Where every ingredient comes from — and why we picked them
I get asked all the time why our burgers taste different. The short answer? We're picky about what we put on the grill. Every ingredient has a story, and I know every supplier by name. Some of them have been with us since the first year. When you bite into one of our burgers, you're tasting 27 years of relationships — not just meat and bread.
— Abraham Dababneh, Founder
Humanely raised cattle on family-owned ranches. No hormones. No antibiotics. Vegetarian-fed only. We've visited the ranches ourselves — Abraham makes the drive at least once a year to see how the animals are treated. If a ranch cuts corners, we switch. It's happened twice in 27 years.
Our beef arrives as whole cuts, not pre-ground tubes. We grind it fresh in the kitchen every morning before the doors open. The grind is an 80/20 lean-to-fat ratio — enough fat for flavor, enough protein for structure. Each patty is hand-formed. Nobody touches a mold or a press.
Buns arrive fresh every morning from a local Bay Area bakery. They're made with a recipe we developed together over months of testing — slightly sweet, sturdy enough to hold a half-pound patty without falling apart, soft enough that it doesn't fight the meat. Delivered warm, used the same day.
Open-flame char grill. Not a flat-top. Not a broiler. Actual fire. The flame hits the patty at around 500 degrees, chars the outside in under two minutes while the inside stays pink and juicy. This is the part most places skip because it's harder to control. We've been controlling it since 1997.
From grill to wrapper in under 30 seconds. No heat lamps. No holding trays. The burger goes straight from fire to your hands. Total time from raw patty to finished burger: about 6 minutes. That's it.
100% all-natural from family operations that maintain humane certification. Source-verified, age-verified, no growth promotants. The cattle are raised on vegetarian feed in open pasture. We pay more than the commodity rate because the quality is worth it — and because treating animals right isn't optional.
Our buns come from a family-run bakery in the Bay Area that makes them by hand each morning using our custom recipe. Non-GMO flour, real eggs, real butter. They're delivered fresh and used within the day. We go through hundreds of buns daily across both locations, and not a single one is ever frozen.
Our milkshakes are made with Mitchell's Ice Cream, a San Francisco institution since 1953. They make it in small batches in the Outer Mission using real cream and real ingredients. Their Madagascar vanilla is the base for our shakes. You can taste the difference between Mitchell's and the industrial stuff from the first sip.
We buy whole russet potatoes, cut them by hand in the kitchen, and fry them to order. No bags of frozen fries. No pre-cut, pre-blanched supplier product. It's messier and takes longer, but the texture and taste are completely different. If you've only ever had frozen fries, ours will ruin you.
Tomatoes, lettuce, onions — all delivered fresh daily. We don't have a walk-in full of week-old vegetables. What arrives in the morning goes on your burger by lunch. Simple as that.
Most burger places optimize for cost. We optimize for taste. That means spending more on ingredients, turning over product faster, and building relationships with suppliers instead of just filling purchase orders. It's not the cheapest way to run a restaurant. But 27 years later, people still line up at both locations, and we've never had to run a promotion to get them there. The food does the talking.