As a woman who worships at the altar of Dr. Brown’s sodas, I jump at the opportunity to go to any deli or old-school lunch counter. I’ve been to S&P before on a hot summer day for a BLT, but this trip was specifically to try out their burger.
Arianna and I work near this spot, only open until 5pm, so we decided to do a Summer Friday lunch and hope the wait for a counter seat wouldn’t be too treacherous. Luckily things were moving pretty quickly and we were seated within five minutes.
There’s a few burger options on the menu here and I opted for the S&P burger (minus cheese), which comes with classic LTO, burger sauce and dill pickle chips. I was delighted to get an additional pickle spear on the side, another deli perk! And I obviously went with a cream soda to wash it all down. This particular burger was $12 and didn’t come with fries - those were à la carte for another $6.
The burger was served on an enriched white bun, nothing fancy, with a nice golden toast from the flattop grill that runs the length of the counter. The lettuce was crisp albeit a bit big for the bun and the tomato was a little underripe for my taste - understandable since we’re not quite at that time of year.
The patty itself was ultimately unremarkable - between a pub and a smash, no real crust or bite and closer to brown than I’d prefer. Between the meh patty, heap of lettuce and watery tomato, I was left wanting more salt, more oomf. I think there’s a way to have a fresh classic burger without sacrificing flavor - just look at The Odeon or Rippers! All of these elements plus the thin burger sauce also made for quite a mess, as pictured below
Since I’ve been here before and have plenty of friends who love S&P’s other offerings, I’ll just say you can skip the burger here. I’ve heard really great things about their melts and triple deckers, and my BLT was pretty good. I’m ranking this burger at 41, between Schnipper’s and The Baroness.