks. But you can get one of those discounted drinks or snacks and relax at the bar until 6, when the dinner menus come out.
501 Hayes Street at Octavia

Lobby Bar
The Castro's new tucked-away cocktail spot Lobby Bar, in the base of the new Hotel Castro, features some stellar signature drinks and some better-than-average bar food. The menu includes the only non-beef burger on this list — it's a Diestel Ranch turkey and spinach patty ($18) that's been spiced to taste almost like pastrami. It comes with fries and is topped with smoked mozzarella and harissa mayo, as well as lettuce, tomato, and onion, and it's full of satisfying, meaty flavor without all the fat.
4230 18th Street near Diamond

Macondray
The Macondray burger is more cocktail-snack/slider-sized than the others on this list, but it comes with a modest price to match ($13.75). It's topped with American cheese, bacon, lettuce, and tomato, and it's perfect if you want to eat something with your drinks but you don't want to stuff your face. It's also deliciously juicy and served on a fresh brioche bun, and you can always get some Pier Fries (seasoned with malt vinegar powder) on the side.
2209 Polk Street at Vallejo

Related: The 25 Best Burgers In San Francisco

Also: The 11 Absolute Best Burgers in Oakland, Berkeley, and the East Bay

There's now an official In-N-Out food truck, and while it's likely to mostly stick around Southern California and only caters kids' events, it's sure to be in high demand.

It's called the Esther Snyder Cookout Truck, and it's named in honor of the In-N-Out co-founder and grandmother of current In-N-Out President/Owner, noted evangelical Trump fan and donor to Republican causes, Lynsi Snyder.

Esther Snyder helped build the In-N-Out brand alongside her husband Harry, opening the first In-N-Out in 1948 in Baldwin Park. Lynsi says that her grandmother had a "love for helping children," and in her honor, a portion of the proceeds from the food truck will go toward the In-N-Out Burger Foundation and its "efforts in providing hope for those who have experienced abuse and neglect."

The truck is available for hire by anyone, but the company is saying it will only be booked for qualifying events for children — and it is currently only serving Los Angeles and Orange counties, as well as limited parts of Ventura, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties.

"In memory of my precious Grams, we welcome our newest addition, the Esther Snyder Cookout Truck that serves In-N-Out's ONLY mini Double-Doubles, mini burgers, and yes mini fries!" Lynsi posted on Instagram.

The truck is an actual semi trailer, not your standard food truck, so event hosts are required to provide an 85-foot-long parking spot for it.

This is the first new news we've had about In-N-Out since the dark days of the pandemic when the restaurant decided to take a Trump-y stand against local vaccine mandates for indoor dining. That led to the only San Francisco location at Fisherman's Wharf temporarily shutting down in the fall in of 2021, courtesy of the health department. That was followed by a kerfuffle in Pleasant Hill over the restaurant not enforcing the mandate there.

Notably, likely Republican candidate for President Ron DeSantis decided to come out in praise of In-N-Out amidst that whole news cycle, because Florida was wide open at the time and he was very anti-mandate. DeSantis was courting In-N-Out to open some locations in Florida in late 2021, but thus far that hasn't happened — the company did, earlier this year, announce an expansion to Tennessee.

Previously: SF's Health Department Is Trolling In-N-Out on Twitter Now

The days of SF being moderately well appointed with 24-hour diners and late-night restaurants are well behind us, and even before the pandemic a slew of reliable, after-midnight standbys had shuttered. But that may be slowly changing.

Gone are the days of 1 a.m. last calls for food at NoPa — the favorite destination of restaurant industry folk getting off work started cutting back those late-night hours in 2016, but post-pandemic, the last call for food on Fridays and Saturdays is now 11 p.m., which is still relatively late given the plethora of places where the kitchen shuts down at 9 or 9:30.

And while San Francisco has never been a city that never sleeps a la New York — we like our sleep! — it was, at least a few years back, a city where you could still get someone to drive you someplace for food after the bars shut down.

We learned yesterday via Hoodline that Beep's Burgers, the old Ingleside drive-up burger-and-milkshake spot, is now serving until 2 a.m. every night of the week, so that's a new option for night owls and barflies. (They had previously shut things down at 10 p.m., but maybe they kept later hours way back when.) Eater crowned it the "Best $7 Burger In SF" back in 2017, so there's that — though the burgers are $8 now.

