Another post — three more burgers! While I finally hit up one of the San Francisco burger legends in Part 21, Comstock Saloon still came up as my favorite. This time, I’ve tried the burgers from Square Pie Guys, Fort Point Brewery and The Brixton to see if any of them can reign supreme! How did they fare?
1. Square Pie Guys
Another burger choice from the burger club! This time we went to Square Pie Guys (famously known for their Detroit style pizzas) to give their burger a try. It’s been getting a lot of buzz, so it seemed an ideal place to visit. For $14, you get a whopping-sized double patty with grilled white onions, homemade pickles, shredded lettuce and special sauce. Basically, your standard gourmet In ‘N Out burger. Fries are an additional $5. The burger itself really looked like it had potential, but it really was lacking in the flavor department. The homemade pickles were nice and the bun was nice and toasty, but the beef wasn’t that exciting, nor were the rest of the toppings. It’s a good-sized burger for the price, but the small side of fries was definitely not worth the value.
2. Fort Point Brewery
One of my readers pointed me toward Fort Point Brewery. Fort Point recently bought one of my favorite places for a burger: Black Sands Brewery. The chef there also designed a burger for this new place. It’s a fairly simple burger with one big patty, cheese, onions, pickles and special sauce. It’s very similar to the Black Sands burger, but with a thicker patty and fewer vegetables. It also packs a wallop. The burger is really beefy in your mouth and the bun is really well grilled. It’s a very simple burger meaning that they need to do it really well. And they do. It was seasoned well and made me happy. The fries were a bit weird, as they were tiny little nuggets that I had to eat with a wooden fork, but the two homemade sauces were pretty fantastic. All in all, I left very satisfied.
3. The Brixton
The third stop on my burger quest was The Brixton. I really wanted to give their Brixton Deluxe Burger a try with pimento cheese and chili. Mostly because I have a lot of nostalgia for chili burgers, and I was really glad someone decided to put it on the menu. While the bun was nice, the burger itself was a bit disappointing. The chili and pimento cheese just didn’t really add enough oomph to the burger as I was hoping. While it was a nice, cold day lunch, the wow factor was lacking. The fries weren’t that great either.
Winner: Comstock Saloon
Comstock Saloon is still the winner this time around, but the burger from Fort Point Brewery was pretty spectacular with the right amount of seasoning. While I think the burger from Black Sands may be slightly better, the fries at Fort Point were fantastic! And the price at Fort Point is slightly higher, so I’m giving the edge between the two to Black Sands. Sadly, neither of them are better than Comstock, but I’m feeling confident that someplace out there may be able to topple that meaty beast!
Ranking:
1. Comstock Saloon
2. Black Sands Brewery
3. Wayfare Tavern
4. Fort Point Brewery
5. Son’s Addition
6. Gaspar
7. Nopa
8. Wes Burger ‘n’ More
9. Epic Steak
10. Tank18 Winery
11. City Beer
12. The Saratoga
13. ABV
14. Brickhouse
15. 4505 Burgers and BBQ
16. Biergarten
17. Papa Mak’s
18. Magnolia Brewing
19. Umami Burger
20. Super Duper Burgers
Interesting. Yelp’ers complain you can only get the Fort Point burger medium, not med-rare. So after initial excitement I had bumped it down my list. So was yours medium, were you asked how done you want it (or did you ask)?
I don’t remember being asked how well done I wanted it, so I imagine it was probably medium if that’s how they do it! I still really enjoyed it. It’s definitely quite similar to the Black Sands Burger (given that they are under the same ownership and chef), but this one is definitely a thicker patty, which I know is something you prefer! I would say give it a try anyway! I still prefer Black Sands (I think solely based on the fact that I can add an egg, and they do the egg very well), but this one is still really tasty.
Since you moved it further down your list, which places are at the top of your list for trying then?
Yeah, I tried the Black Sands a while ago and was pretty disappointed. To the degree that I assumed things had changed since your review. But if I recall you did go back and still liked it? Maybe I was just unlucky if that’s the case.
Top of my list:
Niku Butcher Shop lunch burger
Nommo
Comstock 😉
Yeah, I have been back to Black Sands, and I did still really like it. I’m not sure what it is, but they just get a lot of the little things right like the char on the bun and the toppings. It just really worked for me. Of course, part of why I liked it so much at the beginning was the price, and I think that’s gone up somewhat. I’ll probably have to go back once it’s been reopened as another Fort Point location. Maybe I’ll get my burger club to go…
I hope you’re not disappointed by the Comstock Burger as well then! Make sure you get it with the gravy, otherwise I think it definitely won’t be as meaty.
And I wasn’t aware of Niku, but it’s definitely on my list now!
Meaty is good. I’ll get the gravy for sure. 😀
And if you’re having multiple people go and try burgers regularly now, maybe you can include other people’s scores? That would be interesting.
Also I’m surprised you can rank all these burgers in order after all this time. I wonder if a component-based scoring system might not be a bit more objective over time?
I started with a component-based system, but then I dropped it. I do worry about not having something like that to be honest, perhaps it’s time to implement again, but after so long, it would be hard!
They do have their own scoring system for the group. Interestingly, a lot of the time my ideas of what makes a good burger are quite different, so it’s interesting to see. We’ve definitely had some severe disagreements! But on the whole, if it’s a really good burger, we all come to a consensus. (In fact, they have independently ranked Comstock Saloon quite high… before I even joined!)
Ooo, I want to know more about the debate! 😀 What aspects have been contentious? I’m still a little disappointed that you don’t automatically ask for your burger to be cooked to a specific temp. 😉
Sometimes we’ve been places and a lot of people love the burger, and I just find the meat itself quite bland and boring. For me, the meat really needs to blow up my mouth with flavor I think, and others, not so much. For example, a lot of people really liked Morton’s Steak House, but I found the burger itself to be not that interesting, even though the toppings were quite nice. A lot of people really loved Umami Burger as well. And while I’ve had decent burgers there, I think they definitely do a much better job with the sides. A lot of people liked the burger in the next issue that we went to for burger club, and I found it pretty horrendous.
I am beginning to wonder if instead of a ranking I just need to change it to:
Best Burger: Comstock Saloon
Worth trying: Everything else I like
Or even Other really good options and Other burgers worth trying.
As it does get difficult to discern the rankings sometimes. I’ll give it some thought.
Yeah, the Michelin-style approach is not bad, but I would definitely miss having at least some kind of understanding more than 1 “best of”, like a top 5. Since you indicated sometimes people love the toppings or even sides, you could have categories that correspond and maybe capture that, with some detail in the review that speaks to it. For example “Best Toppings” where the review says something like “While I loved the toppings on this burger, I did feel like the meat just didn’t stand out enough, which is why it wasn’t a contender for Best Overall”. Just some thoughts.
That could work too! I do worry about having too many categories. Although I suppose Overall Top Five with some other categories may work well too. I definitely need to give it a lot more thought.
I am giving the worth going out of your way for and worth going to if you’re nearby categories style for my ramen list, so we’ll see how that ends up working itself out.
Maybe like a Michelin guide system after the best burger:
Worth a special journey:
Worth going to if you happen to be nearby:
Burger test tonight: Box Kitchen (to-go window, you can eat in the bar next door if you want). Rather good, aside the bun which is not terrible but wasn’t quite the pillowy awesomeness I like. The patty was great though, well flavored, med-rare, juicy, and punchy toppings. Add it to the list!
You know, I went to Box Kitchen, and I didn’t really find it that exciting. Maybe I went on a bad day. Another burger the club really loved, and I felt kinda meh about.