Yes, it’s that month again. The one where you start panicking around the 12th or 13th because you waited to the last minute to find that special Valentine’s gift that fully encapsulates the all the love, respect, and tenderness you feel for that one special someone. Failing that, it’s either flowers, a fancy dinner or chocolate. If you really have waited until the last moment, forget a decent bouquet. The Valley’s florists are already booked and the only flowers left are a few sad, wilted red roses in the check-out aisle at Von’s.
And, listen, if you didn’t make a rez at Workshop or Wally’s Desert Turtle in January, don’t bother calling up for one now. Unless you enjoy the sound of sneering laughter in your ear.
That leaves chocolates. Sure, you can stop by See’s if you want to go old school or see what’s left on the shelves at Brandini Toffee, but let me ask you this: Do you really want to expose yourself as a tired, old walking cliché to the one you love?
Be counterintuitive. Do the unexpected. Do down, dirty, and sublime.
Take them out for the best burger of their lives.
Olga Trehub
Don’t try to impress with some finicky, nouvelle burger with a patty made from ground truffle-stuffed boar’s butt, 100-year-old English cheddar, onions caramelized in aged Calvados, all tucked in a brioche flown in overnight from Balthazar Boulangerie in New York.
No, you want a place where there’s no chef, but there’s a cook who occasionally takes hits off a Bud longneck and the waitress wipes the counter with her forearm. You don’t want a place that’s been curated to look like a midcentury living room. You don’t want décor; you want a joint that cares deeply about its burgers and nothing else. An OG burger. That’s OG for Original Gangster, not Old Greasy.
You will order your burgers. Staring intently into each other’s eyes, you will widen your mouth impossibly to take a deep bite of burger. The perfectly cooked and seasoned meat, the condiments, the soft, toasted bun will produce in both you and your partner deep grunts of pleasure. You look at them. A little trickle of juice and mayo runs out of the corner of their mouth. You reach with a paper napkin and dab it off. Their eyes look at you with adoration. That’s a Happy Valentines, my friend.
The Burger Spot
First of all, I’m not telling you the address or how to get there. Figuring it out is part of the allure, part of the adventure.
Olga and I got lucky. We know Claudia who is a regular and knows Mariah Ayon, the proprietor. Claudia put in a word for us with Mariah. Still, Mariah wasn’t convinced she wanted visitors. It was Friday evening. Her birthday. She wanted to close early and go out to dinner. She had a certain number of orders to fill and then she was closing.
“Besides,” she told us later. “I never let anyone in my house.”
Yes, that’s right, her house. Ayon’s home is in a neat neighborhood of small houses in Coachella. It’s busy on a Friday evening with people getting home from work and trucks backing into short driveways. Ayon’s house looks like any other except for a backlit, ten-foot square banner on the front porch that says, ‘The Burger Spot.’ There are also a few people standing patiently in line on the cement path leading to her front door. We get to the door and knock. A young woman answers and we tell her who we are. She tells us to wait. We wait a long time.
Finally, we are admitted.
We enter a small living room where the furniture has been pushed back to create space to the front door from the kitchen and dining area where a long folding table is set up as an assembly area. We are greeted by Mariah, a young, attractive woman who nevertheless has the harried look of someone keeping a dozen balls in the air. Between phone orders, she briefly tells her story. Her original goal was law school and she worked a couple server jobs while doing undergraduate work (It’s the only previous food service experience she’s had), but then her life took a turn and she became a full time nanny. “This started during Covid. Everything crashed down, so I just did it a little on side. But then it started getting bigger and bigger. I finally had to ask two friends to come in and help me. It just became a local hit.”
Ayon’s business is open Wednesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner. Lunch is usually 11:30 to 1 and dinner varies (times are posted weekly on Ayon’s Instagram page), but is generally 4:45 to 9. Ayon makes a set number of burgers and sliders per day and when they sell out (which they do, every day), then she closes. “All our clients are the same clients every week,” she says. “They know what they want and know when to come by and pick it up.”
There is only one way to order: The Burger Spot Instagram site. You peruse the small menu such as the ‘Hit the Spot Burger Box’ ($10.00) or the popular special platters such as ‘6 sliders and buffalo fries all around’ ($45.00), then send a message in your order. If you’re lucky enough to edge out one of the regulars, you get the address, and arrive 25 minutes later. Park in the street and text that you’ve arrived. If your order is ready, you can go to the door. One of Ayon’s friends will take your cash and return with your order.
Ayon says the key to her popularity is that she flavors her food to fix her largely Mexican clientale. The buffalo fries (cut steak style) are topped with grated cheese, her own chipolte and ranch sauce, and parsley. It’s like French fries meets nachos. The ‘Hit the Spot’ is a huge angus patty flavored with piquant spices between a kasier roll that requires both hands. It comes with melted American cheese, pickled red onions, tomato, spicy mayo. I had avocado slices added to mine. It was unctuous and spicey, though not to where it singed my hair. The great mix of flavors and the perfectly cooked meat made it one of the greatest burgers I’ve ever had. How do I know? It was gone in 60 seconds and there was nothing left but spicey mayo on my fingertips.