As Tablehopper reports this week, a new late-night sushi and izakaya spot has just opened in SoMa called Dragon Horse, in the former Izakaya Hon space at 917 Folsom (at 5th). The place serves cocktails, with a menu by Derrick Li, who has previously worked at Blind Pig and Cold Drinks (above China Live). It's now open Wednesday to Monday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., and you can see the drunk-friendly menu here.

These days, there are only a few options for you after midnight, but hopefully soon there will be more. Among the existing late-night haunts, there's always Orphan Andy's in the Castro — the griddle may be over-greased, but it barely ever shuts off, and they're staying open until 6 a.m. all through the weekend these days (reopening at 9 a.m.). A new development threatens to force it closed someday soon, but the Grubstake Diner off Polk Street is still chugging along.

Just down the block from Nopa, Horsefeather (528 Divisadero) has taken up the late-night, industry-friendly torch, serving food until midnight through the week and until 2 a.m. on weekends.

Uncle Boy's in the Richmond (245 Balboa Street) is slinging burgers until 12:50 a.m. Thursday to Sunday — so, pre-last-call at the bars, but still late for the 'hood.

Cocobang has got you covered in the Tenderloin/Union Square vicinity, serving up Korean fare until 4 a.m. on weekends (Fri-Sat), and until 2 a.m. every other night of the week now.

And over in the Mission, you can get one of the best burgers in town at ABV, but only until midnight — that's seven days a week, though, and the place serves drinks until 2 a.m.

Photo courtesy of Beep's Burgers

A job posting for a Restaurant General Manager on the official Shake Shack website says “Stonestown Galleria - NEW SHACK OPENING!,” which leads us to believe there is a new Shake Shack opening at Stonestown Galleria.  

Update (4/15/22): A Shake Shack brand communications director confirms to SFist that yes indeeedy we are getting another Shake Shack at the Stonestown Galleria. "I can confirm that we will be opening in Stonestown Galleria," the Shake Shack communications director tells us, adding that the new location "is scheduled to open by EOY" [end of year 2022].

"This shack will have a patio as well as walk up window," she adds.

Original Post (4/13/22): It was not always the case that the SF State-adjacent Stonestown Galleria shopping mall was described as a”foodie’s paradise,” as SFGate called it this past February. But the superlatives are justified, given Stonestown’s relatively recent additions of Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, Marugame Udon, and Yi Fang, plus the souffle pancake place and cult-hit Ike’s Sandwiches that opened there in 2019.

Now it appears that Stonestown will be shaking it up with another cult-hit restaurant brand. This job posting on the official Shake Shack website posts a position for “Stonestown Galleria - NEW SHACK OPENING!” If so, this would be San Francisco’s third Shake Shack, in addition to those in Cow Hollow and the Westfield Centre food court downtown.

The job posting itself is for “Restaurant General Manager - San Francisco Bay Area - Stonestown Galleria - NEW SHACK OPENING!,” and does mention “Location: Stonestown Galleria,” but makes no other mention of Stonestown Galleria or an opening timeline. SFist has reached out to Shake Shack’s communications team, and we will update this post with any response.

There has been no announcement from the Stonestown Galleria, who are generally not shy about posting updates to their Instagram and Facebook pages. Their Store Opening page lists five new shops, but none of them a Shake Shack. The Stonestown Galleria map currently does contain vacancies, so yes, there is definitely room for Shake Shack.

The burger-and-shake chain does have some history in this town, notably the Cow Hollow location’s neighbors being up in arms over formula retail coming into the neighborhood. That location opened just before the pandemic, and the Westfield Centre Shake Shack opened last June.

There is something of a Stonestown Galleria renaissance happening, after a rough phase that saw Olive Garden leave and Macy’s closing. But that new seat-motion movie theater and the Whole Foods opening in December certainly exorcized some demons, and a Shake Shack will likely bring out the SF State and Lowell High kids. The main course would be a 2,900-unit residential village, though those plans are likely to be clogged up  at City Hall for years, but in the meantime, we’ll look forward to clogging up our arteries at Shake Shack.

