67 Burger

“Wait, you guys were serious about this?” my boss laughs as I tell her we are off to our second Burger Club meeting.

“Yeah, I’ll show you the minutes tomorrow,” I jokeas I depart her office. Another head shake and laugh as she waves goodbye.

We all convene at the F train – this week we’re venturing into another burrough, crossing the Manhattan bridge to run around Brooklyn in search of our next burger. 5 Napkins is going to be a lot to live up to.

It is counter service, we realize, as we arrive at the spot, and the slew of options has us pause for a second. In the end, I decide to stick to my have-the-burger-in-the-picture rule and get the original 67 burger – a hefty 7 oz. burger topped with blue cheese and crispy bacon. The fries selection is also rather copious and we all have a hard time choosing among the curly fries, regular fries, sweet potato fries, or onion rings.

Summer is just beginning to kiss fall and four numbers on sticks litter an outside table where Burger Club #2 convenes. One of us reveals he has never had a sweet potato fry (amidst cries of “whaaat?!” and shrugs of “well, I never really liked them”) and has made today the day to try one for the first time. Our burgers arrive rather quickly in succession, numbers removed from the table as burger hits the chrome table top.

“Why are there five burgers on the table?” one of us notes and we all turn to the member notorious for polishing off upwards of 3 burgers in one sitting without breaking a sweat.

“I decided to replace the fries with a veggie burger,” he explains. He is also the one who ordered broccoli with his last burger. We leave him to his double burger action.

Curly is my fry of choice today and I am not disappointed. I eat a few before I have my first burger bite. Which has a little too much blue cheese. Which I remember I don’t really like very much in the first place. Hmmm. The burger is good, the bun is decent, the fries are magical. Two of us have gone for the original while the other two accidentally ended up with the same burger choice as well – melted cheese and BBQ-braised onions, the Western as it is dubbed.

The sweet potato fries look amazing and I can’t help but ask for a taste, to which the sweet-potato novice replies, “Please do!” He is polishing them off quickly, I think he likes them. These turn out to be especially good sweet potato fries – usually sweet potato fries are cut too thickly and come out of the fryer a slightly soggy mess. Delicious yes, napkin-free eating, no. 67 takes into account the extra water held by the sweet potato and cuts them accordingly. These fries are crisp, hold their shape, and emit a satisfying crunch at each bite. Best of all, the flavor is not compromised.

The blue cheese continues to be unnecessarily overpowering to an otherwise delicious burger and the saltiness of the bacon and blue cheese together pack too much of a punch. I am almost tempted to scrape it off for the last fourth of my meal, but decide against it – is no cheese worse than blue cheese? Yes. I wash down the last bite with a handful of curly fries, which make me wish for a Jack-in-the-Box on this coast.

We all agree on the superiority of 5 Napkin at the end of the night, though the two Westerners seem happy with their BBQ-braised onion selection. The neighborhood that houses the burger spot is adorable and we wander around for a while half-heartedly in search of dessert, but possibly just to let the burger/fry/blue cheese combo settle and check out a neighborhood that most of us did not know existed. The streets fork into each other and reveal three-to-five story buildings with store fronts that make you feel like you can’t possibly be in New York right then.

Finally, we give up when we reach a major road that parallels a highway and turn back around. One final burger club group hug takes place before we fan out to our various subway stops. Next time, we are shortening our wait time to three weeks. One month has proven to be too long.

67 Burger – too blue-cheesy for a shimmy
Curly fries – a solid chair dance throughout the meal
Sweet potato fries – impressed head nod

67 Burger
67 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11217-5500
(718) 797-7150