The Mission restaurant that changed how SF eats burgers is closing

WesBurger ’N’ More — the retro-style San Francisco restaurant that has done more to popularize smashburgers than any other — has announced it will close next month after more than nine years in the Mission. “Because burgers are fun” has been the restaurant’s tagline since its mid-2010s pop-up period, but the fun will run out with the lease, which chef-owner Wes Rowe declined to renew.

“We definitely weren’t the very first smashburger, but I think we were the second,” Rowe says, giving credit to Causwells in the Marina as the main impetus for the thinner, crispier style of patty that has come to dominate San Francisco menus over the past decade. 

WesBurger began in 2012 as a casual pop-up at Mission dive bar Clooney’s, intended to give Rowe’s friend in the kitchen the occasional night off. Shortly afterward, Rowe, then primarily a food photographer, leaped out of culinary obscurity to win the inaugural San Francisco Burger Brawl at Fort Mason, besting several professional chefs. From there, WesBurger took up every Wednesday at the now-closed Mojo Cafe on Divisadero Street, a must-stop for anyone who ever craved a drippy, gooey burger after an evening of boozing.

It graduated from pop-up to brick-and-mortar in 2016, serving a Tex-Mex-heavy menu, known as much for loaded tater tots and a Texas-heavy beer selection as for tongue-in-cheek offerings like the Hot Wes, a juicy, classic-style burger with queso, onion rings, and jalapeños, based on Jack in the Box’s “Hot Mess.” WesBurger’s interior neon sign came from the long-gone Excelsior institution Joe’s Cable Car, while the burger mural outside was painted by prominent local artist Jeremy Fish.

Rowe won acclaim for his classic burgers, a coarse grind of 100% brisket that’s made daily and shaped into patties by hand. The smashburgers came later, at first only on a special late-night menu geared toward restaurant workers. But they immediately became so popular that “we had to do it all the time,” Rowe says.

Soon, smashburgers became as central to WesBurger’s identity as the kitschy interior — intended to evoke a 1960s burger stand in Palm Springs — and Rowe’s refusal to serve french fries. (He has always and only offered tots.) Even as late-night service petered out, the restaurant benefited from a steady stream of first-time visitors, the result of appearing on numerous best-of lists.

Over the years, Rowe collaborated with numerous chefs and restaurants, from Mission Chinese Food to PizzaHacker, staying true to the pop-up’s spirit by offering weekly specials. 

Chef David Barzelay of Lazy Bear, the two-Michelin-starred restaurant around the corner from WesBurger, praised the nostalgia factor of Rowe’s crispy smashburgers. The restaurant has a “vibey late-night counter at a time when everyone was out late in the Mission, and it’s a rare place that’s really exciting for kids,” Barzelay says. “I can’t believe our block is losing such an awesome place.”

To other burger fans, Rowe’s legacy is secure. “Wes didn’t do a smashburger, and then he did, and it’s like the best ever,” says food writer and former Thrillist national burger critic Kevin Alexander, comparing Rowe to famed pizzaiolo Tony Gemignani of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana. “He’s not precious about his creativity, which is really rare.”

“When Wes opened, I don’t think anyone knew what a smashburger was,” says Fish, who has an item on the menu named after him: the PB&J, made with peanut butter, strawberry-jalapeño jam, white cheddar, and onion rings.

The pandemic hit fast-casual eateries hard, even those committed to near-constant adaptation. After experiments with a breakfast menu and a 100-square-foot, bar-within-a-bar concept called The Den, WesBurger’s vibes fell victim to the ever-diminishing ratio of dine-in to takeout.

Rowe, who consults for Mission Chinese Food and James Beard semifinalist bar Halfway Club, remains sanguine about this cultural shift. People got used to DoorDash during the pandemic, he says, and burgers “are the kind of food you want to sit at home and eat on your couch.”

Coming to terms with the closure of their businesses, Bay Area restaurant operators have gone out with blistering diatribes (plus the occasional hilarious rant). Rowe wants the end to be a month-long party — especially mid-week, in a nod to his long-ago pop-up. “I would love to invite everyone for the next four or so Wednesdays that we’re open to just, like, come hang out and eat burgers with me,” he says.

As always, there will be no fries.

“That’s probably the No. 1 most requested thing that people want us to offer that we don’t,” Rowe notes. “There is no No. 2.”