Related: Shake Shack Opening In Cow Hollow Seen As An Insult and a Threat to Local Restaurants [SFist]

Image: William B. via Yelp

Just six months after opening his highly anticipated, much-delayed West Oakland barbecue restaurant Horn Barbecue, chef Matt Horn is teasing a second restaurant concept focused on burgers.

It's called Matty's Old Fashioned, and a graphic designer has already been commissioned to do the logo and branding, which went up in a series of posts on a new Instagram account called @mattyburgers last week. The tagline: "We are not here to deliver just another burger. We are here to change the burger game."

Burger fans can get a taste for themselves on Saturday at 6 p.m. when Horn will be doing an evening pop-up preview of Matty's Old-Fashioned — but only 100 burgers will be sold, and pre-orders on Tock will be required. (The link is still TBA.)

The Chronicle confirmed that Horn hopes to open a Matty's Old-Fashioned restaurant somewhere around the Bay Area, but for now it's just going to be an occasional pop-up.

The burgers, we're told, will feature two patties with Horn’s proprietary blend of beef, along with cheese and "secret sauce."

If the burgers are anything like Horn's Texas-style brisket or other barbecue, there will be ravenous fans and lines down the block.

Pop-ups are how Horn made a name for himself and his food around the Bay for several years before debuting his brick-and-mortar spot last September (in the former Brown Sugar Kitchen space on Mandela Parkway). And in February 2020, before a pandemic and multiple inspection issues held up the opening of Horn Barbecue, Horn teased another concept in a pop-up event: KowBird, a fried-chicken sandwich restaurant. KowBird is expected to open at Oakland Assembly, a much-delayed food hall at Jack London Square, whenever that opens.

Watch Horn's Instagram, or this new one, for the pre-order link for the Matty's Old-Fashioned pop-up.

The Bay Area is home to a bevy of world-class burger spots and restaurant chefs who have been perfecting the burger arts for decades. And that is very much true outside of San Francisco, where SFist already rounded up our latest and greatest favorite burgers last summer.

Meat quality, bun texture, topping choices, cook times, and special sauces all determine what makes a great burger, but there’s one thing you should ask yourself on your first bite: Are you silently forgetting the concept of space and time as you chow down, or are you consciously trying to ignore a stray red onion or stale bun?

Below, our 11 favorite burgers in the East Bay.

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Gather
Spoiler alert: My favorite burger on the list. If you haven’t tried it, stop reading, put your favorite socks on, and head there now. If you’re an old-school burger person, the Berkeley restaurant’s décor and farm-to-table vibe might at first deter you. But don't be deterred! Acme bun, high-quality meat, cheddar cheese, pickles, onion, and aioli come together to make a perfectly balanced, simple, and beautiful burger with excellent bun-to-meat ratio.  Don’t come with someone you enjoy talking with because your mind and mouth will be too busy in burger bliss.
2200 Oxford Street, Berkeley

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Clove and Hoof
Clove and Hoof is a butchery/restaurant on Oakland’s trendy 40^th St in between Temescal and Piedmont. If a butchery doesn’t serve up a delicious burger, they’re probably a front for something unsavory. Lucky for us, Clove and Hoof offer a delicious, mouth-watering burger with two 4-oz high-quality beef patties, caramelized onion jam, pimento cheese, chopped romaine, pickles, and pickle mayo. Oh, and it’s served on a sesame seed brioche bun. Honestly, the ingredients alone tempt the staunchest vegetarian to have a cheat day. Go there, have a beer, and enjoy.
4001 Broadway, Oakland

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Trueburger
I tried to avoid the cliché "no frills," yet that’s exactly what Trueburger offers in its cozy Grand Avenue location in Oakland. Owned by two local chefs, this old-school burger uses fresh, pasture-raised beef, diner style, in between a soft egg bun.
Gloriously gooey cheese, cheap, and arguably one of the best around, it tastes old-school, it’s served old-school, and I highly recommend washing it down with one of their signature milkshakes.
146 Grand Ave, Oakland

