[Photographs: David Kover]

Citizen's Band pitches itself as a "fine diner." You know the drill: comfort food with an upscale sensibility. Their menu of classics—shrimp and grits, fried chicken on a biscuit, etc.—takes pains to name and sometimes name-drop every ingredient in a dish, including all sorts of things that get made in-house or in their attached sister operation, Pinkie's Bakery.

But whether or not a place spoons Straus yogurt over its granola, the ultimate test of a diner's grub-slinging capabilities may come in its ability to create a tasty meal out of ground beef and a bun. At Citizen's Band, I'm happy to say, their hamburger is very fine indeed.

The folks at Citizen's Band form their mid-weight hamburger patties out of all natural Double "G" angus beef. If I'd describe the approach of the fellow working the grill as more ballpark than spot-on with the cooking, he left some pink at the center of every one of our patties, and no one complained once they'd taken a bite. The nicely salted meat made for a properly beefy hamburger.

A healthy layer of garlic aioli gives this burger a boost of grease and flavor, but it's the pitch-perfect pickles—slightly tangy, but not too aggressive—that brings the whole mouthful together. A tomato jam spread underneath the patty didn't particularly stand out, but if recent discoveries in burger science prove accurate, it no doubt boosted the umami pleasures to be found in the beef.

With a bakery attached, Citizen's Band doesn't have to go far to get its bread. My own Pinkie's challah roll worked out perfectly, nicely proportioned to the size of the patty and adding just enough to the flavor quotient. (I do think the cook needs to be careful with his knife—one of my companions ended up with an unevenly sliced bun that left a bit too much bread up top.)

If the burger made us all happy, the fries received a lukewarm reception. Some tasted well enough, but too many fell short of crisp, and others had become dried out and slightly hard in spots.

The forty-seat restaurant has received minimal sprucing in a way that makes for a pleasant and hip space. Black-and-white photos, old postcards, and some vintage magazine pages line the walls, while a set of the old CB radios from which the restaurant gets its name sit above the door. The other dishes that came out of the kitchen, like the fried chicken on a biscuit that dripped with gravy, looked plenty attractive as well. Put it all together with a tasty hamburger, and I have no problem calling this a finer diner experience.

About the author: David Kover is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and food enthusiast. He worked very hard not to directly reference the Bubble Boy episode of Seinfeld in this review. He occasionally gets his tweet on at @pizzakover.

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