Arbor

publish Part of a series on The best burger in the bay area.

Bar and grill near my place in Hayes Valley. It’s 1 block away from Chez Maman. Visited here 2024-09-05 in my post-Burning Man travails.

TL;DR: Nothing special burger. The patio is lovely, though.

The burger (5/10 tasty)

The backyard patio (9/10 cozy)

Justification for the burger rating:

• Basically average overall, leaning below average — hence 5/10 as per My food rating system.
• Pros:
  • Meat cooked correctly and nicely. It was indeed medium rare
• Cons:
  • Untoasted, cold bun
  • Cheese hard to taste bc extremely thin. It seemed less than a standard cold-cut slice of cheddar from the grocery store
  • The proportions felt wrong for everything. There was not quite enough meat (1/3 lb) relative to:
    • Enormous amount of bun. It was 2-2.5x the size of the burger uncompressed.
    • Enormous amount of lettuce
    • Tiny amount of cheese
    • High amount of meat juice

So overall rating 5/10, aka barely below average. It’s held back a lot by the bun. I wouldn’t make a specific visit to this place if I had a choice. Especially since Chez Maman is literally right next door, serving a 7/10 burger.

Oh and $17 price, fries not included.

Unusualness factor is 0.5. Calculation:

• Normal (+0)
  • Bun
  • Beef
  • Cheddar
  • Tomato
  • Lettuce
  • House sauce
• Unusual-ish (+0.25 each)
  • Caramelized onions (did I even taste them?)