Heartland Brewery’s New HB Burger is Now Open

Both Grub Street and TONY’s Feed Blog give you a first look at the newly opened HB Burger (on 43rd btw. B’way+6th) in the old Spanky’s BBQ space.  The owner brags that “nothing on the menu tops $9″ (good, I guess), and they have sauteed onions (for free), tator tots, homemade sodas, and milkshakes with liquor in them (also good).  But I just can’t get excited about a burger place that is owned by the Heartland Brewery. Is that wrong?  (Admittedly I’m still mad about the onion ring incident.) Plus, items individually may cost under $9, but a burger, fries, and a drink will altogether cost you quite a bit more.  Any ML early adopters willing to take one for the team, and let us know how this place is?  Either that, or we’ll just wait for A Hamburger Today to weigh in. (I’m pretty sure they are legally obligated to go to all of these places…)

HB Burger, 127 W 43rd St. (btw. B’way+6th), 212-575-5848

12 Comments

  • Yet another palace of Heartland mediocrity, this time in the oversold hamburger sphere. Sigh.

    An overdone burger to go with your watery beer sir?

  • I am still digesting that Bandeja Paisa that you never wrote about, lol

  • Not that it’s enough to entice me to go to Times Sq. and eat Heartland, but I’m a strong supporter of the boozy milkshake concept.

  • There’s a Heartland Brewery in my building. I get a burger there every once in a great while. They are ho-hum at best. I hope they come up with something different at HB.

    BTW, don’t hold your breath on AHT covering it. They probably will, but in their expansion into a burger site with much wider geographical variety and coverage, they have dropped the ball on NYC coverage in a major way.

    I still love AHT but I think the taking of their laser-like focus off the NYC burger scene is kind of a mistake, given that it’s at the heart of the new burger golden age.

    Example: HB Burger is open – that’s significant. AHT has some kind of strange biscuit burger hybrid in Mt Airy, NC as the big lead post today. And not a single mention of HB. How come I’m reading about a major new burger joint on Midtown Lunch and not AHT?

    Because Midtown Lunch is still hungry, has not lost the eye of the tiger or it’s focus, that’s why. Maybe when Midtown Lunch joins serious eats it’ll get lazy, too.

  • I agree Heartland Brewery is very bleh, I’ve been to the one on 34th and 5th several times, every time I leave flat and uninspired.
    The beer at the Gingerman is better, the food at any local cart (say rafiqi’s on 31st and Broadway) is 100x better.

  • Burger is good but too small. cute waitress though

  • I took a look at the menu and realized this was not just the Heartland Brewery burger moved to a different location. Heartland haters/burger lovers, like me, should take a look.

    So I headed down there.

    When I arrived there was a line of about a 60 or 70 people. Oh no! At 12:05. As I got closer I realized they were just about all high school girls. Normally that would not deter me (heh heh,) but I didn’t have time to wait today. I guess some kind of tourist bus must have dropped them off. I’ll have to go another day.

    As a consolation, I stopped in Virgil’s for a pulled pork sandwich. I was pleasantly surprised to see the BBQ Slider plate as a special – three little potato rolls, one pulled pork, one pulled chicken with applewood bacon and a slice of cheddar, and one beef brisket with fried onions. Nice! Then I passed by the Treats truck on 45 near 6th on the way back and got a caramel brownie.

    No burger, but I’m feeling fine!

  • hmmm…9 bucks for a burger…well, about there, but i can seehow everything could add up to about 20 bucks after the typical meal (burger, fries and a drink)…

    I am new to New york and still chuckle everytime I see all these expensive lunches (this is not one of them really)… it’s lunch, it’s a burger, that’s it… while this place is more on the mid-level…i stil have to say the obvious…it’s a burger…and really, i have tried MANY of these so-called “good burger places” most end up barely passing.

  • I’ll take one for the team.

  • Ate there today. The tuna burger is teh yum (a little small) and the mini Sundae’s for $1.75 really hit the spot. You can pull of spending 13 bucks a person if you do it right here.

    There was a 5 minute wait to be seated for a party of 2 at 1pm.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    My buddy and I took a work lunch break here, excited for a new burger joint. We were ecstatic that the wait was only 5 minutes for a table, but what ensued after that was ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE.

    We ordered our food (just burgers) and had to wait 45 minutes!!!! Everyone else was being served and the our waiter and even the manager came over to reassure us it would be just a few more minutes….this was awful. never again.

  • Burger was OK….completely edible and nice size for lunch. BUT, the tater-tots are HANDS DOWN the best I’ve had. I was all ready for generic frozen tater-tots…..what i got were little fried balls of potato heaven!!!!

Leave a Reply

You must log in or register to post a comment.