George’s Bar and Grill
You like ketchup? You like it on your burger? Tell you what: Go to George’s Bar and Grill on Ramon in Cathedral City, sit at the counter, and order a double cheeseburger. When it arrives, ask for the ketchup. As you lift the top bun to pour some ketchup on, you might find yourself escorted to the door. At best, you will be yelled at by Nick, the cook, or Stacy the waitress.
“We have a ‘No ketchup on the burgers’ policy,” says Stacy. “Because we want you to taste the meat. You can put ketchup on your fries, but don’t get it anywhere near the burger.”
George’s was founded in 1969 by a former boxer named George at a different location. There is a photo of George in a boxing stance at the present location. George looks tough. If he told me not to touch the ketchup, I’d listen.
Actually, the full name of the establishment is George’s Bar & Grill—World Famous Burgers and Insults. By all accounts, George and his son, Ed (who took over the establishment after George passed away in 1999) were professional curmudgeons with hearts of dry gristle. They could dish it out—both superlative burgers and chili and flinty wisecracks. Sadly, Ed passed away in 2022 and it looked like the Cat City institution was going away forever.
Thanks to local contractor Gary Chaney, George’s doors have reopened. Chaney, a tall, affable with seasoned builder written all over him, happened by the grill just as Nick was grilling us up our burger order. “I was at Ed’s funeral and was talking to his stepsons,” he recalled. “They weren’t interested in continuing the business. This has always been a lunch place for working people and I hated the idea of it closing. I thought to myself, ‘Well, why don’t I give it a try?’”
A lot of people are glad he did. Add me to the list. Nick delivered our burger straight from the grill and the size of it was a little intimidating. The meat was well-seasoned and full of flavor. And they’re right about the ketchup. This burger was so juicy that ketchup would disguise the high quality of the beef. The balance of gooey American cheese, juicy burger, and the crisp, coolness of the lettuce, tomato and onion is classic. Burgers like this are the standard by which all others should be judged. It’s deceptively simple and impossible to duplicate at home. This is why you go out for a good burger.
Chaney delivers a small bowl of chili to the table. Back in George and Ed’s days, the chili was as famous as the burgers…but the recipe was secret. Chaney says it took many hours, but they were finally able to approximate the original. It’s meaty and spicey, the perfect chili to ladle over a hot dog or single cheeseburger.
Though the insults are no longer flying fast and furious, George’s burger lives up to its well-earned reputation.
Dillons
“There was a time this road was full of bars and roadhouses,” says Jameson Walker, the owner of Dillons Burgers and Beers in Desert Hot Springs. Dillons has been around since 1948, a veritable antique by California standards. “Back in the day when all the people who worked in Palm Springs lived up here, there was a lively scene up here. Because it’s far away from the towns, the music got pretty loud.”
Getting to Dillons is relatively straightforward. You simply go up Indian Canyon to Dillon and take a right. Then you begin to cruise the road with its boarded-up shacks, construction lots, and thrift stores and wonder if it exists. We almost missed it despite Siri imploring us to stop and turn right into the parking lot.
Dillons is a classic roadhouse. With its nondescript, dusty exterior, it’s a pleasant surprise to step into the dark, cool interior. There’s a bar to the right (locals were sitting shoulder to shoulder at the 11am opening time to knock back an eye opener) and back in the left corner is a little stage for the band. The walls around it are festooned with posters for local and even nationally known rock bands. With a nice expanse of dance floor in front of the stage, this looks like just the place to lose a Friday night.
Olga Trehub
I’m tempted to ask Jameson if he’ll serve me up the simple Dillons ¼ lb cheeseburger. I’ve been told it’s a classic of its kind, a burger that’ll soak up your first two beers, but still leave room for the next two. Instead, I ask Jameson what most of the regulars order.
“The Everything Cheeseburger,” he says without hesitation. “You won’t be sorry.”
When it arrived at our table ten minutes, I was only sorry that I didn’t have a second stomach. The Everything has two ¼ lb patties covered in cheese, two thick, massive strips of bacon, avocado, tomato, onion, and lettuce. Luckily, in the course of researching burgers for this article (you’d be surprised who didn’t make the cut), I have become an expert at unhinging my lower jaw in order to chomp deep into the heart of the burger. The first bite is key. In the first bite, all the various flavors are distinct (On the other hand, the further you get into a good burger, the more the ingredients begin to get mashed and meld…which is equally delectable). With the Everything Cheeseburger, the well-done patties, melted cheese, ripe beefsteak tomato, and firm avocado slices all had their say…and what they said was damn good.
Ski Inn
There was a time that the desperate and inevitable decay of Bombay Beach on the Salton Sea was an irresistible draw for apocalypse afficionados. The trouble with too many doomsday tourists getting word of something weird and wonderful is that they often unwittingly revive and even preserve it.
