The Burger Shop on Brighton Beach

vintage-looking hanging sign

This entry is my first quasi food review on The Urbanographer featuring the new Burger Shop. The food component however is secondary to my review of the shop as a new commercial space in Brighton Beach.

The Burger Shop seemed to have come out of nowhere. It exists as a parallelographically-shaped subdivision of Kebeer, the darkly lit triangular sports bar at the southeast corner of Brighton and Coney Island. (I still dont know what Kebeer means or if it does mean anything.) It's arrival reminds me of how out of place Starbucks seemed when it was new to the town. American barnacles strapped on to the Russian muscle that is Brighton Beach. (I never make it far enough down Brighton to see who actually buys coffee from Starbucks..Is it the local folk or north-Brooklyn/Manhattan seasonal invaders?) Burger Shop has raised various questions in my mind: who was the architect? who is the developer of the space? is this a chain? how do they know young Americans like thin brown paper colored menus? who decided on their vintage meat processor/churning logo? who are they marketing to with their English signs, American menu, and lack of glitz? Simply put: Has a North Brooklyn-American invaded Brighton Beach?

menu cover

I was impressed by the Shop's muted signage. It has to contend with the horrifyingly ugly building at next door with awfully large and disproportionate lettering letting us know that DR. ABBOUD has an office above the Brighton Bazaar.

I was also impressed by the organization of space for the waiting customers, and the tight but seemingly efficient use of space for the cook and cashier.  The nicest feature is that the front glass window has a countertop or ledge running along it.  When the window is fully open, one can communicate with people on the inside, while standing and eating on the outside. I don't know another eatery that uses glass and a countertop effect to extend indoor space in this way near by.

Brightly colored cartoony imagery
and text (in English) on raw plywood
= reminded me of Williamsburg.

This gigantic slider window frees up some more space.

I stopped by on Friday to see what the menu looked like and discovered the truth: the owner is not a North-Brooklyn American. How do I know this, you ask? Because a) there is no vegetarian alternative to the beef burger and 2) there are no turkey burgers (which I was really hoping for).

I ordered the 1st item on their menu -- a burger, fries and drink-- which comes to $5.00. I asked for the burger to have nothing on it, and then went overboard and asked for ketchup since there is no condiment station. It took about 25 minutes before I could walk out food in hand. It seems that my order slip fluttered away from where it was tacked.  That accounted for the first 10 minutes. As the burger was grilled, the cashier double checked and asked if I ordered mayonnaise on it.  I said no, only ketchup.  Eventually, the burger was boxed and handed to me sans fries and drink, so I then had to wait for the fries to be cooked and the soda to be poured.

When I got home, I found mayo and ketchup on the burger and the fries too salty. The cashier did say they only opened the previous Tuesday.