Gherkin’s Sandwich Shop

Great clam chowder. Not a lot of potatoes or onions. Lot of clam. Fish sandwich is great too. Bookmarked for a return visit.

I dropped in to Gherkins by chance while driving home Sunday afternoon. I was not sure what to expect.
5 stars! Reasons: sandwiches were thick with meat, flavorful fixings on fresh bread.
The fries were very crispy and perfect! Great french fries at a sandwich place a major bonus!
Service was very good.
This is the real deal for a sandwich lunch. I take pride in eating and clearly Gherkins takes pride in making a great sandwich (and fries). It is a small place and I could see how it could get busy.

We love the Gherkins in Montara, so stopped by for lunch on the weekend. Ordered the CalFire, and fries to share. While the sandwich was good, it didn’t taste as good as Montara’s. It just seemed like there was something missing. The staff was really nice, too.

I’m torn. The sandwiches here are delicious, but taking 20+ minutes for one is a little ridiculous. I get that they’re a small shop, but I think some well-​thought out operational efficiency enhancements could seriously reduce order, prep, and wait time.
Oh, and how do you run out of fries before lunch hour on a weekend? I’ll return, but likely to the Montara location which seems to be a little quicker.

Yummy. We were on the west coast to celebrate our 25^th anniversary and stopped in Half Moon Bay for some sightseeing and a break on our way to Monterey. For breakfast, we had a pretty big meal but we had the munchies. Gherkin’s is located in an area where we were browsing through some of the very unique shops in the town. I was binging on seafood while on vacation so a shrimp po-​boy was just what the doctor ordered.
The sandwich was PACKED full of shrimp and served on homemade bread The sandwich was just spicy enough to keep my interest. It was also big enough to share, which I did. Stop in if you’re in Half Moon Bay, you won’t be sorry.

We ordered what I assume to be a couple of their signature sandwiches: the beer battered cod and the shrimp po’boy. Each costs around $ 12 and didn’t come with any sides like french fries. The cod sandwich was OK but tasted rather weak and the cod was insignificant compared to the dollop of cole slaw in the sandwich. The shrimp po’boy was dreadful and looked nothing like the photo posted on Unilocal.The shrimp used were tiny, like bay shrimp. Once battered and fried, the sandwich should have had great tasting fried pieces of shrimp flavor. Instead the po’boy tasted like chock full of fried breadcrumbs between slices of bread. Perhaps it was the lack of seafood flavor that the cook decided to overpower the sandwich with a sickly tangy and spicy sauce. Our four-​year-​old tried this concoction and nearly gagged. Maybe we caught the kitchen on an off day but the food here is too mediocre for us to come back.

Great sandwiches on homemade bread. I had the turkey on the walnut olive. It was delicious. Generously sized & inexpensive, this is a great place for a quick lunch in the courtyard. And did I mention that the bread was really awesome?

Had the Midnighter and the Cal Fire with a very generous side of perfect fries. Huge portions – we ended up saving half for later. Absolutely delicious!

It seems like this place is 2 different restaurants/​menus in one. Whatever it is, it works.
Walked into this place mainly because it was roomy enough to bring our stroller in. Glad we did because everything we ordered was great. We had a bowl or clam chowder, the farm house sandwich, fish & chips, papas bravas, and the artichoke hearts. Hands down my favorite were the papas bravas. Thick cut fries with aioli and hot sauce– SO GOOD!!! Sandwich was huge enough to have one half left for dinner later and the fish was light and nicely seasoned. Will definitely be coming back.

If your driving along the coast, Gherkins is the wheres it at! The location is perfect right in the heart of downtown HMB. Staff and Service is beyond excellent!
Everything about this Sandwich Shop is amazing.

The sandwiches are super tasty. This place was introduced to me by owner of Vantigo Tour as a part of their Hwy 1 Brew Tour so I can’t speak for customer service or price/​value of the sandwiches. All I know is the sandwiches are delicious and big enough to split into two meals or to share. This will be my go-​to place when I’m in HMB.

Sandwiches are not at the top of my list of favorite foods, but I really like Gherkins. Their selection is excellent & consistently very good. I am a particular fan of their Ooey Gooey. Sandwiches are definitely big enough to split or save ½ for later.
My tips: call in your order ahead of time, especially if it’s the weekend. Then you don’t have to wait in the line, which is probably out the door :) .
Suggestion to the business: ordering on the website is complicated & not user-​friendly — if it could be adjusted to work in a more streamlined fashion, that would be helpful.

If the name of this joint wasn’t enough… dat logo tho.

My hubby and I tried the Fish and Frites section of this store. All I can say is WOW! I eat gluten free, so it was a wonderful surprise that I could order fish with gluten free batter. I ordered the catfish, and it was awesome! Crisp, fresh and very flavorful. They also have dipping sauces, so I tried the Sundried Tomato, the Ginger, and the Chipotle. All the sauces are made on-​site, and they are delicious. I paid $ 2.50 for all 3 sauces. They also have house-​made Tartar sauce (free with your fish), and that’s the best tartar sauce I’ve ever tasted. Of course, they also have gherkins, and those were really good too! Couldn’t stop eating them…
I also found out that they can make their sandwiches with gluten free bread, so I’ll definitely try one of those next time.
It might be pricier than other sandwich shops, but if the sandwiches are as good as the fish, it’s well worth the money!

The bread was fresh and the fish was light but the downside is the slaw soaked the bun.
Pricey for a sandwich shop. I agree with the other Unilocaler which suggested they offer an affordable smaller sandwich.

