Nobody\u2019s quoting anybody on this, but it looks like the common hamburger \u2014 as American as an annual rent hike \u2014 has a rather romantic history, traceable to the European immigration boom of the late 1870s. Many of the settlers made their way here via Germany\u2019s Hamburg shipping lines (get it?), whereon meat patties between two rolls were the order of the day. You didn\u2019t get any fries with that. In fact, sometimes you were lucky if the line had money for the bread.
\nBut in less than a century, tradition won out. The hamburger is now a poor man\u2019s piece de resistance, chopped, channeled, dressed and re-dressed beyond recognition. Even so, the taste is indelibly imprinted on the American palate. A San Diego restaurant understands what that means \u2014 add a little time, hard work and an exceedingly jovial thirtysomething crowd, and the place has become a tradition in and of itself.
\nTotally give it up for Rocky\u2019s Crown Pub. Now in its 40th year as a Pacific Beach institution, at once a bar and neighborhood clubhouse to the locals who heaved a sigh of relief from its freshly minted doors when the 1977 San Diego Chargers broke a string of seven consecutive losing seasons (they finished 7-7). The Harry\u2019s Coffee Shop of burger joints, its icon status sealed eons before those of the city\u2019s Petco Parks, Potiker Theatres and Horton Plazas. Four decades is a long time not to perfect your specialty \u2014 ownership took it from there, refining its fare into one of the finest such entrees San Diego has ever come to know. One glance at the menu shows these folks\u2019 singleminded faith in the product on which they\u2019ve built a livelihood. No soup, no salad, not even a crepe Suzette in sight. You get only hamburgers, cheeseburgers (one-third and one-half pound) and fries for your trouble, with the appropriate lunch special and an extensive list of ales and pilsners to wash it all down. I got the half-pound cheese, owing to the fact that hunger pangs were tearing me apart. Out of question, this thing is a virtual filet mignon under wraps, with a freshness and edibility rivaling those at Rocky\u2019s\u2019 fine-dining cousins. I found myself pretending accordingly \u2014 instead of beer, I decided to pair my delicacy with a cute house Pinot (red meat with red wine, like at the fancy places). I\u2019m also a well-done sorta guy, but I resist special ordering for reviews like these so I can see how the eatery fares by default. This burger looked to be medium rare, and it held up beautifully, just as in those grand and glorious days almost beyond recall.
\nConversely, Tim Tusa is one who remembers. He\u2019s lived in PB for 25 years, frequenting Rocky\u2019s alongside stints as an area Realtor and Little League baseball coach. A quarter-century is a pretty good chunk of time compared with 40 years \u2014 surely, Rocky\u2019s has succumbed to the rigors of progress in some respects, especially in a postmodern environment like San Diego\u2019s. Not a chance, at least not beyond the eight TVs that scream Sunday\u2019s clarion call to football. \u00ab\u00a0Delightfully,\u00a0\u00bb Tusa said, \u00ab\u00a0very little has changed. About the only things they\u2019ve done is move the pool table out (to make way for eating space) and change the way they refill the ketchup bottles. They have a tried-and-true method of basically . . . making the best hamburger and cheeseburger in town, and they know it. It\u2019s nice when something hasn\u2019t changed.
\n\u00ab\u00a0They\u2019re famous for a reason. If it\u2019s not broken, don\u2019t try to fix it.\u00a0\u00bb
\nFor better or worse, we don\u2019t have the Chargers to kick around anymore, and a spit-shined urban parklet has breathed a certain new life into Horton Plaza, itself a spry 32 years old. Indeed, institutions come and institutions go \u2014 but amid it all, you still have to eat. Rocky\u2019s, God bless it, has become at once a restaurant and a state of mind, its terrific food and ambience reflecting its colossal neighborhood appeal. You really must go, whatever the year. Rocky\u2019s Crown Pub
\nWhere: 3786 Ingraham St.
\nHours: 11 a.m. to midnight daily, except Christmas and the Fourth of July; kitchen closes at 10 p.m.
\nInfo: rockyburgers.com, 858-273-9140<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nobody\u2019s quoting anybody on this, but it looks like the common hamburger \u2014 as American as an annual rent hike \u2014 has a rather romantic history, traceable to the European immigration boom of the late 1870s. Many of the settlers made their way here via Germany\u2019s Hamburg shipping lines (get it?), whereon meat patties between […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":269643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Rocky\u2019s celebrates 40 years of serving the same great burger","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}