Home of the $29 burger

*burger not pictured*

Would you pay $29 for a burger?

I know prices are skyrocketing and I live in one of the most expensive places but…

…$29 for a burger?

Okay, I’ll admit it was Wagyu beef at a fancy pants restaurant in Tiburon but $29?

I know they mark everything up at least 50% in Tiburon because people are so rich they don’t care but we’ve crossed into new territory (Tiburon is the first town that I know of to install license plate cameras so they track EVERY car that comes and goes).

We used to joke as burgers crossed the $15 mark that we’d soon be paying $20 for a burger.

We jumped right past $20 into the $30 range with no turning back.

Most of the time burgers are at least a half pound but this one was a quarter pounder WITHOUT cheese.

It was okay but was it worth $29?

Lunch for two of us was $85 plus tip.

I know we were paying for the specular view of San Francisco Bay but a few years ago we could take our family of four out for dinner for $85.

What makes a quarter-pound burger without cheese worth $29?

Sure, it’s premium beef with a spectacular view but it wasn’t enough to entice us to come back again.

The service was okay. Adequate but not spectacular enough to make us rave about it.

Two doors down, Michael Minna opened Bungalow Kitchen which is receiving rave reviews.

Initially, we made brunch reservations at Bungalow Kitchen, but we decided against paying $49 plus drinks for the prix fixe menu. We’d be looking at close to $200 for brunch.

We love going to brunch, but we couldn’t justify paying a small fortune for a set menu of foods we never heard of.

Don’t get me wrong.

I grew up in a restaurant and I love good food, but I can’t wrap my head around these prices.

My daughter Alicia tells us we need to change our thinking. We’re still thinking in terms of prices from the 2000s and she said this is the going rate.