Forking Tasty

I was in San Francisco last week for work. It was the first time in a long time. Long time meaning over two months. I knew it had been a while because I had that nostalgic feeling as I landed, made my way to the rent a car center and started down 101 to Sunnyvale.

I was in town to meet my intern, Doreen Bloch. She’s a superstar from Berkeley who is going to help me craft and launch a new mom program. It’s funny how I have been doing mom programs for almost 2 years now and I am the farthest thing from a mom there could be. I always talk about understanding your audience, in life and particularly in marketing. In holding true to this rule, I have become more a mom than I ever thought I would be. I find myself thinking about cyber safety, summer staycations, life stages of kids and the on going struggle balancing me time, career and family. Whew!

I initially intended to stay down in “the Vale” but an unexpected engagement of two dear friends made me change my accommodations to San Francisco. More on that in another post. My normal hotel in SF is the Adagio just off union square and verging on the tenderloin. I have become a bit of a snob with hotels in California with my preference always being a Joie de Vivre property, which of course, the Adagio is.

Some years back I read a book titled The Rebel Rules. It instantly became a favorite business book of mine when I connected with the authors honest, rational and transparent approach to management, business and risk taking. Some years later, I had the pleasure to meet Chip Conley, the author, at one of their new properties in Sunnyvale. Chip and I have become friends since then. I consider him to be one of my mentors in this busy life where work and play overlap.

For all these reasons I have loyalty to Joie de Vivre. When they open a new hotel I like to try it. So, this trip I forwent the Adagio to try The Good Hotel. Good is a small property down in SOMA that sisters with 3 other hotels all located with in a block of each other. The Good is a step above a youth hostel with the design of a trendy Swedish boutique. For $89 a night I had a quaint room on the second floor with a private bathroom (just in case you were wondering). In the lobby of the hotel is a pizza joint, aptly named Good Pizza. Across the street, in one of the sister hotels, was a joint named Custom Burger. Being a NYer I steer clear of pizza in any other city except Napoli (read Italy and parts of southern France).

For dinner that night I hopped across 7th Street and popped into Custom Burger. I walked up to the counter and was handed an order slip. The slip is broken up into sections with choices for each section on customizing your burger. The base is the meat. Probably one of the most important decisions on any burger. The choices were quite unique to my surprise. They started out basic with an Angus or a Kobe patty. But, then things got interesting. The next set of choices were lamb, chicken and turkey. Salmon and veggie rounded out the base options. Impressed, I went Kobe and continued with my customization of bread, toppings, sauces, extra, sides and drinks. In the end, I wound up ordering a Kobe patty with arugula, roasted red pepper salsa on a sesame bun with a glass of red wine.

I took a seat and a few minutes later my creation arrived. It looked delicious. I took a bite the salsa was great and the burger was pretty good. It was a little more on the medium well side than the medium rare side so they loose a few points for that. All in, a good burger and nice glass of wine for under $12 in San Francisco is a win-win. The customization part is half the fun and I am definitely going to come back and try another combination. For you math wiz’s out there, with all the choices in each section there are over 125 different combinations you could create. That doesn’t even consider pairings with wines and beers. So, next time you are in SF consider some custom food and good sleep.

The Good Hotel
www.jdvhotels.com
112 7th St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 621-7001

Custom Burger
www.jdvhotels.com
121 7th Street
San Francisco, ca 94103
(415) 252-2635