Being on the crutches from my accident has been a limiting factor in getting to In-n-Out since I can’t rent cars to drive and mostly I need to be with someone who can carry my food/drinks/etc., but I’ve learned some tricks on the crutches and since I was going to be in the neighborhood, I couldn’t resist a trip!
I knew that I was going to a Holiday Ales party after so a little insulation was perfect – yum!
Ok, first off I realized I spelled “Zack style” wrong the last time so I’m correcting it here…
In the background there is the Orange Photography team enjoying our In-n-Out Burger lunch in the sun before we went off to Sea Bowl in Pacifica for a team offsite. Check out the Orange Photography blog soon to see how that went!
Do you like burgers? I love ’em so when we saw that 7×7 Magazine had done their top twenty burgers in San Francisco, we decided to try out their top ten and do our own evaluation. Now, these are more the cloth-napkin type of establishments where the top ten were chosen from so my dining companions @a and @sfgirl went through them together and we have arrived at our final judgments.
If you are interested in my general favorite burger list (which as of this posting has not been updated to reflect these last ten burgers, check it out here. That’ll give you an idea for the types of burgers I like (Pearl’s, In-n-Out, Bullshead, Zeitgeist for example) so you can determine whether my reviews of these other higher-end burgers is relevant to your tastes.
Best Burgers in San Francisco (based on 7×7’s reviews*):
1) Bix
2) Spork
3 tie) Mission Beach Cafe, Fish and Farm, NOPA
6 tie) Namu & Spruce (shown above)
8 ) Zuni Cafe
9) Orson
10) Serpentine
And this list posted on Yelp is here (where you can read in more detail about each of the dining experiences).
* we substituted Orson for Acme Chophouse, since Acme no longer exists. Why not Slow Club? Well, we had all already eaten there before so we chose Orson b/c of the many high ratings it’s gotten like from Michael Bauer, the Chronicle’s food writer.
As a read, this book is a quick one. At close to 300 pages of actual content (and lots of notes at the end), it details the rise of the burger chain from its humble beginnings in Baldwin Park, CA through it’s current state. Harry and Esther Snyder started In-n-Out Burger and the company has stayed a family business and remained privately held even while the entire fast food industry has gone corporate – for the most part.
The book details some of the drama concerning the most recent change in leadership as well as some interesting tidbits and backstories.
A few random things I learned included:
But back to the content of the book itself – author Stacy Perman’s quotes seem to do little to support the text when she uses them – to me the quotes are too short and it would have been nice to get more context aside from a one liner.. Her writing style wasn’t all that compelling to me either, but luckily the story of In-n-Out Burger and the machinations of the business are strong enough to propel the story. Maybe it’s because I am one of those fanatical In-n-Out fans that I demand the greatest prose to accompany this great burger institution’s story.
Oh well, who could live up to that. I guess maybe if I can get Haruki Murakami into In-n-Out then maybe he could write something about that. Now that would be freaking awesome…
Well, I will leave you with a nice quote from our own San Francisco Mayor – Gavin Newsom – from the books back cover: “When fast-food restaurants tried to locate to Fisherman’s Wharf, our local merchants were opposed to every one of them – except In-n-Out. Because every meal is fresh and made from scratch, In-n-Out is in a class by itself.”