Some notes about dining with us.....
Please allow at least 90 minutes to dine with us. We are a small team working in a small space and we prepare all of our dishes to order. We are excited to share our food, wine, and experience with you! Our menu changes daily and is updated here on our website on the 'Menus' tab. We cannot accommodate Vegan diets.
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We don't have a parking lot but there is ample street parking nearby. Please make sure to remove valuables from your vehicle, we are happy to stow luggage during your meal! We are also nearby MacArthur BART station.
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Reservations are only available via OpenTable. Please click the Reservations tab (above) to book. We do not take reservations via phone, email or accept reservations outside of our operating hours. When booking a reservation through OpenTable, a High Top is in the bar area, Standard is in the dining room. If you don't see your desired time or party size available, please select 'Notify Me' or select a different date. We cannot guarantee that different parties will be combined into one party or seated next to each other. For parties 7-9, we require participation in our Family Dinner. For Larger parties (10+), please fill out the Private Events Booking form (linked below)-this is only for private events and large parties. We, like many restaurants, charge a small fee for late cancellations and no shows. This fee covers a small portion of the product we brought in anticipation of your arrival at the restaurant. We hold physical space for you when you book with us, we only have 40 seats!
For special prepaid events, tickets are transferrable but are not refundable.
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Since the day we opened (and as a pop-up in 2022), we have employed a 20% service charge, which is added to all checks. This is instead of traditional tipping and this helps us make sure everyone on our team is paid fairly and consistently-from the folks you see on the floor to the ones working hard behind the scenes. This model also allows us to cover up to 50% of healthcare costs for all full-time employees, which is something we really care about. We feel strongly that this is the most empathetic and professional way to pay our teams. Because it’s a service charge (which is considered part of sales in the State of California) and not a tip (or gratuity), it is subject to sales tax and yep, we pay taxes on it too. To avoid confusion, we don't have tip line for this reason, but all written in tips or cash goes directly to the people who served you. There's more to unpack here regarding the origins of tipping, but we'll keep it short and sweet.
We humbly ask that our guests are present in the moment with us, so we ask that you keep your phone stowed and off the table while dining with us. This allows us to move dishes and drinks around your table without the fear of damaging your device. Also so we can dialogue with you and your guests!​
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Our corkage policy is as such: $40 per each 750ml for wines that do not appear on our list. Max 3 bottles. We have deep cellar of wines from around the World.
...about our food
What is Soul Food?
I think it's important for us to define it for ourselves, because we are different than a lot of Soul Food places in style and execution. Being different, non-conventional (and a bit quirky) is what makes us, us. I grew up eating my Grandmothers' cooking, as I got older I cooked with them and my Grandfather and my parents and had a lot of meals out at restaurants that cooked food from around the world, then I traveled a bunch, cooked European food and ate Pho Ga, Dinuguan, and Birria on days off. All of this feeds into the food we cook at Burdell. The daily meals from my grandparents' tables were centered around vegetables; in-season tomatoes and melons, sweet corn are the memories I have of dining with my elders. Soul Food for me is tied to sourcing..... We work diligently to source the best possible ingredients, and not just as a figure of speech, but in real life we are going to 3-4 farmer's markets a week, having long conversations with our farmer's, ranchers, fishermen, purveyors about getting unique, exceptional, and peak season products to serve on our menu, which changes nearly daily. We use these ingredients everywhere on on menu including in our beverage program. Most of our produce is grown by people we know, organically, nearby the restaurant. Because of this you may not see the dishes you would associate with restaurants in our 'category' but frankly, we don't want to be categorized. We look at Soul Food as a cuisine, that is at is core healthful, resourceful, and clever, not just a regurgitation of a few dishes. We cook from our Soul. We hope you'll join us at our table honoring this rich, nostalgic tradition.
-Geoff