Brgr - Chelsea

The narrative of sustainable eating tends to revolve around granola politics, long cook times and casually paced meals. The phrases "hormone-free", "free range", and "grass-fed" are not part of the vocabulary of fast food outside of a Chipotle burrito. The Brgr string of restaurants seeks to change the dialog of quick eats to include food that is responsibly sourced, sustainably farmed and tastily flavored, without requiring an intense commitment of time.


Brgr sources its beef from U.S. Wellness Meats, which encapsulates four different family farms in the Midwest from Illinois to Missouri. The cows are 100% grass fed and are raised without hormones or antibiotics, as with most grass-fed animals. Though the Midwest along the Mississippi is a further trek than some other sources the farms are run responsibly and, in pretty much every other respect, "greenly".

From the very first glance, Brgr is a restaurant straddling two worlds. The decor is a mix of the sort of metals and vibrant colors you'd expect to find at Pop Burger and the sort of warm woods you'd see in a farm house. The counter-service ordering system is balanced by the table-service delivery of your finished meal. This dichotomy is an interesting one that lives somewhere between inviting and agitating. While the business is modeled after a fast food restaurant, don't expect immediate turnarounds. Each meal is cooked to order, so there's always going to be at least a little bit of a wait, which is worth not having to deal with food via a heat lamp.

Strangely, while the visuals and experience of dining at Brgr are a bit of a spectacle the food itself is rather unspectacular.

At $6.85 for a single burger the price point of Brgr is significantly higher than New York buzz machine Shake Shack, offering a similar style of burger. The beef itself has a very mild flavor and takes a backseat to pretty much any of Brgr's myriad toppings. Sadly, even the toppings do not stand out. The mushrooms and swiss cheese on the Magnificent Meadow burger ($8.25, pictured above) are adequate, but the mushrooms were a tad undercooked. The lettuce and tomato, stand out items at Shake Shack, did not taste fresh and were more of a hindrance to the overall flavor than a help. The fresh cut fries ($2.50) were a nice touch, but not enough to raise the eating experience above "OK".

Overall Brgr is a very well-intentioned endeavor that's very outspoken about its philosophy of food, but far better fare, grass-fed or otherwise, can be had for pretty much the same price tag.

Brgr
287 Seventh Ave
New York, NY 10001