While its Southern California contemporaries have gone on to critical acclaim, corporate controversy and billboard flame wars, a Santa Barbara hamburger stand has quietly stayed true to its roots by delivering a cheap, fast and delicious California hamburger that, for generations, has won over locals and made believers out of first-time visitors.

And now, maybe for the first time in its decades-long history, folks are starting to do more than just take it for granted.

Chubbies Hamburgers isn’t difficult to find, but it’s easy to miss. 

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Tucked deep in the heart of the upper State Street corridor, Chubbies occupies a Spanish-style building next to a coffee shop that was once an original Taco Bell location. Far from the oceanside bustle of lower State Street, it can be found in a mostly residential neighborhood known for its easy freeway access, birthing the Egg McMuffin and a mid-century mall, part of which is slated to be repurposed as housing. 

Patrons line up for lunch at Chubbies Hamburgers in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Aug. 1, 2025. 

A trio of Chubbies hamburgers lined up at the restaurant’s outdoor patio in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Aug. 1, 2025. 

Celebrating its 40-year anniversary this year, Chubbies has, even for owner and restaurateur Richard McGillivray, always seemingly played second fiddle. 

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Never profiled or lavished with critical praise, Chubbies was last mentioned in the press nearly a quarter century ago, when its original State Street location closed to make way for an Asian fusion restaurant called Aqua, which has also since closed. 

“He wanted to take it from a hamburger fast-food place to a mid-price-point restaurant,” Neal Rosenthal, McGillivray’s partner in Aqua, told the Santa Barbara News-Press on July 6, 2001. “But we’re on a block with three other Italian restaurants. So we said, ‘Let’s do a restaurant — let’s not do Italian.’”

Maybe they should’ve stuck with Italian (or burgers) because Aqua didn’t last, but thankfully, the Chubbies location up........

© SFGate