Ahn’s Quarter Pound Burger
Ahn’s doesn’t have a website or Instagram, which fits the profile of this traditional spot near Lake Merritt.  I don’t know where the meat comes from, I don’t know if the bun is local, and I absolutely do not care. The quintessential old-school burger, Ahn’s specializes in quarter-pounders that your grandparents would have had back in the 50s. I’ve had my fair share of $18 burgers in the Bay Area, and for around $6, Ahn’s offers an insanely delicious burger. If someone suggests a first date here, marry them.
439 Grand Ave, Oakland

Telegraph
There’s one thing I enjoy almost as much as a burger: Mac and cheese. Luckily, at Oakland beer garden Telegraph, you don’t have to choose. Their Mac & Cheese Burger topped with grilled mac on Angus beef, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and house sauce on a toasted bun, is my favorite among their terrific burger menu. The Kono Burger rocks Swiss cheese and kimchi. This down to earth spot makes for a perfect sunny afternoon for a beer at one of their communal tables, located on the hip Telegraph Ave area near 19^th St. If anyone at your table asks if you’ve heard of some band, just nod.
2318 Telegraph Ave, Oakland

Eureka!
Eureka! in downtown Berkeley features trendy décor, lounge furniture, and a stunning wall of whiskeys lined on the back bar. Eureka! may seem a little out of place compared with the rest of this list, but don’t let the faux-trendy-lounge vibe fool you. This place has a terrific 28-day dry-aged burger featuring high-quality Angus beef, aioli, arugula, and balsamic glaze. If balsamic glazes aren't exactly your style, the classic Cowboy burger might suit your fancy – onion rings, bacon, cheddar, and beer barbecue sauce.
2068 Center Street, Berkeley

Park Burger
Oakland's Park Burger debuted in 2013 on Park Boulevard in the Glenview neighborhood, specializing in gooey, traditional burgers made with local, organic beef. "Our meat and produce reflect our values," write the owners on the website, and this is definitely a prime spot for families in the 'hood looking for low-guilt burger binges. Also on tap is plenty of local beer, and there's a great veggie burger made with black beans and jalapeno slaw called the Manassa Mauler.
4218 Park Boulevard, Oakland

The Hatch
The Hatch is one of the coolest places to hang out in Oakland – rotating DJs upstairs, great happy hour prices, small crowds, and a great burger selection make it one of those places you could easily hang on a Saturday afternoon or Tuesday night. The Royal Deluxe burger has two grass-fed beef patties, two slices of melted American cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and raw onions. Cheese snobs may not approve but American cheese on a burger screams guilty pleasure. Pro tip: They serve late, and you can build your own burger with Texas Toast as the bun.
402 15^th Street, Oakland

Henry's
The two-year-old Henry's at The Graduate hotel in Berkeley, right at the edge of the Cal campus, is the latest home of the burger stylings of chef Chris Kronner — of Kronnerburger fame. After popular pop-ups in San Francisco and Oakland, and a short-lived brick-and-mortar on Piedmont Avenue that closed following a kitchen fire in early 2018, Kronner soon popped back up in the kitchen at Henry's, where his signature salty burgers were centerpiece of the menu — though now the just-as-good menu burger is called the Graduate Burger, with "Graduate sauce."
2600 Durant Avenue, Berkeley

Mona's Burger and Shakes
Local mini-chain Mona's has three locations in Clayton, Concord, and Walnut Creek, serving big, charbroiled, Niman Ranch burgers along with shakes, hot dogs, and more — with the Clayton location also serving cocktails and a full dinner menu too. Burgers are served on brioche buns, and there's are several spicy topping options including the Diablo, with sauteed jalapenos, pepper jack, and chipotle aioli.
See locations here.

Alameda Grill
Chances are not many of you have heard of Alameda Grill, but it makes a trip to Alameda well worth it. Comfortably in the old-school category, their $5 burger has flavor, textual perfection, and offers an awe-inspiring bite. Try the classic, walk around, and come back for another round. The $8 Deluxe Korean BBQ Burger features sautéed mushroom, grilled onion, mayo, lettuce, tomato, teriyaki glaze, jalapeno, pepper-jack cheese, and in-house Korean BBQ sauce. Hot, spicy, and amazing.
1520 Park Street, Alameda

Related: The 25 Best Burgers in San Francisco

You can say a lot of things about how haute and expensive San Francisco cuisine has become, but dammit we are still a burger-loving metropolis with a great many fine examples of the all-American hamburger. From the high-end, restaurant sort you'll find at Nopa and Spruce to the odes to gooey, greasy-spoon burgers you'll get at Pearl's and Double Decker, SF has the whole gamut of gut bombs to treat yourself with on Cheat Day.

