The Out of Office Burger and Cocktail
Make it a thing!
I’ve handed in my last article for 2022 and yesterday was the final shoot for the book I’m working on with New York Nico. The work never truly ends because I always feel the need to be doing something, so The Melt will continue its erratic publishing schedule for the rest of the year and in 2023 I plan on dedicating a little more time to it since I’ll likely have a little more brain power to spare thanks to Elon making Twitter an awful place to waste my time. I don’t really write about social media on here, so I’ll just share this thing Dan Sinker wrote about the state of all that as my comment on the situation.
What I will talk about today is the importance of ending the working year on a high note. Tomorrow, Emily and I will get on a jet plane and get the heck out of Brooklyn for a few weeks. Emily will relax on the beach, I will sit on the beach reading for a bit and then stressing out because I’ve got nothing to do and I’m a ball of neurosis but at least I’m doing it somewhere sunny and warm. But before that, there are all the rituals. I ate my last slice of pizza at Antonio's on Flatbush and had my last bagel last Sunday from Greenberg’s. Everything is nearly in order, but there are two things that I’ll have to switch up.
The way it used to work, back when I had to schlep to Midtown for work, was I’d wander into 21 Club and I’d eat a burger. I posted about this on Instagram yesterday, so I feel bad for those of you who might follow me on there and also read The Melt since I’m not a big fan of double posting about a topic, but there was some interest in the 21 burger since I found out a lot of people never went to the place famous for its lawn jockey decorations and clientele made up of mostly men who survived Black Monday in ‘87 or the crash of 2007-08 and lived to tell tales. In hindsight, my last meal there in 2016 is quaint as hell since you maybe heard about crypto bros but you didn’t see them out in the wild as much, and the TikTok youths hadn’t yet started picking up on classic New York spots the way they have Rainbow Room or Bemelmans in the last few years. But, like the story of Jesus, there’s a lag in the timeline of my tale since I could have kept going to 21 after 2016 since it was open up until 2020. But I stopped because, well, it got a little too weird for my blood. I’d walk by and I’d see security guards or paparazzi and I just decided, nah. I don’t want to see who is in there.
But before that, I had a little tradition where I’d put on a cute lil’ Brooks Brothers blazer and a tie and I’d go there and eat a burger and drink a Martini. What I learned was that you had to get there on the early side for a good burger, because once the crowds started rolling up in their black SUVs, the kitchen would get overwhelmed by orders and the quality went downhill in a way that was honestly pretty pathetic for a place with such stature among the New York City bigwig establishment types. When it was good, the 21 burger was among the best in the city. But it wasn’t always good, so I stopped going. It just wasn’t worth it.
Two years ago, to celebrate what was then my last day in the office—that is to say, I was working from home like everybody else and then got laid off around the time I’d generally be getting ready to sign off for the rest of the calendar year—I decided to make a 21 burger at home. If you’ve followed me before, you know I’m a big fan of Burger Night. Emily and I have been doing it for a few years, trying to recreate the very expensive Minetta Tavern Black Label version at home, but sometimes maybe having a few too many pre-burger cocktails to keep the quality control up. But at this point, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good handle on that one, so usually I just go on drunk auto-pilot, blast some Charlie Parker while I cook, and it turns out good. But the 21 burger was another story. I got a recipe from Saveur and, on paper, it looked like something I could handle. But in practice, it needed the grill. Not just any grill; it needed a grill that was active. It needed the charred remains of the burgers that came before it. It needed the souls of other cows to make it truly great and, my friends, I did not have those. The burger came out fine. It was downright delicious. But it just wasn’t the same. I retired the 21 burger as the last burger of the working year for good and I’m left with a little space in my heart that longs to be filled with some new cholesterol.
But there is one thing I haven’t retired as a way to signify that I remembered to actually turn off my laptop for the first time in months. On the last Friday of the working year, I have one, yes, one, sub-par Manhattan. I go to any random bar, always one that does not have a cocktail list made up of classics “with a twist” and the twist is usually they just give in a new name like they call a Daiquiri a “Papa Hemingway” or they simply put a more expensive version of a spirit in there so they can charge five bucks more than the same drink with the well booze. No, I go to a place where I’ll maybe have to instruct the bartender on how to make a Manhattan—this happened once, god-bless that bartender—and I’ll sit there quietly and drink a cocktail that I almost hardly ever order, and I’ll drink it and think about the year that was.
If you’ve been following along on here or on whatever social media platform I was on or I’m on now, you know that I love little rituals and traditions. I don’t really hold any over others in terms of importance, but the ending the year burger and then the ending the year Manhattan is the one I really miss from my days of going into an office, saying goodbye to my colleagues one last time until January, walking outside and going to 21 and then going to whatever Irish pub looks the worst for the Manhattan, getting in a cab and looking at New York from over the Manhattan Bridge.
Even though I don’t see myself going back to a traditional office setting anytime soon, this year I decided that I’m starting the tradition back up. I might just walk out of my apartment and order a Manhattan and the strange, but wonderful sports bar up the block that I go to watch Knicks games at from time to time and I might just have to settle on whatever burger sounds good, but I’ve realized it’s really important to keep your little rituals going. It’s nice to have little markers to remind yourself you made it this far and there’s hopefully a long way to keep going.
I love this one. enjoy the rest of the year. Good shabbos.