4 ms·

The Palm Court $30 burger tastes like the death of San Francisco

30 points by rmason 4y ago

rmason 4y ago
Have to admit to you there's things done on the West coast that folks in the Midwest are first agog and then find extremely hilarious and this is a perfect example. Now there's a Restoration Hardware in Detroit and friends restoring houses there recommend it highly. But if someone was to put a fancy restaurant inside and featured a $30 burger it would be talked about long after it was gone. Millers Bar in the nearby Detroit suburb of Dearborn routinely makes top ten lists of the best burger in America and it doesn't cost half that amount. Millers Bar isn't a fancy place, the burgers come on waxed paper and you've got to ask the waiter for a glass with your beer if you want one. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that Bob Segar, Jeff Daniels or Eminem are regulars there but I've never spotted them.
- joezydeco 4y ago
  Chicago has two RHs with restaurants in them and, as far as I can tell, nobody is that up in arms about them. They're upscale furniture stores and they're in upscale neighborhoods (gold coast and oakbrook). I've eaten at RH and I've eaten at IKEA. Same goals as far as I can see it.
  - pxmpxm 4y ago
    The Chicago one had about an hour wait to get seated for saturday brunch; clearly those burgers should be selling for way more than $30.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Hasn't this sort of thing been going on in SF for quite a while now?
calrueb 4y ago
I feel like this article is making a bigger deal out of Palm Court than need be. I have been there; yes, if you do any research at all you know your getting ripped off on food prices. But for a date night of just wandering around the show rooms, and then getting some food it was a good time. SF isn’t dying.
bdbenton 4y ago
The final stage of gentrification is the buying up of homes as pure investment properties by corporate and financial entities. This is why housing is unafforable in LA, greedy landlords, especially the corporate variety. It's why the streets are filled with homeless in the largest cities of California. First, it's white collar workers replacing blue collar workers. Then, it's vast numbers of empty homes and homeless people side-by-side. This is what happens when the wealth gap grows without ceasing, the financial industry is the largest in the world. It is not wholly bad to see my home state of Texas ascend as a tech hub, but California is still a part of the USA. In many countries, corporate investment of residential homes is illegal. I still care about California, and if you guys want to keep it from steering towards a dystopian technocratic nightmare, you need to reign in corporate real estate investing and monopolistic practices from tech employers. What is the point of a high SF tech salary if living expenses just do not make logical sense? What about the blue collar workers who make the city run? It's materialistic and self-cannabilizing. Billionaires among record-breaking homeless populations. Don't think the liberal party is that different from the conservative party, both are beholden to the wealthy class. No matter the ruling party, it takes everyday people working together to make a real change. Real communities working together to solve problems. People solve problems, politicians are just puppets for corporate interest. We are the people. Stand up for your rights and challenge authority, or it will just keep going this direction.
- strikelaserclaw 4y ago
  we should have laws that heavily regulate using homes as investment vehicles unless we want to become china 2.0.
- Shamu 4y ago
  Are we seeing the same "homeless" people? The ones I see filling up the sidewalks and public spaces of big cities like LA and SF seem to be here for the cheap drugs, public services, and other nice things that "red states" are less likely to allow/provide. Unfortunately, the "homeless issue" in big cities is a conflict of excess. High priced apartments (LA & SF used to have a decent amount of affordable living options when people didn't want to live in cities) clashing with "free"/public services. We were fed a theory posed as fact (i.e. that providing services for drug addicts, like needle exchanges, and lowered/non-existent legal repercussions) is what is missing from our society. That is increasingly showing itself to be a lie. The public needs to ask itself, do we want cities that are tolerant (and filled with drugs/crime), or do we want to accept intolerance? I don't see the current political climate allowing intolerance, which is leading to a brewing political/civil schism.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tqi 4y ago
Actually the inability to deal with obvious issues like this one seems more like the death of San Francisco: https://sfist.com/2022/10/13/glen-park-rat-infestations-being-pinned-on-birdseed-lady-dropping-huge-piles-of-the-stuff-on-sidewalks/ https://sfist.com/2022/10/13/glen-park-rat-infestations-bein...
msarrel 4y ago
I think he's dead right in this article. I noticed when I moved from New York to San Francisco about 5 years ago that the emphasis of "fine dining" is price and exclusivity, not quality. It's as if people only know something tastes good because they paid $30 for it.
- smackeyacky 4y ago
  The $30 isn't for the food, it's to make sure you don't have to interact with "those" people i.e. the poors.
- acchow 4y ago
  I feel the opposite. It’s easy to find quality food made with quality ingredients in San Francisco
  - TechnicolorByte 4y ago
    Any recs?
jmull 4y ago
This sounds like a good thing to me. Sometimes you need to go to a fancy restaurant. This place seems to have made it possible to get a good burger while you're at it. Everybody wins?
baybal2 4y ago
yawnxyz 4y ago
That looks like some stuffed up IKEA + food court. I can't imagine spending $30 for that kind of ambiance, instead of on a very high quality burger. The entire thing feels like "children pretending to be fancy rich adults".
odysseus 4y ago
I kinda want that burger. Even if, like the author, I'd feel very out of place walking into such an establishment. Bet this article is going to draw a lot of people to RH.
deleted_account 4y ago
The more interesting story is RH combining high-end home decor and...restaurants? (And jets, and yachts?)[1] As for the death of San Francisco, The Ramp is in spitting distance, so if you find yourself at the Palm Court you might have nobody to blame but yourself. [1]https://rh.com/restaurants https://rh.com/restaurants, https://rh.com/one https://rh.com/one, https://rh.com/three https://rh.com/three
TheMagicHorsey 4y ago
This is so silly. Corporate money caused a housing shortage? What an absolute idiot the author is. Go to City Hall and Sacramento and protest all the NIMBY laws and regulations that prevent us from building housing in the density we need. That's where this author's ire should be focused. These kind of anti-capitalist reactionary are the reason why the Bay Area will eventually lose its tech edge, and then this type of socialist will wonder why the city "he loves so much" is in a death spiral like Detroit. If SF didn't have the natural charms it has, it would have gone the way of Detroit a long time ago. This level of absolute obtuseness of the journalists and politicians is usually fatal to an economy.
stevage 4y ago
I don't get this article. Go to a fancy restaurant, order the least fancy thing, complain that it is expensive? Fancy restaurants exist in all big cities. This experience would be a problem if it was a shitty burger in a shitty corner bar and still cost $30. Fancy food for fancy people at fancy prices is not inherently a problem.
awillen 4y ago
Oh, c'mon now - this is just the way fine dining is. Go to many Michelin-starred restaurants, and the second you're up from your chair someone will walk you to the bathroom. As soon as you're out of sight of your table, your napkin will be folded and placed on the table. This isn't the death of San Francisco - that would be the new restaurant that only serves food to dogs in the Mission.
Kon-Peki 4y ago
The ridiculous excess of helpful employees is solely for the (hopeful) gain of a Michelin star. They’ve got ambition!
Shamu 4y ago
This article achieved marketing bliss... satisfy the thirst of the lower income educated population by bashing the rich, while also piquing the intrigue of the well-off.
superchroma 4y ago
Oh, yeah, sure, because luxury restaurants are edging out cheaper, decent experiences, give me a break.

