Oakland’s TrueBurger to become some kind of ‘Egg Palace’

This summer, Oakland’s smashburger joint TrueBurger shut down its location on Broadway. Now, in its place, rises something new, something oval-shaped, something that goes great with bacon and hash browns – some kind of “Egg Palace.”

Future plans for the TrueBurger space were announced this week on Instagram by the folks behind Egg Pals, a longtime pop-up known for its eggy breakfast sandwiches.

“The rumor mill has been spinning but it’s official, we’re opening Egg Palace, a restaurant/bar serving breakfast and dinner at 4101 Broadway, Oakland!” wrote Egg Pals, which was founded by Chris Morgan and Brack DeFries.

A message sent via Instagram asking for more information about Egg Palace wasn’t immediately answered. It’s unclear when this palace will actually open. But the post links to a Kickstarter page that is trying to raise $50,000 to remodel the former burger kitchen to make it more “welcoming.” (Part of that includes building a new bar.) The page also goes into some of the history behind Egg Pals, which has run at least 250 pop-ups, and why it’s transitioning to a brick-and-mortar now:

“We were regularly selling out each pop-up but were unsure of how much demand there would be from something occurring on a monthly basis. As the momentum grew, more people came, the lines got longer, and we continued to sell out of food on a weekly basis. That’s when we decided that there was potential for this to grow into something more.”

The specialty at Egg Pals, which presumably will be front-and-center at Egg Palace along with other dishes, is its bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich, called an “Egg Pal.” This should be a familiar bite to anyone who’s spent time on the East Coast, and it has collected raves from locals and food critics. In a KQED interview, DeFries described how it is made:

“The ‘Egg Pal’ is designed as exactly what we would want to eat as our perfect breakfast sandwich. We were set on brioche. It’s soft, sweet. It’s a must. American cheese, also a must. Then you get the salty, smoky bacon to go with the cheesiness that becomes a sort of sauce. And the brightness of the onions with the ‘herbiness’ of the mayo. It all gives some depth. It’s very simple, but it also has essential components.”

So it’s kind of like a burger – delicious, fatty stuff put between bread. That should help the transition from TrueBurger into a palace for eggs hopefully more seamless.

Details: Egg Pals is at instagram.com/eggpals and its fundraiser for the former TrueBurger space (4101 Broadway, Oakland) is posted at kickstarter.com/projects/106429071/egg-palace.