A Hamburger Today
A Challenge to NYC Burger Joints: Put This Burger on Your Menu
The "Bernice Original" burger from the Shady Glen in Manchester, Connecticut. [Photograph courtesy George Motz/Hamburger America]
Yo, NYC burger joints: Take a gander at the photo above and read the description of it that I'm about to give you. I challenge you to put a version of this burger on your menu. Why? Because I've never seen one here in the city, and I'm too lazy to drive up to the Shady Glen in Manchester, Connecticut, whence the original originates. Here's how George Motz describes it in Hamburger America:
The four-ounce cheeseburger comes with 4 slices of cheese. The cheese is not just stacked atop the burger; it is symmetrically placed, centered on the burger as it cooks on the hot griddle. An understandably large portion of this cheese makes direct contact with the griddle. When the cheese cooks through it is curled skyward by the deft grill man until it resembles a cheese crown.
According to the entry on it in his book, Motz could not the Shady Glen to reveal the type of cheese used. Still, I emailed Motz to see if he had a guess. He answers:
It was definitely sliced from a block and was probably just American. It's the cooking surface that was key, a highly seasoned super-slick flattop. Ya know, Bartley's in Boston also melts their cheese directly on the griddle (and come to think of it so does Kewpee in Racine, Wisconsin. See attached photo; you can kinda see where they melt the cheese on the griddle).
[Photograph courtesy George Motz/Hamburger America]
Need some more inspiration? Here's a similar burger from The Squeeze Inn in Sacramento, California:
As the blog Eating the Road says:
As you can see it comes replete with their famous cheese skirt, which is like a crispy, delicious hors d'oeuvres to munch on. The burger was great. I would've liked a slightly thicker patty but that's not why you come here, you come for the cheese skirt.
Eating the Road didn't note what kind of cheese was used on the Squeeze with Cheese Burger, but this stuff here looks like cheddar.
The Cheese Skirt Burger Challenge
So here's a sketch of what I take to be the cheese arrangement on a Bernice Original or on a "cheese skirt" burger. Now it's up to you, burger-joint owner, to do the rest.
Try making one—maybe experiment with American and cheddar to see which works and tastes best—and put it on your menu. Either as a rotating special or on the regular menu. Email us to let us know (burger@seriouseats.com)—preferably with a photo of your cheese-skirt burger—and we'll keep a list of places that offer cheese skirt burgers.
Credit where due: This post is absolutely inspired by the brilliant Midtown Lunch Sandwich Challenge that Zach Brooks ingeniously came up with earlier this year.