737 Bridgeway, Sausalito, CA 94965 (See Map Below) Phone Orders: 415-332-9471
Neighborhood: Downtown Sausalito (Ferry Pier). No website. Open till 9:00 PM some days during summer months, but call ahead to be sure they're open if you plan to arrive after 5:00 PM, Open for lunch only during the remainder of the year. City parking lots are nearby.
Price range (for Lunch entree) at time of most recent review: $6.40 hamburger, $6.60 cheeseburger.
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Hamburgers Restaurant
Insiders Tip: Avoid Going to the Wrong Spot: Other downtown Sausalito restaurants have been adding the word "Hamburgers" on signs and marquees, hoping to attract people looking for "the famous place called Hamburgers in Sausalito." The correct marquee and storefront are shown above.
New: See the video of the Hamburgers grill below!
If there isn't a rotating charcoal fire grill in the front window (shown at left), you're not at "Hamburgers" in Sausalito!
Fast Forward SummaryTM: Barely 8 feet wide, this narrow shop makes one of the best under-$10 burgers not just in Sausalito, but north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Hand-made fresh organic angus beef burgers with no additives or hormones, cooked to order over a rotating flame grill. $6.60 for a cheesburger, just over $10 with fries and sales tax, and one of the least expensive lunches in town. The fresh-flame-grilled taste strikes you at first bite. Only three little tables inside this narrow lunch-only restaurant on Bridgeway near Anchor St. and the Ferry pier, but several beautiful parks are within two blocks walk in any direction. Also serves chicken and kosher hot dogs cooked on the same grill.
If you're a local during the summer: Call ahead to order your burger to avoid having to wait so long in line. You miss getting to watch flames licking at your personal hamburger, but it's still a great show.
Hamburgers Restaurant: The Details
Submitted for your consideration: a burger joint barely 10 feet wide on the main street of Sausalito that frequently earns a top-ten spot in our Best Lunch Restaurants List. Why would a comprehensive online survey of diners at all Sausalito restaurants -- including those with celebrity chefs -- put a burger hole-in-the-wall so high on this list?
One of our editors came here regularly with his mother back when he was a kid growing up in Sausalito. Could it be some kind of a cult, with children brainwashed from birth?
More evidence of a conspiracy: A line forms spontaneously on the sidewalk on Bridgeway near Anchor St., stretching from the doorway of a narrow storefront. Are we in the old East Germany watching people queue up to spend their ration tickets?
Foreign Agents? As I waited for my burger last week a small tour van stopped and opened its door, directly opposite the rotating grill at Hamburgers. It was funny, because the van was as wide as the restauarant. A group of visitors exited the van and as they stepped onto the sidewalk they joined the Hamburgers line... which now extended back up the steps and onto the bus! None appeared to speak English, but they all knew to ask for Hamburgers! Apparently this tour company has made the place an official lunch stop.
Since you've read the Fast Forward Summary you already know the answer to this series of strange events. If a little place uses fresh high quality organic ingredients (like Angus beef), focuses on one specialty (that rotating charcoal fire grill) and one customer (people seeking good, fast, inexpensive-for-Sausalito lunches) they can make a lot of people happy. Including us.
So consider a trip to Hamburgers as an experience. You get to watch your burger go round and round over the flames, then sit in the park or next to the Bridgeway Promenade and eat the juicy goodness. If that sounds like what you want, Hamburgers is the place.
Google Map Instructions: Use the "+" and "-" buttons to zoom in and out, the arrow keys to scroll the map, and the SAT button to see the satellite view.
Something else that people should know about Hamburgers Restaurant and that rotating grill? Think we've gotten lost in the Twilight Zone? Ready to expose the true reasons for Hamburgers' cult following, based on a) alien observations, b) Aztec artifacts, or c) a National Enquirer article? Disagree with any of our suggestions? Please leave a comment below so our readers get the full story.
