Bare Back Grill

My favorite place to come for a burger in PB, especially for a New Zealand style They have a ton of different burger options and they have the BEST fries in the world. Especially the sweet potato fries with maple sauce (YUM!) They have some interesting types of burgers that you can order and i love the additions they have (blue cheese, feta cheese, jalapeño bites, grilled onions, aioli, etc. The chili is also to die for! I order it as an appetizer every time. Beer flights are a great deal here as well, with amazing craft beer on draft. The ambiance is so cool here, very casual but a lot of things to look at. During specific holiday seasons, they decorate the dining area to look very festive. (Their christmas decorations are awesome! with upside down christmas trees hanging from the ceiling).
Definitely my burger stop, never a disappointment.

What a neat little place! Right on Mission Boulevard just a couple blocks from the beach. It’s nice and open with all wooden tables and a laid-​back feeling. When we went, the doors and windows were open, so we could feel the breeze from off the ocean coming in. There are a few TVs in there, and we were seated next to one showing some surfing clips. It’s small, but it feels more cozy than cramped.
Onto food. You can imagine my shock when they actually had options for little olé vegan me! Serious props for that. I had their bean burger and some fries, both of which were really good. My partner had the lamb burger, and he told me he thought it was absolutely fantastic, and better than any regular burger he’s ever had. All the food comes on nice looking wooden plates and platters.
The bathrooms were clean when we went. Only one per gender, but for the size, it was just fine. Service was good, and our waitress was friendly.
Parking, as per usual in PB, is a bit crowded. Luckily, if you can’t find street parking, there’s a lot across the way that charges about 3 bucks an hour. All in all, a wonderful little burger place with unique food, good options, and a relaxed atmosphere.

The first time I came here, I wasn’t really impressed. However, I came a second time and really enjoyed the food.
3 of us shared:
–sweet potato fries
–calamari
–hogs & heffers burger
–bare lil lamb burger
Both burgers were ordered medium and they came out well.
Everything was pretty delicious. However, service was a bit slow. Not horrible but slow. Also, they mistakenly placed our order or calamari in front of the people next to us. It took them 5 minutes to figure it out and give us the plate.

A long overdue, and pretty much too late, review for Bare Back. I have heard that they are closing up shop and moving, however. Which makes me a bit teary. Anyway, they still deserve a good review!
This is (was) one of my favorite bars downtown, for multiple reasons.
1. Kumara fries. Sweet potato fries sprinkled with blue cheese crumbles. A.Maze. (the burgers are great too)
2. Board games. In what other downtown bar have you played Yahtzee? Probably none is what I assume your answer will be.
3. Low key bar for the downtown area. No heels needed here, ladies.
4. $ 1 Bud Lights on Friday nights.
I should have written this much, much sooner. I know there is another location, but the one downtown was my favorite. I’ll miss you on 6^th and E, Bare Back!

Been here a few times. There’s one in PB too. It’s located pretty close to gaslamp so it’s a great place to start at the beginning of the night. Maybe grab a bite to eat.
I have had their burgers here before and I liked it a lot here but I didn’t really like the one in PB for some reason. Anyways, you walk in and it’s pretty much seat yourself kind of deal. There’s a lot of open tables and is great for big groups (there’s 2 big tables in the back-​we did a bar hopping for halloween one year). They have jenga and other games you can play. Service is a little slow but understandable bc it’s kind of hectic in there. A lotta people standing around and talking or going up to the bar instead of ordering at the table.
The waitresses and bartenders were always nice. They also have a spin game at the bar where you spin the wheel ($ 5) and you get whatever shot or drink you land on. It’s pretty fun to watch.
I probably wouldn’t come back specifically for food but it’s definitely a great place to start at before a long night!

Bareback Grill
SD: Gaslamp
9pm Tuesday 13 November 2012
Four Stars
New Zealand style restaurant and bar. We enjoyed some cocktails and some steinlager. Not a bad way to spend a night. It was surprisingly quiet.

