Corner Bistro

a beautiful day to eat a hamburger

Do you ever wake up in the morning and just know you’re going to eat a burger that day?

I’m typically penciling them in, but this mid-May day that was forecasted to sit in the 60s and ended up feeling like a perfect 75º without a cloud in the sky practically begged me to have a burger al fresco. And who am I to deny nature?

I went through my list of burgers I’ve yet to try and landed on Corner Bistro, a fixture of the West Village that was open for lunch with some outdoor seating on a beautiful corner. Corner Bistro has been open on West 4th Street since 1961 and started serving up their current fare in 1967. I loved reading all about the many lives of the space in this piece from Airmail!

It’s still cash-only, so I swung by the nearest Wells Fargo for some crisp twenties before claiming my outdoor table in the sunshine. The nearby family inspired me to add bacon to my standard burger - the weather was beautiful enough to ignore an upcharge ($3 on top of the $13.75 hamburger, another $3 for cheese).

The burger came out quick on a paper plate, with fries on their own plate. I can appreciate a serious serving especially for $7. The burger at Corner Bistro is served on a toasted Martin’s potato roll, with a slice of white onion on the bottom and iceberg lettuce, tomato and a healthy helping of dill pickle chips on the side. They didn’t skimp on the bacon here; the well-done ribbons took up about half the plate. The patty itself was hearty and pink on the inside. All of the heft of the burger flattened the bottom bun before I could even pick it up to take my first bite.

This was definitely among the messier burgers I’ve tackled. I ended up fully removing my tomato for the sake of structure, while simultaneously trying to cram as many pickles as the surface area could allow. I could’ve done with less lettuce (lesstuce?) but since the weather was so nice, the watery crunch wasn’t as offensive as it could’ve been. The burger itself was tasty with a perfect cook temp but could’ve had more of a char. I’m ultimately glad I added the bacon, both for the sake of texture and salt. Similar to JG Melon, I’d argue that it really ties everything together.

Towards the end of the meal, I had fully lost my bottom bun and had a surplus of lettuce, so I got crafty and used the extra veg as a makeshift wrap #proteinstyle. An homage to my celiac baddies.

I’m ranking the Corner Bistro burger at 36, between Dram Shop and Corner Bar. Unfortunately Corner Store doesn’t serve a burger or else I’d be chasing that gimmick down.