Is This San Francisco's Best Burger?

The Daily Meal recently published our 101 Best Burgers in America for 2014, and in order to compile our ranking, we assembled a list of nearly 200 burgers from all across the country, from Spruce Pine, North Carolina to Hillsboro, Oregon. We then divided these burgers by region, and compiled a survey that was taken by a panel of 50 noted food writers, journalists, bloggers, and culinary authorities from across the country, asking them to vote for their favorites; limited, of course, to the ones that they'd tried. We tallied the results, and published the 101 stellar American burgers with the most votes.

Back in 2011, popular California hamburger stand Taylor's Automatic Refresher renamed its three locations (Napa, St. Helena, and San Francisco's Ferry Building) because owners and brothers Joel and Duncan Gott didn't own rights to the name, and couldn't persuade its owners to let them trademark it.

It may have been jarring to see the name change and the neon-lit red G, but what didn't change when they adopted the family nam,e Gott's Roadside Tray Gourmet, were the storied grilled one third-pound Niman Ranch burgers. Cooked medium-well and served "a little pink inside," they're topped with American cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and secret sauce on a toasted egg bun. Gott's cheeseburger then gets pressed lightly in a machine at the end of the line (employees say this steams the bun, but it still leaves the underside toasted-crunchy). The effect is thick and juicy, and it produces an icon.

Gott's Roadside's cheeseburger  came in at #21 on our list, beating out the hamburger at Zuni Café (#23), the Best Damn Grass Fed Cheeseburger at 4505 Burgers & Barbecue (#61), and RickyBobby's Beef and Bacon Burger (#100) for the for the highest-scoring burger from San Francisco on our list.

Kate Kolenda is the Restaurant and City Guide Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @BeefWerky and @theconversant.