The burger joint is dead, long live the burger joint!

Once upon about a year ago, San Francisco’s Mission district witnessed the fall of a grand yet humble neighborhood burger joint. Kelly’s Burgers had cheap plastic tables, the décor wasn’t anything more than what the beer distributors doted on the place in the form of branded clocks and mirrors, and the bathroom wasn’t a place to linger for any longer than necessary. But oh were those burgers tasty, as evidenced by the hazy grease-laden air and the weathered and yellowed paper signs posted to the drink case and the cash register admonishing patrons to tip. The venue was grimey, and as is true of so many low-rent burger restaurants, the grime is undoubtedly what made the beefy drippy greasy hunks of properly-cooked loveliness such a great contribution to the bar zone of 16^th Street. When that low rent ceased to be, and the patrons were too few to keep the doors open, they closed, and Kelly’s was gone.

After a brief and pathetic attempt to build a Thai restaurant on an ugly shoestring failed in an ephemeral flash, the space closed again, and despite being in a lively part of a lively neighborhood, it stayed closed.

It’s not called Kelly’s anymore, but once again, the burger has returned to 3141 16^th Street.

I joined a group to visit Monk’s Kettle last weekend, and had been promised that it had a fun beer list. I have now seen this beer list, and am stunned and giddy. The proprietors of Monk’s Kettle have a very apparent respect for the brewed malt beverage, and have the finest beer list outside of Toronado that I’ve seen in San Francisco. More pubs around the US need to take a lesson from this – there are regionally local beers on this list that I’ve never seen on offer in a bar before. We have a lot of local beer to be proud of in Northern California, and Monk’s Kettle makes it that much more accessible. Anyone looking for a good introduction to craft brewing would be well-advised to start here. Think of Toronado in a party dress.

The space has been treated with the attention of a respectable budget and a design-minded eye, making it an enjoyable spot for an entire evening of beer tourism, with copper and chrome and stone in all the right cozily-lit places. In a nod to the noble heritage of the space, I ordered their blue cheese burger, which was punctuated on the menu with the provenance of almost every ingredient, from the revered Point Reyes Blue to the Quetzal Farms tomato. Assured after making my embarrassingly food-nerd query  that the Niman beef was ground on-site, I unfastened my seat belt and ordered it rare, and regretted nothing.

Thank you, Monk’s Kettle, for raising the standards just a teensy bit higher, and for pouring the good stuff right near my neighborhood.