The flat-top wasn't installed yet when Jackson Palmer started on the burger. While contractors worked inside the old Hilda's Coffee Shop, he tested blends across San Anselmo Avenue in the kitchen at Creekside Pizza & Taproom, cooking two patties at a time in a cast-iron skillet. He chose a custom 80-20 Black Angus mix, according to the Marin Independent Journal's opening report.
That burger is now served at 639 San Anselmo Ave., where Tasty Delicious opened in late September. The address is the same and the diner counter is back, but the restaurant keeps different hours. Hilda's was a morning room. Tasty Delicious runs on lunch and dinner, more of its seats are outside on the street than inside, and breakfast is the one Hilda's tradition the new owners have promised but not yet scheduled.
A Morning Diner Since 1960
Hilda's opened in downtown San Anselmo in 1960, first across the street from the location most people remember. Former owner Tor Nielsen named it after his wife, Hilda. Darleen and Brian Young bought the diner in 1978 and ran it until 2006, when their daughter, Sue Kirton, took over. She owned it until it closed in September 2025, as The Pitch, the Archie Williams High School newspaper, reported in March.
The same report says Hilda's served only in the morning, with eggs Benedict, omelets, scrambled eggs, burgers and the German-style pancakes it was known for. It also called Hilda's one of the few breakfast spots in downtown San Anselmo. Pat Townsley, who took over the business after Kirton, said that was what he wanted to protect. "There are very few breakfast places for this small town community, and I think that's what I want to preserve," he told The Pitch.
That quote explains why so many people are waiting on the pancakes. When Townsley talked about the project in the spring, he described a restaurant that would keep Hilda's breakfast and add a burger-and-chicken menu at night. It opened in the reverse order. The nighttime menu came first, and it now fills the whole day.
Why the Corner Was Dark for a Year
Many people assumed the reopening would take a few months. It took about a year. Townsley told The Pitch the building needed new heating, ventilation and air conditioning, electrical work and more. He said the hardest part was getting approvals from the Health Department, the Town of San Anselmo and the Central Marin Sanitary District, while electrical, plumbing and framing contractors gutted the space and replaced its systems.
At the end of March, the team expected to be ready by mid-May and to open about a week before Live on the Avenue started on June 20. The summer concert series came and went with the corner still closed. The IJ's September 29 story reported that the restaurant "opened last week" and said the old building needed extensive deferred maintenance brought up to current building, health and accessibility codes. San Anselmo architect Bill O'Callaghan and San Francisco builder Cookline, which also worked on Mamahuhu in Mill Valley, handled the infrastructure.
That year of work explains a lot about the restaurant today. The owners rebuilt the building's systems before deciding how far to expand the menu, and the opening schedule followed the same order.
Same Address, Different Hours
Here is how the old room compares with the new one, based on The Pitch, the IJ and the menu on Tasty Delicious's website.
| Hilda's Coffee Shop | Tasty Delicious | |
|---|---|---|
| Years in business | 1960 to September 2025, starting across the street | Opened late September 2026 |
| Service | Mornings only | Lunch and dinner; the IJ reported 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily starting Oct. 5 |
| Known for | German-style pancakes | Burgers, fried chicken, shakes, soft-serve |
| Seating | Small diner room | About 34 inside, plus a parklet for roughly 50 |
| Breakfast | The whole menu | Promised, not yet scheduled |
The menu is short on purpose. The Tasty is a 4-ounce patty with American cheese, caramelized onions, pickles and Tasty Sauce for $10, or $14 as a double. The Backyard adds lettuce, tomato, raw onions, ketchup and mustard for $12. The $13 Bubba's Burger, a smash burger with thin, crisp edges, comes with pepper jack, fresh jalapeños, grilled onions and Firecracker Sauce. The chicken comes as a sandwich called The Otherside for $12 or as The Palmer, a Caesar wrap, for $13. Hand-cut, twice-fried fries are $5, Sidewinders are $6, hand-spun shakes are $6 and soft-serve is $5. Kids can order a Little Burger for $7 or Little Tenders for $8.
