Tehachapi's The Shed - Quality Food, Friendly Service

A half-pound fresh hamburger with Swiss Cheese,
Ortega chili and bacon on a fresh brioche bun.

From the archives of EGN on Yelp

One of the best parts of travelling is stumbling into unexpected pleasures, such as a very good restaurant. This was the case for us recently as we were returning home from Arizona via California Highway 58 through the Tehachapis.

With some time to spare for a meal, we ventured off Hwy 58 and drove into the town center to find some eats. We came upon three independent restaurants, one of which was The Shed.

Based on the near-full parking lot, we surmised the food most be pretty good.

After quickly being seated on a busy Presidents Day lunch hour, we quickly scanned the menu and narrowed our choice. We decided to share two plates - a hamburger and a club sandwich.

Both were really very good.

The club was enormous, and more importantly really tasty. The best feature of this sandwich was the turkey. It was obviously a turkey roasted in their own kitchen and it really had a great taste.

A fantastic Club Sandwich made with 
roasted-in-the-restaurant turkey breast.

Our burger, which was for a flat price, offered a variety of additions. For ours, we added Swiss cheese, bacon and an Ortega chili served on a brioche-style bun.

The burger was exceptionally good. The meat was obvious fresh and at a half pound, more than we could enjoy at one sitting.

Interestingly, the french fries, which were obviously institutional, were nevertheless perfectly cooked and very satisfying. We also had a cup of chicken soup as one of the sides and it too was very good.

Our server, JQ, who was obviously quite busy serving several tables, was nonetheless attentive and very friendly. Our only knock was that the ticket time was not as quick as we would have liked, but being a professional, JQ kept us informed and tacitly acknowledged the longer than expected wait.

This brings up an important point that many restaurants and servers fail to recognize. If you keep your customers informed and are pleasant that 10 extra minute wait passes quickly. If they do not acknowledge the delay, that extra 10 minutes can seem like an hour.

When all was said and done, we had a great meal and a large portion of our burger to enjoy when we arrived home several hours later. If the opportunity arises, the next time we pass though Tehechapi, we will stop in again.