A Hamburger Today
Lower East Side Coffee Shop's Burger is Mediocrity Epitomized
Lower East Side Coffee Shop
442 E 14th Street, New York, NY 10009 (b/n 1st Avenue and Avenue A; map); 212-260-5842
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: "Blahblahblah." That describes this burger perfectly.
Want Fries with That? You are eating an average burger, you may as well have average fries.
Price: Cheeseburger Deluxe, $7.95
I usually have far higher expectations for a hamburger from a diner than I do for one from a restaurant that lists the name of a chef on the menu. I have had far too many overcomplicated burgers from fancy-pants places that fail to deliver. Conversely, burgers from lowbrow restaurants can get the basic beef-bun-cheese trinity so perfectly right that it makes one wonder if there is any need to spend more. I tend to be skeptical when someone tells me that they had a great burger at a fancy restaurant, but I am never surprised when someone tells me they had a great burger at their local diner. Of course, not every diner makes a great burger (although they rarely make truly awful ones); many make perfectly average ones, which is a euphemism for "mediocre."
Lower East Side Coffee Shop serves a burger that epitomizes mediocrity. It is not unduly offensive—it might even be considered serviceable. But the grilled, underseasoned, and overcooked (ordered rare, delivered medium) eight-ounce patty served on a seeded bun with American cheese and a side of average fries is just not the inspired effort I had hoped for.
You want to know why? Too many shortcuts. The best diner burgers tend to be from places that are decades old and have been using the same purveyors for as long. Thus, nearby places like Veselka and Joe Jr. still get their beef fresh from a real butcher. You can see the patties being hand formed in the morning at Joe Jr. That is the old way of doing things. If you opened a diner today you would likely get all of your supplies from single restaurant supplier, not cultivate relationships with a butcher, a baker, nor a candlestick maker. This makes business easier and the burgers worse.
While there has been a restaurant at that location on 14th Street for decades (it was a doughnut shop for many years), the Lower East Side Coffee Shop is a relatively new restaurant, even taking into account the fact that it recently changed its name (for the better) from Burger Gyro Express. The food likely arrives in one big truck, the hamburger doubtlessly boxed, probably frozen and delivered once a week as opposed to the daily delivery that Veselka gets, for example.
The resulting burger, while not terrible, can only really ever be average given its pedigree. It may trounce the major fast food chains, but is that good enough? I don't think so. And I don't think you do either. You are reading this blog because you like hamburgers and you deserve to eat the best ones out there. This is not one of them. I was hoping for greatness, but discovered only mediocrity. Perhaps I will get lucky and the next fancy-pants burger I eat will surprise me by defying expectations (in a good way) the way Lower East Side Coffee Shop did (in a bad way).