For the sake of brevity and apples-to-apples comparisons, we're not counting veggie burgers or Impossible Burgers in this list — but there are plenty of those to be found, including at a number of the places named here.

Without further ado, here is your burger checklist for the 7 by 7.

4505 Burgers & BBQ
The "Best Damn Cheeseburger" at 4505 Burgers & BBQ is enough of a signature that 4505 Meats founder Ryan Farr added it to the business name we opened his flagship location on Divisadero in 2014. Farr uses juicy, grass-fed beef, gruyere cheese, and his own secret sauce, along with lettuce and onion (no tomato) to make this beauty, which remains a crave-worthy hit five years on. And now you can get one of these in Oakland's Laurel District, as 4505 has a new location over there with a big outdoor space.
705 Divisadero (at Grove)

ABV
The burger at ABV has been a not-so-well-kept-secret type of Mission favorite for years now, and it remains one of the city's finest — and one of the best you can find after 11 p.m. anywhere in the Bay Area (kitchen closes at midnight).  It's served simply, with some spiced aioli, onions, lettuce, and cheese, with a side of jalapeno chips. And it's well known enough that the bar calls it their "Famous Fucking Burger" on social media.
3174 16th Street

Biergarten
Head to Hayes Valley on Wednesdays — and Wednesdays only — for the excellent burger at Biergarten, which each week gets a slightly different, always delicious topping. (The one pictured above is a simple version with aged cheddar, lettuce, onion, tomato, house pickles, and dijon-herb aioli.) You'll want to get in before the happy hour rush, if possible, as they sometimes sell out, but you won't be disappointed in this weekly treat — which sometimes gets announced on Biergarten's Instagram.
424 Octavia Street at Fell

Black Sands Brewery
They eschew the tomato on this "smashed" double-double cheeseburger, featuring American cheese, special sauce, shredded lettuce, and onion — modeled on In-N-Out's, of course. Black Sands may now be part of Fort Point, but the burger hasn't changed since SFist first canonized it a few years back. The price has gone up (it's $17 now, and was $12 back then), and it still comes with fine beer and/or cocktails from the bar.
701 Haight Street at Pierce

Blind Butcher
The newest entrant on this list, Blind Butcher in the Castro has filled a carnivorous niche in the neighborhood with its concise steakhouse menu. And the burger they're doing is one of the menu's stars, made with a half-pound of Wagyu beef, and topped with gruyere, tangy-sharp horseradish aioli, and bourbon caramelized onions. It's a messy, gooey hunk of deliciousness.
4058 18th Street near Hartford

Box Kitchen (at Tempest Bar)
A longtime favorite after-work hang in SoMa, the tried-and-true Tempest Bar, has attached to it a locally beloved food window whose burger has always been the star of the show. And this being San Francisco, this is no basic burger. It's made with Schmitz Ranch chuck and comes on a potato-pepper bun topped with white cheddar, arugula, spinach, tomato, crispy shallots rings, and a bacon shallot gastrique. Bacon or a fried egg are optional.
431 Natoma Street

Calibur
This West Portal spot makes old-timey, very messy, 100% organic, grass-fed cheeseburgers that are dripping with melty American cheese. The double cheeseburger is the best-seller, but they also make a triple, and a very good veggie burger as well. And Calibur doesn't mess around with funny topping combos or variations — the burger is the burger, it always has caramelized onions, and you can have it with sauce or without. Also as a throwback, Calibur offers tallow fries — french fries fried in beef tallow, just like McDonald's used to make back in the day.
68 West Portal Avenue