Found this burger joint after watching the Travel Channel. Since I was hungry after a long flight I took advantage of the bare back burger special for $ 11, e.g. burger, fries, and beer.
The burger was tender as its made up of 100% Organic Beef, grounded fresh on site, along with local veggies. The fries were amazing as well! Thick and crispy seasoned just right. I probably finished my meal easily in five minutes!
Service was excellent as the bartender frequently checked on me, e.g. quality of food, beer refill.
Also, when presented with your receipt be sure to read it carefully! No, not for the price but for the «Surfing Rules»! My surfing rules stated:
No 456 — Don’t be afraid to mute the webcast
No 198 — Arms below should-​height at all times

I came here during happy hour with my friend and had a great time here. Our waitress was really nice! We ordered a couple of the meso tasty sliders and fries to start with. I liked the variety of dipping sauces that came with the fries even though I still preferred the ketchup one the most. She gave us the regular fries, instead of the hh fries– which comes with wings! So we had way too much potatoes and she let us keep the wrong order of fries since it would just be waste… Our bill ended up just being $ 5 and we were so full. Btw, you can make any burger a slider! :)

Happy hour only:
Drinking on a Tuesday night, yes please! (and no to the hang over the next day!) I came here for a meetup group thing and they had $ 2 beer deals. Their happy hour food menu is all day all for $ 5! I got their burger special. It wasn’t big or small, perfect size. The burger was alright. I thought it needed more flavor like some kind of special sauce or spice. Other than that, great happy hour selections!

An update is in order.
classic, ordered wrong item, ordered wrong preparation. bare back actually has some really tasty burgers loaded with delicious components.
**If you order your burger ‘medium’ traditionally, i suggest ordering it ‘medium rare’ here. they tend to cook on the more well-​done side. medium rare yielded the perfect balance of cooked and pink, keeps the flavor and moistness in tact. quite delicous once my beef wasnt overcooked.
***if you get a burger with egg on it, they prepare it over hard. if you want it oozy, gotta specify. it would be nice if that was pointed out on the menu or by the server.
Ive now had the hogs and heffers (burger with avocado, bacon, and pepper jack cheese (substitution) on their house focaccia bun and i really like it! these burgers are VERY sharable and i was perfectly content /​bordering full with only a ½. If you say you are sharing they will divide on put on separate plates :) that, plus a side of fries or whatever for 2 is perfection.
ive also had their app sampler with calamari, fries and onion rings which is HUGE and good for 4 – 5 people along with a meal. you can sub regular fries for the sweet potato with blue cheese crumbles at no charge. good stuff!
Thursday is a very popular time to visit as its 2 for 1 drinks and select food items. I like places with «drink games» and bare back gets into the spirit of it with their $ 5 drinko (get a ball and either 1, 2, or 3 select drinks from it) and their $ 4 spin the wheel for a drink. I also see a small basketball hoop in the corner… perhaps thats a drinking game too? Or just a regular one along with the lovely shuffleboard.
oh and i really enjoyed their house amber beer! tasty.

A craving for a burger and a LivingSocial deal led us to Bare Back Grill mid-​week. It was a beautiful day so we chose to sit outside in their patio. Although their outside patio is puppy friendly, it’s unfortunately smoker friendly too. I also don’t particularly like the height of the bar table facing outwards. It’s at the height of most passerbys mouths, and given it’s downtown, we got our fair share of homeless people walking by coughing or sneezing. :-/
I had the Bare Lil Lamb (prime New Zealand lamb burger, blue cheese, mint jelly, beet, red onion, lettuce & tomato). It was a tasty little burger and all of the ingredients complimented each other well! The BF went with the Wake &Bake (tempura fried talapia, spicy coleslaw, bacon,& tarragon mayo sandwich). He thought it was just okay. He was jealous of my burger!
We ordered a few drinks. The bartender failed to make a good French 75 and could barely make a Cosmo. I recommend avoiding cocktails and stick to the beer.
Service is very casual. It’s the kind of place where you need to get the attention of a waitress or order at the bar.
My burger was tasty, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling them the best burger in SD (their claim).