The IJ reported that the team kept prices low so the place could be an everyday stop for all ages. The ingredients are local where it matters. The soft-serve uses high-butterfat milk from the Jersey herd at Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery, the shakes get a splash of Clover whole milk, and the wrap uses a Sonoma Valley Foods tortilla. A black-bean patty can be swapped onto any burger at no charge, and a gluten-free bun is $3 more.
The hours above are the ones the IJ printed before the Oct. 5 switch, so it is worth calling 415-419-5227 before planning a late lunch around them.
The Street Holds More People Than the Room
The dining room is 12 feet wide and seats about 34. Ann Lowengart of Ann Lowengart Interiors, who lives in town, designed it as a 1960s- and '70s-era burger joint in the style of Inverness. It has a wood-slatted ceiling, a counter faced in forest green tile from San Rafael's Clé, orange chrome-framed chairs and a mural of old San Anselmo by San Rafael artist Stella Prichard. Bubba's original clock hangs near the kitchen, and Hilda's old sign hangs next to the bathroom door.
Outside, a new street-side parklet seats roughly 50, so the curb holds more people than the room behind it. Its corners are angled so drivers and pedestrians can see the crosswalk, and the IJ reported in September that a retractable waterproof canopy was on the way. As November turns colder and wetter, that canopy decides how much of the restaurant can be used.
The parklet exists because of a town decision. San Anselmo allowed temporary outdoor dining in parking spaces under an urgency ordinance in March 2020, and the Town Council approved a permanent Parklet Program in 2023, according to a 2025 Town parking study. Under the Town's parklet guidelines, every parklet needs an encroachment permit. Private parklets, reserved for a business's customers, are capped at 5% of available on-street spaces in designated commercial areas. Public parklets, open to anyone, have no cap.
When that study was written, private parklets downtown took up eight parking spaces in Downtown North and two in Downtown South. The Town had also built a public parklet across the street at 634–636 San Anselmo Ave. The study found peak-hour parking occupancy in Downtown North averaged about 75% and concluded there was enough capacity for more parklets along San Anselmo Avenue. Tasty Delicious's parklet came after that study. It shows what the 2023 program allows: a 34-seat room can serve a much larger crowd by using the curb in front of it.
What the Owners Have Promised Next
The people behind the restaurant are local. Townsley is the managing partner. Palmer, a Mill Valley native who trained at Johnson & Wales and cooked at State Bird Provisions in San Francisco, is chef and general manager. Operations manager Ryan Soifer described the project's aim to the IJ: "We built this for the community, honoring what came before us but at the same time, blazing our own path." A San Anselmo couple funded the revival and helped coordinate it.
Their promises so far, in their own words or the IJ's:
- Breakfast. The IJ reported in September that a coffee-shop breakfast with Hilda's pancakes was planned for later this year. The restaurant's FAQ is less specific: "Give us a moment. You want it. We want it. There's lots to figure out. Once we get the lunch & dinner rhythm perfect, we'll get on this."
- Ordering and delivery. Walk-in takeout is available now. The website lists online pickup ordering as coming soon and says DoorDash and Uber Eats are on the way.
- Monthly specials. The menu has a rotating section called "Wild Tales," posted on the restaurant's Instagram.
- Private events. The space can be booked for a full buyout or a semi-private event, such as a birthday, team party or fundraiser. Requests go to [email protected], with four weeks' notice for larger events.
In September, the IJ reported that the hand-cut, twice-fried fries would arrive in late October. They are on the menu now at $5.
Downtown corners like this one help shape what a San Anselmo address feels like day to day, and they come up in almost every conversation I have about value here. If you are wondering how the changes along San Anselmo Avenue affect your own home, Kris Klein is happy to walk through it over a burger on the parklet. Request a Home Valuation when you're ready.