Causwells
To create their memorable, addictive Americana burger ($16.95), Causwells took a cue from fast food, and simply dressed up the ingredients a bit for the SF palate. You've got two juicy, dry-aged patties layered with American cheese, topped with "Causwells sauce" (in this case house-made Worcestershire mixed with house-made Thousand Island), with lacto-fermented pickles and crispy onions on a griddled bun. It's some drippy, delicious stuff. And for the vegetarian set, there's a falafel burger that's also great.
2346 Chestnut Street

Double Decker
This tiny dive underneath a Days Inn motor lodge in Hayes Valley is a no-frills throwback, and it delivers on flavor at a bargain price. The burgers are juicy, made with Niman Ranch beef, and the signature Double Decker ($13, pictured) comes with two kinds of cheese — one slice of Swiss and one slice of cheddar. And as humble as this place is, it's endured for over a decade, and last year they opened a second location in the Mission, on 24th.
465 Grove Street & 2956 24th Street

Epic Steak
Served only on the lunch menu at this Embarcadero haunt with a view, Epic's bacon-cheddar "steakhouse burger" lives up to its moniker. It's made with a house blend of ground steak that tastes richer and beefier than just about any other burger on this list. And at $18 it isn't even the priciest.
369 The Embarcadero

Fog City
The restaurant-style burger at the restaurant formerly known as Fog City Diner excels in its simplicity. It's topped with sharp cheddar, garlic aioli, lettuce, and onion, and it's served on a fluffy poppy-seed bun. It is perfectly delicious and juicy, and the fries are reliably great here as well.
1300 Battery Street at the Embarcadero

Gott's Roadside
Another very humble, basic, American burger (which here comes in a few varieties) can be found at this St. Helena-born, Ferry Building spot, where people flock day after day to get their fix of the best fast-food-like burger this side of In-N-Out. In addition to a basic American-cheese-secret-sauce burger, you can opt for the Western Bacon Blue Ring, which comes topped with a fat onion ring, bacon, pickles, red onion, and blue cheese.
Ferry Building

Heirloom Cafe
What began as an "off-menu" item at this reliably great, wine-centric Mission bistro is now a well known, clearly announced option upon arrival — though it's true that it still does not appear on the printed menu. The delicious, red-wine-friendly masterpiece is made with mildly stinky Epoisses cheese mixed into the patty (with no cheese on top). It's an incredibly juicy, uniquely flavorful burger that tastes redolently of cheese, and you will be back for more once you've tried it.
2500 Folsom Street

Hi Tops
The bacon cheeseburger at this Castro sports bar is possibly the best in the neighborhood, and is consistently flavorful and incredibly juicy. It's served on a pillowy, toasted brioche bun, and comes with gruyere, onion jam, and aioli, unless otherwise specified. Suffice it to say it is one of the ultimate hangover meals in the 'hood.
2247 Market Street between Noe and Sanchez

Marlowe
Chef Jennifer Puccio's signature Marlowe Burger — now available at Marlowe's SoMa flagship, Cow Marlowe in Cow Hollow, as well as Park Tavern and The Cavalier — is an institution unto itself these days. It's made with a blend of beef and lamb for extra flavor, and while Michael Bauer isn't at the Chronicle anymore to sing its praises, it remains a go-to burger for many in this metropolis.
500 Brannan Street & 3154 Fillmore Street

Maven
It's one of those "why aren't more people doing this?" situations: The secret to Maven's delicious and uniquely spiced burger ($17) is a few dashes of Angostura bitters, which goes right into the meat. The bottle actually says it's great with meat, but those bitters are typically always trapped on the booze shelf. Anyway, it's one of the tastiest bets in town, topped with Muenster cheese and house pickles, and it's been a hit since this place opened in 2012.
598 Haight Street at Steiner

Mission Bowling Club
The burger at the Mission's only bowling alley features a granulated beef patty technique that chefs Danny Bowien and Anthony Myint developed back in their Mission Street Food days. Cooked in a shallow pool of beef tallow to form a perfect crust, the patty is then topped with smoked Monterey Jack cheese, heirloom tomato, honey gem lettuce, and miso dijonaise, all within a bun that's been toasted to perfection.
3176 17th Street at South Van Ness