If I would have reviewed this a month or so ago DRINKO would have still been $ 4. As of last week it was $ 5. Even with the price increase, still a deal.
A few friends and I committed to each other one afternoon to not order a single drink from the bar. Only ping pong balls. The result was an epic success and I think i was speaking like this by days end. «duuuzzz NeBUDDDDy wannuh pLAY moooorE dRINko?»
Here is how it works. $ 4 errrrr, I mean $ 5 a ball. Thrown it up about 15 feet into the DRINKO ball feeder and wait for the booze gods to smile upon you. Your choices will be Fireball shots, beer of the month or bartender’s choice.
You will either win 1, 2 or 3 drinks from a single ping pong ball. Our most successful group throw to date was as follows.
6 balls thrown, 3 drinks, 3 drinks, 2 drinks, 3 drinks, 1 drink, 2 drinks. 14 drinks total for $ 24 at the time. This will now cost you a whopping $ 30.
Oh yeah, the burgers are really good too and I hear they sprinkle sugar on their fries. Don’t know if this is true but they sure are tasty!

I was skeptical when a friend convinced me to purchase a $ 10-​for-​$ 20-​worth-​of-​food LivingSocial deal for the «Unprotected Sex Grill». I figured that whatever they were serving better be delicious enough to justify the possibility of catching an STD. Or perhaps heartburn.
Anyway, the two of us wanted burgers, since this place is a vaguely New Zealand-​inspired burger joint. It took no time at all for us to be seated and have the server take our orders. We decided to split the «Big, Bare, and Dirty» burger.
As for the burger: truth is, I wasn’t especially stoked about it. The server never asked us how we liked it prepared at the time of our order, but we were thankful that she told us (later on) that it would be prepared medium. The problem was that it wasn’t medium at all. It wasn’t even medium well. It was far past well-​done, bordering on charcoal briquette territory. The menu said that the burger comes with egg on top, and I was hoping for a runny egg to provide some juice to the burger. Unfortunately, the egg had the consistency of an overcooked omelet and wasn’t appealing. On the flip side, the tomato aioli on top added a nice and unique dash of flavor to the burger — oodles better than ketchup.
I don’t know — maybe I just ordered wrong. Maybe I don’t know the first thing about how New Zealanders like their burgers. What I do know is that I won’t be ordering the Big, Bare, and Dirty next time.
We also shared a plate of Kumara fries, which are just sweet potato fries with blue cheese crumbles. These were excellent — crispy and flavorful. They didn’t skimp on the blue cheese either, which I appreciated. All of the dipping sauces were tasty.
(Side note: while Bare Back Grill seems to discourage condom use, it’s quite excellent at promoting liberal *condiment* use.)
I’m still on the fence about this place. Lots of options that sound delicious, but it seems like the execution needs work. All in all, our dinner was average all around.

Bare Back is awesome! Not only can you drink your life away for cheap, you can get a decent meal out of it too. I came in for lunch one day and let me just say, the lunch vibe is wayyyyy different than the nighttime vibe. It was mellow and not really crowded at all… pretty much just like any other restaurant. Since I didn’t have any drinks in me whatsoever, I was able to appreciate the décor they got going on in here. My faves were hanging in the bathroom… which is really nice btw. You can be entertained in there for quite a while with all the stuff they’ve got on their walls.
Anyway, onto the food! I ordered the Maui Waui burger which had organic beef in it (like all their burgers do). It was pretty much a Hawaiian burger with pineapples and teriyaki drizzle on it. It was good, I liked the juicy meat and the overall taste. I’m not gonna say it’s the best burger ever, but I did enjoy it. The Kumara fries are addicting. I couldn’t stop eating those. They’re sweet potato fries with sea salt and bleu cheese crumbles. I’m a huge fan of bleu cheese though so if you don’t mind it then you’ll probably like these too. The taste of the bleu cheese mixed with the sea salt was delicious.
I’m glad DT has a place like Bare Back. I feel like some of the best places are nestled just outside 4^th and 5^th and Bare Back is one of them. I’ve still got to come back to play Giant Jenga. I attempted to play sober when I came in for lunch, but I didn’t want to make a huge mess when the tower crumbled. I know if I came in when I’ve been drinking, it’d be a whole ‘nother story.

