By now, if you’re a regular reader of this site then you have pretty much figured out my rules for what qualifies as a true Midtown Lunch. The most important rule is probably the one about the meal costing under $10, but I fully admit that sometimes this rule isn’t always clear. Does that mean with tax it has to be under $10? How about drinks? Or chips? Or french fries? What part of the meal must be $10? For example alot of people will email me and suggest a sit down restaurant with an $8.95 or $9.95 lunch special. Sure technically, that could be considered a Midtown Lunch- but I tend to shy away from those places, unless they are doing something that you can’t get anywhere else in Midtown. After all, once you add tax and tip and everything- it ends up being over $10, and not necessarily a great value.
On the other hand, when the bar menu loophole was discovered at Del Frisco’s I immediately blogged about it. $9.95 got you high quality steak tips and mashed potatoes at a sit down restaurant, where lunch normally costs $40. If busting into a super fancy steakhouse, dressed like a schmuck, and eating the cheapest (but totally filling) thing on the menu isn’t the epitome of Midtown Lunch’ish behaviour, then I don’t know what is. They raised the price two weeks later. To some, it may still be worth it- but it’s no longer a Midtown Lunch. In the end, sometimes the whole price thing just comes down to a gut feeling.
So a few weeks back, my gut and I headed over to Beacon, an upscale (read: expensive) American restaurant on 56th btw. 5+6th to check out their “Burger Bar”- which has an under $10 loophole of their own. Read more »
Posted by Zach Brooks at 12:15 pm, June 30th, 2008 under 56th btw. 5+6th, Burger.
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