Riders Club Cafe — Restaurant in San Clemente

I have been hearing about Riders Club for years and decided it was time to try it myself. A group of 4 of us went on a Friday night and arrived around 8:00. The parking lot is small, but we were able to find a spot. There was a line out the door, which is understandable considering how small the place is.

The burgers on the grill looked and smelled great. The meat was bright red with decent fat content judging by the white color. No frozen patties here, as one would expect.

I ordered a burger cooked medium with cheddar, bacon, grilled onions, and avocado, and kettle chips and beets on the side. The food took about 20 minutes to come out. We expected a bit of a wait when we saw the line though.

The food arrived hot (except for the beets, of course) and looking delicious. Portions are generous without being ridiculous. I was a bit disconcerted to see my burger cooked much closer to medium-rare than medium. No matter though, because the meat was high quality and tasty.

The bacon was the best part! It was crispy without being hard and the flavor was great. I would skip the grilled onions next time. They made the burger too sweet, which isn't normally the case when I order grilled onions. Must be the onions they use.

I am not a fan of ketchup, but the house-made stuff is pretty tasty. The beer selection was very good too.

Overall, the burger was good, just a bit pricey. I won't be in a hurry to come back, but I'd...

Hands down the best cheese burger I have had and lets be honest, I have had a lot of chesse burgers in my time! Went here for lunch today, small mom and pop burger joint. They only have a few items on the menu and I love that. Why? Becuse that means they can put all the love and attention into those items which you can taste at the table. I ordered the beef patty ground in house. $8.95 comes with lettuce which is actually a spring mix and raw or grilled onions. I got grilled of course. But if you're not in the mood for beef you can choose from a house made veggie patty, chicken or portobello mushroom cap. Then you pick your cheese for $1.00 each, I opted for goat cheese but you can choose from blue, swiss, cheddar, havarti or Munster. For $1.25 each you can add bacon, fried egg, avocado or grilled green chilies. I got the grilled chilies. They also do dogs but only 2 kinds, again love that. The house dog comes with house made relish and mustard. Exactly how a hot dog should be, no ketchup. However they do have house made ketchup and its by far better than anything I've ever had out of a factory bottle. The other dog is a chili dog, again house made chili, cheddar cheese and red onion. Everything comes with chips, no not bags here. House made not to thin not to thick perfectly salted perfectly crispy potato chips. 5 out of 5, A+ so go! Laugh, live and...

I stopped by the other day to show my boyfriend where I had once helped get the place going, creating and cooking, prepping and promoting the what was once a pretty good burger joint. To my massive disappointment that turned into disgust, I was served an under cooked veggie burger. I also had to get up to ask for condiments to help the hardened old fries out... this was after being told they were out of the portobello burger, of which we were given sliced up (what looked like buttons or baby bellas) shrooms... these were not burgers of any kind. Some advice from a friendly, former employee of yours... maybe remember that end of the night service should be as good as the first order in. Especially on a chilly night, with nobody else to cook for but 2 vegetarians who are pretty easy to please. A non-patty of veggie slop (that's not sauce in the pic btw, that's raw egg) and some slices of leftover or canned mushrooms thrown on a bun posing as a burger... fries were hideously hard and cold... that combined with slouchy staff who mirror the food they cooked equal total disappointment and a sign this place has gone downhill. It's too bad, I wanted to write a positive review, I truly did... guess Rider's Club will always be somewhere that I used to know, but won't be referring people...