I was already drunk when I happened (stumbled?) upon Bare Back Grill, but they have SHUFFLEBOARD! How cool is that? They also have a number of historical cocktails on their menu and a mid-​sized selection of draft beers.
I had the Moscow Mule, which was an experience to say the least.
I’m sure the bartender wanted to kill us while I was ordering fancy drinks at 1:29 am, but she was great.

PLAY DRINKO!
Don’t believe me? 3 fireball shots and 4 Sculpin IPA’s cost my friends and I a whopping $ 12.
Nuff said.

During the past year I’ve gone from being an almost hater to a lover of the Bare Back Grill in Pacific Beach. In fact, these days Bare Back Grill cooks the best burger in San Diego, in my opinion. «Bout time I headed to Bare Back’s downtown location. Stopped by last month for a quick bite to eat before running an errand.
We received here what I’ve come to expect at the PB Bare Back location: juicy, very well cooked (medium-​rare), high-​quality burgers prepared with tons of love. The sweet potato fries were also killer.
And great live music! I wish I’d gotten the name of the solo guy that had been performing that night. Great chill renditions of songs ranging from «Clocks» to «Major Tom.»
And board games! My guy and I didn’t have time to play any games but noticed several scattered around for patrons to use. Especially fun is the giant Jenga game near the front of the place.
Very, very cool employees. How could they possibly be any cooler?! I’ll tell you how: recently the owner came to my boyfriend’s place of work and gave him a stack – yes, a stack – of free burger coupons to keep and give away. Score!

I had been here for one of the taste events, and wanted to check out their burgers since I’ve heard they have won awards in the past.
Pretty cool atmosphere with outdoor bar seating and indoor booths and high chairs/​tables. You can play all sorts of games and such. The staff is really friendly here and we were greeted as we entered.
It just so happened that Mon nights, BB features free beer tastings from local brewers. On this night, «Four Friends Brewing» was featured and offered 4 tastings of their home brewed beer: Porter, Hef, Nut Brown and Beach Ban IPA. Cool dudes and wish them success in their venture. I liked the Porter the best as it had a hint of chocolate in the beer. YUM!!!
I ordered the Hogs & Heffers ($ 11), which came with bacon, avo and Edam cheese. I don’t care for bacon on my burgers, but the burger didn’t have much bacon to begin with. Very little avo, and I didn’t care for the Edam cheese. It was explained to us that Edam cheese tasted in between a mozz and Swiss. The cheese was actually sweet to taste. The burger kept falling apart on me, and I got frustrated.
We ordered a side of fries (shoestring). The fries came with 3 condiments: ketchup, wasabi and a spicy red chili sauce. I decided to stick with the ketchup.
Would be cool to grab a group of friends to hit the bar area, but for the food, I’d defer…

