I haven’t been in San Francisco in a millennium or so but a $30 burger is not shocking to me. I can no doubt find one here.
It looks interesting to me, if a bit overpriced. You’re paying for the ‘ambiance,’ obviously, but I’d try it if the location was convenient. I wouldn’t travel far. It’s a gimmick, looking for publicity, which SFGate is apparently doing also with this review.
I think I see onions, no tomatoes, although I did consider those were some unusual variety of slugs crawling on the dish… but there was no mention of slugs in the description. I’d be concerned about the bread holding up (looks pretty thin) and the literal slab of cheese being at room temperature or warmer and possible to bite through with ease.
I used to proudly wear a Hippo t-shirt, given to me at my 19th birthday celebrationat Hippo’s. My first taste of a gourmet burger. The sparklers they served with it unfortunately sent little fire bombs onto the blouce I was wearing. A very memorable experience.
I don’t understand all the hand wringing over a $30 burger. If you eat out regularly in sit down restaurants that price wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow. Almost every place in midtown Manhattan where you would go for a business lunch would have a similarly priced burger. Prices for eating out where you sit down and have someone take your order and then have it cooked to your desires and then served to you is going to cost more than it has before. That’s a natural result of higher costs whether it’s for food or labor. If you want to eat out, that’s what you have to pay. Grousing about it won’t change it. Denigrating people who decide to pay for the experience won’t make you feel any better or them any worse.
The cost of even a mid week dinner out for the wife and me at a nice place but nothing that would be a destination for anyone who didn’t live in the area is easily $200 now. I pay it and am happy to be able to have places I can go to and support. I know the owners of some of the places we frequent and I know they aren’t getting rich. It’s the price of staying in business.
It’s just a poorly written article. Clearly the author was looking to take down the new RH building and its juxtaposition as a gleaming Beverly Hills style shop in the middle of what was once a low key industrial area. Nobody who has eaten out in San Francisco in the last 10 years thinks $30 is a shocking amount to pay for a burger. To my mind NOPA has the best burger and fries in SF and it is a relative bargain at $26.
