If you are searching McDonald's near me in the Inner Richmond, the more interesting answer is three blocks along Clement Street. Bill's Place has been a neighbourhood diner since 1959, and its burgers are named after actual local customers, a practice that has accumulated decades of names on the menu.
A diner where the menu is a list of neighbours rewards asking about it rather than just ordering. Ask Karpo whether Bill's Place is open now and what else on Clement Street is worth a stop.
The names are real people
The burgers are named after regulars, local figures and people connected to the neighbourhood, a practice that started early and never stopped. Some of the names have been on the menu for decades and belong to people long gone; others are more recent.
This is a specific kind of institution that is disappearing in American cities: a diner that is legible only to the neighbourhood it serves. The menu is essentially a document of who has eaten here, which makes it useless as a description of food and excellent as a description of a place.
Ask the counter who a particular burger is named after. You will usually get an answer, and it is a considerably better way into the Richmond than reading a guidebook.
What to actually order
A griddled burger in the classic Californian diner idiom: a decent patty, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, on a soft bun, with fries or onion rings. The variations between the named burgers come down to toppings rather than to anything structural.
Milkshakes are thick and made properly. The breakfast menu runs alongside the burgers for much of the day, which makes this a reliable stop at hours when most kitchens have switched over.
Portions are large and prices are moderate by San Francisco standards, which in the Richmond is a function of the neighbourhood rather than of the restaurant being cheap.
The garden out the back
There is a small garden patio behind the dining room, which is an unexpected thing to find attached to a Clement Street diner and is the best place to sit when the fog has burned off.
The Richmond gets more fog than most of San Francisco, being close to Ocean Beach and directly in the path of the marine layer, so the garden is a fair-weather proposition. When it is available, take it.
Inside is a standard diner arrangement: booths, a counter, laminate, and decades of accumulated decoration. It is comfortable rather than stylish, which is the correct register.
The Richmond, briefly
The Richmond District occupies the northwestern corner of the city between Golden Gate Park and the Presidio, built out mostly in the first half of the twentieth century as rows of flats over garages. It has been successively Russian, Irish, Chinese and a mixture of all three, and the food reflects every layer.
It is also one of the few parts of San Francisco that still feels residential rather than curated. The businesses on Clement serve the people who live on the surrounding blocks, which is why the prices are lower and the hours are shaped around a neighbourhood rather than around visitors.
Clement Street around it
Clement Street is one of the best eating streets in San Francisco and one of the least visited by people who do not live nearby. It runs through the Inner Richmond with a dense concentration of Chinese, Russian, Burmese, Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants alongside older American businesses like this one.
The street is sometimes called New Chinatown, reflecting the substantial Chinese population that settled in the Richmond through the later twentieth century. It is walkable end to end, has a genuinely good independent bookshop, and is cheaper than almost any comparable strip in the city.
Golden Gate Park is three blocks south, which puts the de Young Museum, the California Academy of Sciences and the Japanese Tea Garden within a fifteen-minute walk.
Why neighbourhood diners matter
The chains are consistent and cheap and they will always be there. What is disappearing is the independently owned counter with a sixty-year history and a menu that only makes sense locally, because those businesses depend on cheap rent, family labour and a stable neighbourhood, and San Francisco has been steadily removing all three.
The practical consequence is simple: if you are in the Richmond and hungry, the neighbourhood diner is both the better meal and the one that needs the custom. It costs a couple of dollars more than the alternative.
Practical notes
Address: 2315 Clement Street, San Francisco, in the Outer Richmond end of the Clement strip. Daytime into evening hours, closed at least one day a week; confirm current schedule. Cash and card accepted, garden seating weather permitting.
Order a named burger and ask who it is named after, take the garden if the fog has cleared, get a milkshake, and walk the Clement Street strip afterwards. The 38 Geary and 1 California Muni lines both run within a couple of blocks, and Golden Gate Park is a short walk south.
Tags: #SanFrancisco #InnerRichmond #Burgers #BillsPlace #ClementStreet #SFDiners #NeighbourhoodFood #SFFood #Milkshakes #RichmondDistrict #BayAreaFood #CheapEats #SFClassics #GoldenGatePark
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know whether Bill's Place is open right now, whether the garden is usable today, and what else on Clement Street is worth a stop? Ask Karpo for today's hours, the current weather in the Richmond, and a nearby alternative.