30 points by rmason 4y ago

Have to admit to you there's things done on the West coast that folks in the Midwest are first agog and then find extremely hilarious and this is a perfect example. Now there's a Restoration Hardware in Detroit and friends restoring houses there recommend it highly. But if someone was to put a fancy restaurant inside and featured a $30 burger it would be talked about long after it was gone. Millers Bar in the nearby Detroit suburb of Dearborn routinely makes top ten lists of the best burger in America and it doesn't cost half that amount. Millers Bar isn't a fancy place, the burgers come on waxed paper and you've got to ask the waiter for a glass with your beer if you want one. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that Bob Segar, Jeff Daniels or Eminem are regulars there but I've never spotted them.

joezydeco 4y ago
Chicago has two RHs with restaurants in them and, as far as I can tell, nobody is that up in arms about them. They're upscale furniture stores and they're in upscale neighborhoods (gold coast and oakbrook). I've eaten at RH and I've eaten at IKEA. Same goals as far as I can see it.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  The Chicago one had about an hour wait to get seated for saturday brunch; clearly those burgers should be selling for way more than $30.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

Hasn't this sort of thing been going on in SF for quite a while now?

calrueb 4y ago

I feel like this article is making a bigger deal out of Palm Court than need be. I have been there; yes, if you do any research at all you know your getting ripped off on food prices. But for a date night of just wandering around the show rooms, and then getting some food it was a good time. SF isn’t dying.

bdbenton 4y ago

The final stage of gentrification is the buying up of homes as pure investment properties by corporate and financial entities. This is why housing is unafforable in LA, greedy landlords, especially the corporate variety. It's why the streets are filled with homeless in the largest cities of California. First, it's white collar workers replacing blue collar workers. Then, it's vast numbers of empty homes and homeless people side-by-side. This is what happens when the wealth gap grows without ceasing, the financial industry is the largest in the world. It is not wholly bad to see my home state of Texas ascend as a tech hub, but California is still a part of the USA. In many countries, corporate investment of residential homes is illegal. I still care about California, and if you guys want to keep it from steering towards a dystopian technocratic nightmare, you need to reign in corporate real estate investing and monopolistic practices from tech employers. What is the point of a high SF tech salary if living expenses just do not make logical sense? What about the blue collar workers who make the city run? It's materialistic and self-cannabilizing. Billionaires among record-breaking homeless populations. Don't think the liberal party is that different from the conservative party, both are beholden to the wealthy class. No matter the ruling party, it takes everyday people working together to make a real change. Real communities working together to solve problems. People solve problems, politicians are just puppets for corporate interest. We are the people. Stand up for your rights and challenge authority, or it will just keep going this direction.