A few years ago, an artist named Tao Raspoli created Bombay Beach’s first art biennale. It was a huge success and suddenly artists and alt tourists were buying up the town’s ramshackle properties (You can’t buy a semi-demolished single wide for love or money these days). The art biennale continues and artists continue to fill the town and beach with their visions. I once asked Raspoli if what he created could be compared to Burning Man and he replied to the effect that unlike Burning Man, the art in Bombay Beach is on permanent display.
Though there is a lovely new community center in town, the unofficial town hall has always been the Ski Inn, a relic of the time when the sea was a paradise for boaters and water skiers. Possibly because there is little else to do in town other than drink, the Ski Inn has weathered both bad times and tourist times. I manage to make a pilgrimage out to the Salton Sea about once or twice a year and I always drop in to admire my dollar bill taped to the wall near the men’s restroom (Robert, the current owner, estimates there are about $12,000 worth of bills taped to the walls throughout the bar and restaurant…ironic because there was a time a couple decades back when you probably could’ve bought the whole town for that) and have myself a patty melt.
Yes, I know a patty melt is not a burger and should be disqualified from this list, but I would argue that it is in the burger family. It was also a favorite of the late Anthony Bourdain, who made the trek out here for a segment of his show in 2008. I don’t recall him falling out of his chair over it, but I recollect that he enjoyed it.
There have been several owners since Bourdain visited (and, no doubt, a half dozen cooks) and I have had both amazing and meh patty melts over the last dozen or so years. However, I am happy to report that the PM had made a rebound under Robert. A hospitality and restaurant veteran for 45 years, Robert knows the payback of using quality ingredients. The rye bread is fresh and tangy and toasted well enough to hold the ¼ pound patty. The meat had a nice char but was still pink in the center. It was topped with white cheddar and grilled onions. It came with a kind of siracha mayo in a side bowl that proved to be a perfect dip.
After lunch, Robert outlined some of the ambitious plans he has devised in the six months since he has acquired the Ski Inn. Among other things, he plans to introduce a fine dining menu that “will feature dishes like steaks and scallops.”
Oh dear. Steaks and scallops are like code for gentrification. Instead of decay and collapse, could Bombay Beach actually have a future? One with split level, midcentury recreations, vintage furniture stores, and HOAs?
A different kind of apocalypse draws nigh.
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George’s Bar & Grill
You like ketchup? You like it on your burger? Tell you what: Go to George’s Bar and Grill on Ramon in Cathedral City, sit at the counter, and order a double cheeseburger. When it arrives, ask for the ketchup. As you lift the top bun to pour some ketchup on, you might find yourself escorted to the door. At best, you will be yelled at by Nick, the cook, or Stacy the waitress.
“We have a ‘No ketchup on the burgers’ policy,” says Stacy. “Because we want you to taste the meat. You can put ketchup on your fries, but don’t get it anywhere near the burger.”
George’s was founded in 1969 by a former boxer named George at a different location. There is a photo of George in a boxing stance at the present location. George looks tough. If he told me not to touch the ketchup, I’d listen.
Actually, the full name of the establishment is George’s Bar & Grill—World Famous Burgers and Insults. By all accounts, George and his son, Ed (who took over the establishment after George passed away in 1999) were professional curmudgeons with hearts of dry gristle. They could dish it out—both superlative burgers and chili and flinty wisecracks. Sadly, Ed passed away in 2022 and it looked like the Cat City institution was going away forever.
Thanks to local contractor Gary Chaney, George’s doors have reopened. Chaney, a tall, affable with seasoned builder written all over him, happened by the grill just as Nick was grilling us up our burger order. “I was at Ed’s funeral and was talking to his stepsons,” he recalled. “They weren’t interested in continuing the business. This has always been a lunch place for working people and I hated the idea of it closing. I thought to myself, ‘Well, why don’t I give it a try?’”
A lot of people are glad he did. Add me to the list. Nick delivered our burger straight from the grill and the size of it was a little intimidating. The meat was well-seasoned and full of flavor. And they’re right about the ketchup. This burger was so juicy that ketchup would disguise the high quality of the beef. The balance of gooey American cheese, juicy burger, and the crisp, coolness of the lettuce, tomato and onion is classic. Burgers like this are the standard by which all others should be judged. It’s deceptively simple and impossible to duplicate at home. This is why you go out for a good burger.
Chaney delivers a small bowl of chili to the table. Back in George and Ed’s days, the chili was as famous as the burgers…but the recipe was secret. Chaney says it took many hours, but they were finally able to approximate the original. It’s meaty and spicey, the perfect chili to ladle over a hot dog or single cheeseburger.
Though the insults are no longer flying fast and furious, George’s burger lives up to its well-earned reputation.
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Mark Anthony Pratt
Smiley Jim's Burger Joint
539 Francisco, San Francisco, California 94133Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse vulputate. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
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Mark Anthony Pratt
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