Opened as Taylor’s Refresher in St. Helena in 1949, the restaurant was bought from the Taylor family by the Gott brothers and the named was changed to Gott’s Roadside a few years back.  We stopped for a late lunch on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the original location in St. Helena.  At 2:00, there were about forty folks in line for this walk-up restaurant.  While the menu was pretty fancy for a burger joint, it was not overly broad.

I had read in the Hamburger America book that the Espresso Bean milkshake was not to be missed.  Not being a big coffee fan, I wasn’t sure what the big deal would be, but as I live with a coffee fan, while Jo waited and held our place in the food order line, I went to the bar and ordered an Espresso Bean shake for her.  She said it was a winner (more about that later).

On to the burgers: Jo went with a turkey burger (still on a beef-high from the visit to Joe’s the day before).  I chose a cheeseburger.  Yep, a cheeseburger.  I know that’s hard for y’all to believe. Nonetheless, 20 minutes later they called our number and my burger arrived:

All burgers are Niman ranch beef and ground fresh daily.  This one was expertly prepared, with the cheddar melted ever so slightly.  Really tasty – I ate every bite.

On Monday, after lunch in San Francisco I asked Jo if she wanted to split a dessert and she said, “you know, what I’d really like is another one of those Espresso Bean milkshakes….”

Conveniently, there was a Gott’s Roadside outpost about 5 miles from our hotel back in Napa.  This one had inside seating, which was critical as it had started to rain one of those niggling Seattle-type drizzles just as we were leaving SF.

When we got to Gott’s (ha!) I decided I ought to sample a shake, too.  Being a man of simple tastes I chose strawberry.  And, since we hadn’t had anything to eat in over ninety minutes, I sampled their daily special – a tomato and mozzarella sandwich.

Essentially, a caprese on bread. Really nice. and since the sign told me to E A T, I felt that I was just doing my job….