More like Bare Lee Ok.
Sorry, but there are more clueless workers here than at McDonalds or at Arby’s. And Arby’s is actually pretty good. The bartender is a trained seal… and all he knows is how to greet people when they walk in and offer them any seat at the bar or at the tables…(he still even offered people seats at the bar despite the fact that all the seats were taken, and people were standing). And that’s it, that is all he knows. I needed to remind him on my water and the credit card that was there waiting to be processed for over 10 minutes!!!
The waitress ain’t the brightest either…
Waitress: Are you done with that?
Me: Yes, I’m done, thanks.
Waitress: Are you done with that?
Me: Uhhhh… yes I’m done… uhhhh, thanks?
Waitress: Are you done with that?
Me: YES. I’m fucking done… well that’s what I wanted to say, but most likely I said… Yes… I…am…done…please…take…this…plate…ah…way.
Anyhoo, on to the neutrals of today’s episode at the Bare Back.
I ordered the Kal Maori… THEN…then the Kiwilango. Do you know what word is emphasized here… yes it’s THEN. And not together or at the same time. Tip: I guess a starter/​appetizer here means at the same then… right?
So yah, I got my Kal Maori (calamari) and my Kiwilango (burger) at the same time. No biggie right? Well the calamari was ginormous, and I had to sacrifice a majority of it to prevent my burger from getting cold. Thank you… Mr. Bartender for your lack-​of-​attention-​to-​detail skills. But hey… at least you still know how to greet people within point 5 seconds as they enter the bar. You’re awesome, you’re special!!!
Kal Maori — pretty big plate full of calamari, but only 1 ounce of cocktail sauce. Do you really expect that 1 oz will suffice? Something to think about.
The Kiwilango — I like spicy foods, and this one does have an umfp to it. Not bad. But for a $ 11 burger, they could have at least thrown in some fries as well.
Had a couple of drinks, Pacifica and some Jack and diet coke. Note: Those
coupons don’t apply to happy hour prices. Though I did read the fine print on it and nothing is said about happy hour restrictions. So the bartender made sure to charge it full price. This guy can be trained beyond just the meet-​and-​greet. Wow… you’re cool.
Smoking is allowed at the patio and outside bar areas. But it’s kinda a moot point whether you sit inside or outside since the smoke gets in at all directions. You may want to think about sitting towards the back if you don’t like the smell of smoke.
And now to the positives…
For dessert, I went with the Bare-​ly legal, a baked oatmeal cookie dough with cinnamon ice cream. Very good…
MNF Bingo night. This is a pretty cool concept. Watching some MNF and playing bingo. Certain plays, touchdowns, penalties, etc occur and just match that with your bingo box. If you get Bingo, you get something for free… t-​shirts, free drinks, $ 5 off the bill, etc. Neat concept. It’s also, IMO, a pretty good strategy to keep you in longer than you originally planned. If you get started, it’s pretty hard not to finish it… its that fun.
Anyways, I might come back, but for happy hour only, daily from 3−7pm. Pretty good music, nice decoration, plenty of tv’s. The food is not the greatest and the service is sub-​par, but HH prices are decent and MNF bingo night is a cool deal.

Our hero is perplexed at how the downtown Bare Back Grill is rated lower and has less reviews than the PB location when it is twice the bar in his mind. Some key differences are:
— More New Zealand décor to differentiate it from being yet another beach themed bar
— They have Jenga, shuffleboard, and some other games to play
— They have not one, but two random «drink roulette» wheels to play
— Servers are faster and friendlier
— Twice as spacious
— Less bros and PBDB’s
Also, they make a pretty kick ass 100% organic burger. Toasted wheat buns, meat cooked to our hero’s choice, and fresh toppings makes this a really top notch meal. The coleslaw it comes with isn’t bad either because it’s very light on the mayo and has an interesting blend of spices that gives it a little kick.
Take our hero’s advice: throw all caution to the wind in your lust for meat and go Bare Back to the land down under! (downtown, not PB)
PROS:
— They really cook a medium rare burger to just the right internal temperature.
— Beers from «down under» available.
— Pretty spacious bar with plenty of seating.
— Probably one of the only kiwi bars in San Diego.
— You get a certificate for a free burger just for signing up for their mailing list online.
CONS:
— Tough to find parking close by aside from Horton Plaza.
— Burgers here are pretty pricey at $ 10 and up for just the burger and a small side of coleslaw.