Nopa
Nopa's relatively highbrow, wood-grilled offering in the burger category still packs them in. For $19 expect a lean but formidable grass-fed patty grilled over wood, topped with house-pickled onions, homemade ketchup, and set beside some of the better fries in town. Lushes are advised to keep the Nopa burger in mind as a late(r) night option: The kitchen keeps cooking and the bar keeps pouring those drinks until 1 a.m. – Caleb Pershan

Pearl's Deluxe Burgers
Pearl's owner Sylvia Park (whose nickname is Sly) created the Spicy Sly burger on her menu as an ode to her two favorite cuisines, Mexican and Korean. It's mostly South of the Border in its flavors, with a spicy sauce made from habanero and ground pumpkin seeds, and it's topped with peppers, onions, and mayo. Pearl's features a bunch of other fun burger combos, too, including a Kobe burger with basil pesto, and the Bula, with bacon, Jack cheese, mayo, and spicy pineapple barbecue sauce. They're all drippingly good, and star chef-approved.
708 Post Street

Popson's
After Causwells chef/partner Adam Rosenblum realized that the American burger on their restaurant menu was a major hit, they launched a separate restaurant for it which is now serving theater crowds on mid-Market, smack between the Golden Gate and Warfield theaters. The burgers are all made with antibiotic-free Five Dot Ranch beef, on custom buns from Petits Pains bakery, and they taste the way a burger should — topped with special sauce, and a lot like In-N-Out, but actually better.
998 Market Street

Spruce
Notably the only Michelin-starred spot on this list, Spruce has long been known for its upscale take on the humble burger — made with a proprietary blend from Bassian Farms of brisket, short rib and sirloin, and served simply on a house-made English muffin, with lettuce, tomato, and pickled onion on the side, for $21. This is where to go to enjoy a burger at the bar (it's actually only available at the bar, or at brunch) with a glass of fine Bordeaux, along with some excellent fries, and if you're feeling extra in need of a treat, you can add truffles, Taleggio, or seared foie gras.
3640 Sacramento Street

Super Duper
San Francisco's own answer to Shake Shack makes a greasier burger than Shake Shack, but it's nonetheless a crave-worthy one, especially in SF's many colder months. It's made with vegetarian-fed Brandt Farms beef, and the french fries here are especially good. Most people opt for the "super" which is two 4-oz. patties, but you can always get the "mini" with just a single patty if you're not craving that much beef. And you can count on consistency between Super Duper's eight city locations, three in the East Bay, two in Marin, and one at SFO's Terminal 3.
Multiple locations

Wayfare Tavern
Since it opened in 2010, Wayfare Tavern has featured a Tyler Florence-created "Tavern Burger" topped with Marin County brie, smoked bacon, and red onion marmalade that remains a consistent draw. It's made with an always juicy and rich proprietary beef blend, and it's a favorite among the FiDi, expense-account lunch set (and pricier even than Spruce's at $22).
558 Sacramento Street

Wesburger 'N' More
Chef Wes Rowe's Mission burger joint does a brisk business with both in-house dining and delivery these days, and the consistently delicious burgers are the reason. Rowe uses well seasoned ground brisket, and while the All American comes with standard American cheese, lettuce, and tomato, you can get wild with the legit spicy Hot Wes, which comes topped with fried onions, queso, and jalapenos.
2240 Mission Street

Zuni Cafe
Mostly when people rave about Zuni it's about the signature wood-oven-roasted chicken. But a classic on the lunch and brunch menu for decades has been the burger, which late chef-owner Judy Rodgers perfected in her own signature style. Her secret was salt-curing sliced beef chuck overnight before grinding it — a recipe she shared with Food & Wine and others — then charcoal-grilling the finished patties, or searing them on cast iron. The Zuni version is still served, as she had it, on sliced focaccia, and topped with aioli, house zucchini pickles and pickled onion. Ordering it, of course, also requires a plate of Zuni's famed crispy shoestring fries.
1658 Market Street

In-N-Out Burger's secret menu, which is not a secret anymore, has been a fascination of the internet since around the beginning of the internet. But there are more secrets to the much beloved, mostly West Coast burger chain that have been revealed via a Reddit AMA with a current Associate at an unnamed California location of In-N-Out, including the revelation (which you may have heard) that they won't make 8x8's anymore.