I’ve been here a few times to order from Fish n’ Frites. But my visit today was horrible.
First, I call to place a take-​out order but she put me hold for almost 5 mins without taking my order. I call back a few times but got the «busy» signal. Did they really forget that someone was on hold!!! After about 10 minutes, my boyfriend drives us there. We get there and there’s 2 other guests in the dining area eating. There’s also 3 workers. Ok. Not sure why I was on hold for so long but I will give them the benefit of the doubt. So I put in my order of 3 sandwiches. A family of 3 orders about a few minutes after us.
After waiting for about 15 minutes, the family that ordered after us gets their order BEFORE us. Ok… I wait another 10 minutes. The whole time we are waiting, the workers were looking at us too? Maybe some reassurance like, «Sorry for the long wait.» Nope. Nothing. Our order is STILL not ready.
Plus were they hustling to get the order out? No. The girls are just standing around. Pretending to wash their hands. Wipe down register which already looks clean. The «cook» is just labeling containers. 30 minutes for a sandwich is RIDICULOUS!
The service has always sucked. Even at the Montara location. Not exactly people friendly business. Even though the lady at San Benito House doesn’t smile, I would rather go there. At least they’re efficient and I get my food. Plus the sandwiches (at San Benito) are pretty awesome.

I count the hours till theyre open. The sandwiches are epic and super yummy. Im addicted!

Whoa. downtown HMB just got about 1000x better because Gherkin’s has moved in for real! What used to be a 15 minute drive we’d take once or twice a month is about to turn into a weekly thing. because we can walk to Gherkin’s in 5 minutes now! AHHH. Attn: Forget all other sandwich places in town, seriously (sorry other places!). And btw, the people who work at the Gherkin’s HMB location are super cool; the owner came by with some fortune telling fish for us when we stopped in yesterday. My husband’s fish was passionate while mine was jealous. ut oh.
Gherkin’s is our FAVORITE sandwich shop on the coast and in the Bay Area overall. We heard about it originally from a foodie friend in LA before we even moved up to HMB. it has cred. My favorite is the Calfire sandwich on dutch crunch. my mouth now waters when I see Calfire vehicles because of the sandwich! Mmm honey mustard. The fried gherkins are insanely good and now at our fingertips– muahaha! The gherkins come in two sizes and the prices of all menu items are the same as the location up north. My husband loves the Go Niners! and Cunha Cubs sandwiches here also; honestly everything is so good at Gherkin’s and if you couldn’t tell by now my family is over the moon that they’ve come to live at Fish & Frites. We tried the fried fish place once but we’re just not that into fish and chips. However, now the restaurant feels like a Gherkin’s Plus with an extended menu. where you could get a sandwich. or maybe you want fried oysters instead. That’s awesome and was such a good idea by the guy who made this delicious restaurant.
Thank you thank you! Please stay open late. We love you!

So… I really would have liked to have been able to rate this place a lot higher but I can’t. My friend and I were visiting Half Moon Bay for the night and saw this place behind Zaballa House and definitely wanted to try their food. The menu sounded really good and they had a lot of options. We tooled around a bit in the town then ended up back here before heading back to our room. I really didn’t expect to encounter the experience, or lack of, I had when trying out this place.
We ordered our food, a sandwich to split, an order of fried Gherkins, and an order of fries. Our sandwich came out within minutes and was really quite delicious, actually, though WAY over priced for the size, it was like 10 bucks or so and was a standard size sliced bread sandwich with some fun stuff inside. Overall, though, we were very pleased with it, The Fog, I believe it was called. Then our fried Gherkins came out, and they were not that great. The breading wasn’t crispy but more so greasy and «wet», not what we were expecting. We finished our sandwhich and some of the Gherkins and I went back inside to politely ask for a couple sides of ranch and when our fires would be ready, as it had been about 20 minutes and we were only the second group of customers in the place. I was told it wouldn’t be much longer, which was fine. Another 10 minutes had gone by and still no fries. I went in again to ask a second time and was told, again, that it wouldn’t be much longer… err…okay. One order of fries shouldn’t take a half hour almost. We finally recieved our fries, which were not good at all. They were half cold inside, slightly undercooked, and tasted like they had just come out of a freezer bag. So not impressed. And we didn’t even get ranch to help the flavor, so I asked, again, for the sides I was promised and for some reason that took 5 minutes… Who knows. We didn’t bother taking them back in because we could tell we were bugging the staff.
The girl at the counter was friendly at first and then became increasingly, and obviously annoyed, with our out of towner questions as we had never been there before. I get it, I’ve worked in food business, questions aren’t always fun, but it happens. The staff did not follow through on our VERY small request of sides of ranch and the timing of the food, which was not complicated. They made it seem like we were a hassle to them even though we didn’t complain at all (really) AND apologized numerous times for bothering them (which we shouldn’t have had to do but they made us feel bad for their lack of quality in service. How does that even work?!). We didn’t say anything to complain as it just was beyond us at that point and they obviously wanted to close and couldn’t be asked another thing or talked to.
Overall, I really would not come back to this location. The lack of good customer service turned me off so much that I refuse to give them my business and will probably try out the loaction in Montara as I feel the 10 minutes drive might be more worth it. If you’re going to be working with people or food, or both especially, understand and accept that it’s not easy, I work in a hotel so I totally get that, and just suck it up at times and keep your emotions to yourself. We could have become loyal customers, but now we will not be back. The people at Togo’s or Subway have been nicer. Hope things change soon.