Gotham Burger Social Club

After a few years of successful smashburger pop-ups, Gotham Burger Social Club has a permanent space on the Lower East Side. It looks like an old-timey saloon, with a few longhorn skulls on the walls, but brighter. They’ve got a few things on a menu above the counter—like a hot dog, and chopped cheese tacos—but that’s all window dressing. You come to GBSC to sit at the bar and watch a cook wearing a cowboy hat use a paint scraper to extract your single, double, or triple (aka “The Beastie Boy”) cheeseburger from the grill. 

The patties are lacy, thin, and loaded with American cheese, steamy sweet onions, pickles and jalapeños—but what really sets GBSC apart from the rest of the smashburger scene is the hard-toasted exterior top bun, which adds a crusty, bready bite to the crisp, caramelized beef. The other thing that sets it apart is the bar, which makes this an ideal spot for refueling on a Friday night with a beer or a canned cocktail, a burger, and a side of fried pickles.