The Biz Beat: San Jose’s Sixth Street Burger is a smash 

Abram Chandler’s path from plumbing contractor to co-owner of Sixth Street Burger in San Jose was circuitous, but in some ways it was a short one: The restaurant sits just two blocks from his childhood home at Sixth and St. James streets.

“I went to Horace Mann Elementary,” he told San José Spotlight. “I used to push shopping carts back to Lucky’s for the 25-cent deposit. I used to go to the Taco Bell that was here before City Hall was built.”

Chandler had no prior experience in the restaurant business, but growing up, his family loved to eat, and he soon learned to handle himself at backyard barbecues. When the location opened at the corner of Sixth and East Santa Clara streets last year, he decided his old stomping ground needed a new restaurant.

He originally thought of opening a deli until he discovered how labor-intensive making pastrami is. Seeing the success of famous burger chains, he switched gears to the current menu. He and his partners, including chef Ivan Plata, developed the burger by testing it out in the kitchen of local eateries like Rookies, cooking it up and handing out samples at the bar.

“There’s not much to a burger,” Chandler said. “We knew we wanted quality. What we learned was that there was a lot of room for improvement — room for better cheese, better meat and better buns.”

The eventual formulation took about three months to develop, but sticks to basics: 80/20 Wagyu beef for its rich marbling, three New School American cheeses (cheddar, jalapeño jack and Swiss), potato buns from iconic Philadelphia bakery Martins and just a bit of salt and pepper for seasoning.

And making them “smashburgers” was key from day one. The standard Sixth Street Burger patty is LP-record thin, with crispy edges that extend half an inch or so beyond the bun.

There are the expected variations: single, double and triple burgers; mushroom with Swiss; grilled jalapeño; chili-cheese; and western with bacon and onion rings. Then there’s one out of left field: the totally unexpected peanut butter Wagyu.

“My wife and I are big, big Thai food fans,” Chandler said. “You think of chicken satay, right? The chicken and the peanut butter sauce. We decided to throw some on a burger. It’s constantly hot, ready to go and it’s a good one.”

Beef tallow is one of the not-so-secret ingredients in the distinctive taste of many of the items coming from the kitchen, used in everything from the thick-sliced baloney for sandwiches to the deep-fried Brussels sprouts doused in house sauce and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.

Aiden Calvey, who works around the block from Sixth Street Burger, has become a devoted customer. He always orders the triple burger sans fries — filling enough, he said, for a substantial lunch — and calls it “out of this world.”

“It’s meaty, salty, cheesy in the perfect amounts for a burger,” Calvey told San José Spotlight. “More meat than bread, which I love. Not just bread and veggies, like some places. All I need is that burger, and I am happily dancing my way out of here.”

For those up for even more meat than the triple, they can test their appetite and bravery with the Royal Burger, a hefty eight-patty, two-pound behemoth.

Naturally, there is a challenge linked to this burger. If you can wolf it down in five minutes, along with an order of fries, you get $100 plus a Sixth Street Burger t-shirt and hat. Do it in eight minutes and you still get a hat and t-shirt.

There are rules, of course. You can’t pick the burger apart, an old speed-eating technique. When you finish the burger, your mouth has to be empty, and you have to wait five minutes before getting up. And the food comes straight off the grill: no cooling-off time.

About 25 people have tried it and only one has succeeded in four minutes flat, according to Chandler. Being so close to San Jose State University, he said, makes it a tempting target for students who don’t realize the challenge is, well, challenging.

“It gives a reason for the kids to come in,” he said. “We had three friends try it together, but they had no shot. The one guy who did it was pretty impressive, but they’ll come in and say, ‘Oh, this is easy.’ But it’s not so easy.”

The must-try on the menu is the Smashburger Taco: three patties, totaling one-third of a pound, are smashed onto a flour tortilla, flipped over and dropped onto the grill. The meat juices are absorbed by the tortilla as it cooks.

When the burgers are done, they are folded into a tortilla and filled with shredded lettuce, jalapeño cheese and onion. The dish comes with Sixth Street Burger’s version of San Jose’s famed orange sauce and a whole grilled jalapeño.

While the goal was always to deliver great food, Chandler also focused on almost indulgent customer service as one of the restaurant’s hallmarks.

“We are really big on interacting with customers,” he told San José Spotlight. “Making them feel like they’re at home. Whatever you need, we take care of that. Just seeing smiles on people’s faces helps me get through my day. It’s really the only thing I’m looking for.”

Contact Robert Eliason at [email protected].

Editor’s Note: The Biz Beat is a series highlighting local small businesses and restaurants in Silicon Valley. Know a business you’d like to see featured? Let us know at [email protected].