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Today Hawk and I ate lunch at Kirk's Steakburgers in Santa Clara.
We got the idea for going to Kirk's when we were chatting with a neighbor at the pool a few days ago. The topic was, "Silicon Valley used to have great restaurants, of all varieties, but now so many of the classics are gone and they're replaced with boring, cookie-cutter pap." Within that one of our laments was, "Where even would you tell someone, 'When you're in Silicon Valley you totally have to try X for Y.'" It used to be, for any cuisine Y, you could name at least two restaurants X, that served fantastic examples of it.
As we were debating different values of X and Y, we agreed when Y = burgers, X = Clarke's and Kirk's. Well, Clarke's in Mountain View closed up several years ago after decades in business. And Kirk's in Cupertino closed up probably over 20 years ago now.
"Oh, but there's still the Kirk's in Palo Alto," Hawk objected.
"Yes, though it moved several years ago," our neighbor Mike pointed out.
That got me looking at a map. And while the old Cupertino location closed years ago and Palo Alto's did move partway across town, there's a new Kirk's Steakburgers in Santa Clara. That's the one we visited today.
The Santa Clara Kirk's is in a small shopping center adjacent the SCU campus. It's in a weird location that I don't think many people would ever find by accident. I mean, either you find it via an app search, or you're an SCU student and you walk by it because it's across the street from one of the main dorms.
Because of that I figured it'd be a popular lunch spot for students when we swung by around 12:15pm on a weekday. The outdoor patio was nearly full... but not with students. The clientele at Kirk's were almost exclusively white men aged 50+. Probably because it's now a "Beer Bar", Hawk quipped.
We ordered inside and then found seats out on the patio where music that sounded like the Radio Top 30 from 1984 blasted over the loudspeakers. So apropos to the clientele!
The menu isn't too far off from what I remember at Kirk's Steakburgers back in the day. Though, honestly, that was 25+ years ago now! The basic Kirkburgers are there, along with several variations, plus a steak sandwich, a Philly, and a few other things. And there are also about a dozen beers on tap... though today I stuck with a Coke Zero since it's lunchtime.
Between us we ordered two burgers, one dish of onion rings, and one soda. The total came out to about $43. That definitely isn't like "back in the day"! (Frustratingly it's not even like 6 years ago.)
The food was hit-or-miss this visit. Both burgers delivered were what we ordered, including Hawk's with custom toppings, but while hers was cooked to a delicious looking medium mine was badly overcooked. I feel like that wouldn't have happened back in the day. Kirk's was a classic locally because their cooks cared about stuff like "Is the burger grilled properly?" I probably should have sent mine back and asked for it to be remade but I didn't care to wait.
We got the idea for going to Kirk's when we were chatting with a neighbor at the pool a few days ago. The topic was, "Silicon Valley used to have great restaurants, of all varieties, but now so many of the classics are gone and they're replaced with boring, cookie-cutter pap." Within that one of our laments was, "Where even would you tell someone, 'When you're in Silicon Valley you totally have to try X for Y.'" It used to be, for any cuisine Y, you could name at least two restaurants X, that served fantastic examples of it.
As we were debating different values of X and Y, we agreed when Y = burgers, X = Clarke's and Kirk's. Well, Clarke's in Mountain View closed up several years ago after decades in business. And Kirk's in Cupertino closed up probably over 20 years ago now.
"Oh, but there's still the Kirk's in Palo Alto," Hawk objected.
"Yes, though it moved several years ago," our neighbor Mike pointed out.
That got me looking at a map. And while the old Cupertino location closed years ago and Palo Alto's did move partway across town, there's a new Kirk's Steakburgers in Santa Clara. That's the one we visited today.
The Santa Clara Kirk's is in a small shopping center adjacent the SCU campus. It's in a weird location that I don't think many people would ever find by accident. I mean, either you find it via an app search, or you're an SCU student and you walk by it because it's across the street from one of the main dorms.
Because of that I figured it'd be a popular lunch spot for students when we swung by around 12:15pm on a weekday. The outdoor patio was nearly full... but not with students. The clientele at Kirk's were almost exclusively white men aged 50+. Probably because it's now a "Beer Bar", Hawk quipped.
We ordered inside and then found seats out on the patio where music that sounded like the Radio Top 30 from 1984 blasted over the loudspeakers. So apropos to the clientele!
The menu isn't too far off from what I remember at Kirk's Steakburgers back in the day. Though, honestly, that was 25+ years ago now! The basic Kirkburgers are there, along with several variations, plus a steak sandwich, a Philly, and a few other things. And there are also about a dozen beers on tap... though today I stuck with a Coke Zero since it's lunchtime.
Between us we ordered two burgers, one dish of onion rings, and one soda. The total came out to about $43. That definitely isn't like "back in the day"! (Frustratingly it's not even like 6 years ago.)
The food was hit-or-miss this visit. Both burgers delivered were what we ordered, including Hawk's with custom toppings, but while hers was cooked to a delicious looking medium mine was badly overcooked. I feel like that wouldn't have happened back in the day. Kirk's was a classic locally because their cooks cared about stuff like "Is the burger grilled properly?" I probably should have sent mine back and asked for it to be remade but I didn't care to wait.
