One of the best dirty secrets of New York is “Burger Joint”. It is not easy to find this “joint”. Once you locate the Le Parker Meridien close to the Central Park, head directly to the entry, pass the reception, and push apart the drapes in front of you, and there you are! It is a bohemian like place where businessmen/women come right out of their meetings with fine business suites, or tourists show up with curious eyes with their backpacks, cameras, and flip flops in tact. As you see, dress code doesn’t matter; all it matters is the food!

While waiting in-line to place your order, make sure you are watching the seats. You should catch the first available one, since there are not enough seats. Oh by the way, I am assuming you went there with your buddy or partner; one is waiting in the line while the other one is hunting down the seats.

Why I am writing this in my architectural blog, maybe I should have wrote it in my food blog. But, no! This joint showed me an extremely casual Food & Beverage concept within a luxury hotel, and how well it functions. It is not only the fabulous and elegant interior design, along with a decent food concept and white table clothes and fine china that attracts guests, but also a totally cool, down to earth concept that very well attracts -and connects with- people. The dirty tables and greasy ketchup bottles are part of the concept! I am not getting into the argument over not having enough Back of House in order to function as a proper outlet. As I saw it, it works, and it works like a “Hell’s Kitchen”!

Oh, did I say, it was one of the best burgers I had in the East Coast. West Coast’s number one is, hands down, In-N-Out!

Photo by Tripadvisor. I am not advertising. I was too eager to taste the burger, and didn’t take a photo. I had to use a photo from Internet. If you go there, please take a photo and send it to me. Or, next time I go, and definetely there will be a next time, I will take one and post it.