The 8x8, for the uninitiated, is a quadruple Double-Double, or a burger with a stack of eight patties and eight slices of cheese on it, and this In-N-Out employee, whose Redditor name is booshley, explains that this particular secret menu item is a thing of the past. (See some YouTube evidence below of someone eating one in Utah as recently as 2012.) "We aren't allowed to make anything larger than 4x4's anymore," she says. "4x4's are already ridiculously hard to wrap and anything larger would just look like a total mess."

She explains further, "In N Out really prides itself on quality and presentation. So we can only fit 2 burgers and 2 fries on a tray at once without ruining the presentation." She adds that if you really want an eight-patty cheeseburger, you can order the extra cheese patties on the side of your 4x4 and assemble it yourself.

Booshley says her favorite secret menu item is the Flying Dutchman, which is just two burger patties, no bun, with melted cheese inside — and this, by the way, can be ordered Animal Style, as Serious Eats learned, with chopped onions in with the cheese and special sauce on the side.

She also says she really likes mustard-grilled burgers, which is something else you may not have known you can request — it's where the grill guy squirts mustard onto the patty before flipping it, so the mustard gets grilled into the meat. But she has gotten a little sick of the food, despite getting a free meal during each shift, and she says, "now I haven't eaten a burger from there in at least 2 months."

And in case you didn't know, you can customize everything as much as you want — and she even describes dealing with a customer who wanted lettuce that wasn't too green, or too yellow, and they gave him leaf-by-leaf lettuce approval.

In other revelations, cops in uniform get a discount on their orders, but otherwise there is no friends-and-family discount, and firemen get shafted. "This is because seeing an officer in uniform in the restaurant makes customers feel safer apparently," she says.

And this photo that has made the rounds claiming that In-N-Out makes a bacon cheeseburger is a hoax, she says — any loyal fan knows those are just the chopped grilled onions in that photo. There is no bacon at In-N-Out, and there will never be.

You probably already knew this, but because the company doesn't believe in freezing anything, all the meat they use has to be locally sourced, and the meat at the location she works at comes from a local California beef ranch.

And yes, those uniforms are very uncomfortable, especially the pants, and she adds, "The hats for girls are really annoying. We have to tuck our ponytails in and bobby pin the hat to our hair otherwise it will fall off. It's just a much bigger hassle than the hats the boys get to wear."

[h/t: SFGate]

Related: Push For In-N-Out Veggie Burger Elicits Backlash

Fast on the heels of the news that Super Duper Burgers is getting ready to double the size of its original Castro location — something that the Planning Commission just approved last week — the restaurant group behind the chain announces plans for two new locations in the East Bay, as well as an outpost at SFO's Terminal 1, and they say "we now feel that the time is right to expand into exciting markets abroad." Does that mean Canada? Super Duper Paris?

A release reveals that deals have been inked for two East Bay locations: 2355 Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley (the former Smart Alec's sandwich shop at the corner of Durant, as first reported by Berkeleyside), and in Concord at The Veranda (2001 Diamond Boulevard).

And, opening in early 2018 will be the SFO location, the chain's first airport concession.

These will be the 11th, 12th, and 13th locations for Super Duper, which opened its first burger shop in the Castro in 2010. Each year they mark the occasion on Super Duper Day in April (on or around the 28th), giving away free burgers to 100 customers at each location.

But where will these "exciting markets abroad" perhaps be?

Also, this is just the latest in the multiple directions of empire-building that have been undertaken by restaurateur Adriano Paganini and his Back of the House Restaurant Group, which now has over 20 restaurants around the Bay Area including Belga, Beretta, Lolinda, Starbelly, Uno Dos Tacos, and the brand new Flores in Cow Hollow. Earlier this month we also learned that Paganini had snatched up the now vacant former La Urbana space at Divisadero and Grove, and we've yet to hear which of his many concepts might be installed there — or if it will be a new one entirely.

Next up: the group's yet-to-be-revealed new restaurant at 450 Hayes Street, announced back in August 2015, now about a year delayed.

Related: Super Duper Burger Looking To Double In Size In The Castro