strikelaserclaw 4y ago
we should have laws that heavily regulate using homes as investment vehicles unless we want to become china 2.0.
Shamu 4y ago
Are we seeing the same "homeless" people? The ones I see filling up the sidewalks and public spaces of big cities like LA and SF seem to be here for the cheap drugs, public services, and other nice things that "red states" are less likely to allow/provide. Unfortunately, the "homeless issue" in big cities is a conflict of excess. High priced apartments (LA & SF used to have a decent amount of affordable living options when people didn't want to live in cities) clashing with "free"/public services. We were fed a theory posed as fact (i.e. that providing services for drug addicts, like needle exchanges, and lowered/non-existent legal repercussions) is what is missing from our society. That is increasingly showing itself to be a lie. The public needs to ask itself, do we want cities that are tolerant (and filled with drugs/crime), or do we want to accept intolerance? I don't see the current political climate allowing intolerance, which is leading to a brewing political/civil schism.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tqi 4y ago

Actually the inability to deal with obvious issues like this one seems more like the death of San Francisco: https://sfist.com/2022/10/13/glen-park-rat-infestations-being-pinned-on-birdseed-lady-dropping-huge-piles-of-the-stuff-on-sidewalks/ https://sfist.com/2022/10/13/glen-park-rat-infestations-bein...

msarrel 4y ago

I think he's dead right in this article. I noticed when I moved from New York to San Francisco about 5 years ago that the emphasis of "fine dining" is price and exclusivity, not quality. It's as if people only know something tastes good because they paid $30 for it.

smackeyacky 4y ago
The $30 isn't for the food, it's to make sure you don't have to interact with "those" people i.e. the poors.
acchow 4y ago
I feel the opposite. It’s easy to find quality food made with quality ingredients in San Francisco
- TechnicolorByte 4y ago
  Any recs?

jmull 4y ago

This sounds like a good thing to me. Sometimes you need to go to a fancy restaurant. This place seems to have made it possible to get a good burger while you're at it. Everybody wins?

baybal2 4y ago

yawnxyz 4y ago

That looks like some stuffed up IKEA + food court. I can't imagine spending $30 for that kind of ambiance, instead of on a very high quality burger. The entire thing feels like "children pretending to be fancy rich adults".

odysseus 4y ago

I kinda want that burger. Even if, like the author, I'd feel very out of place walking into such an establishment. Bet this article is going to draw a lot of people to RH.

deleted_account 4y ago

The more interesting story is RH combining high-end home decor and...restaurants? (And jets, and yachts?)[1] As for the death of San Francisco, The Ramp is in spitting distance, so if you find yourself at the Palm Court you might have nobody to blame but yourself. [1]https://rh.com/restaurants https://rh.com/restaurants, https://rh.com/one https://rh.com/one, https://rh.com/three https://rh.com/three

TheMagicHorsey 4y ago

This is so silly. Corporate money caused a housing shortage? What an absolute idiot the author is. Go to City Hall and Sacramento and protest all the NIMBY laws and regulations that prevent us from building housing in the density we need. That's where this author's ire should be focused. These kind of anti-capitalist reactionary are the reason why the Bay Area will eventually lose its tech edge, and then this type of socialist will wonder why the city "he loves so much" is in a death spiral like Detroit. If SF didn't have the natural charms it has, it would have gone the way of Detroit a long time ago. This level of absolute obtuseness of the journalists and politicians is usually fatal to an economy.

stevage 4y ago

I don't get this article. Go to a fancy restaurant, order the least fancy thing, complain that it is expensive? Fancy restaurants exist in all big cities. This experience would be a problem if it was a shitty burger in a shitty corner bar and still cost $30. Fancy food for fancy people at fancy prices is not inherently a problem.

awillen 4y ago

Oh, c'mon now - this is just the way fine dining is. Go to many Michelin-starred restaurants, and the second you're up from your chair someone will walk you to the bathroom. As soon as you're out of sight of your table, your napkin will be folded and placed on the table. This isn't the death of San Francisco - that would be the new restaurant that only serves food to dogs in the Mission.

Kon-Peki 4y ago

The ridiculous excess of helpful employees is solely for the (hopeful) gain of a Michelin star. They’ve got ambition!

Shamu 4y ago

This article achieved marketing bliss... satisfy the thirst of the lower income educated population by bashing the rich, while also piquing the intrigue of the well-off.

superchroma 4y ago

Oh, yeah, sure, because luxury restaurants are edging out cheaper, decent experiences, give me a break.