A GAS STATION BURGER DEBUTS IN THE WEST VILLAGE
A staple of the South, the gas station restaurant has been alive and well for at least 20 years, with many of them specializing in everything from fried chicken to pho. The model has made it to the West Village, where a new burger joint called Smacking Burger opened this past Saturday inside the Mobil station at 51-63 Eighth Avenue, just north of Horatio Street. The owner, Tommy Hondros, also owns the last gas station in Lower Manhattan, while his girlfriend, Elizabeth Torres, is running the burger joint.
There are four types of smash burgers available: the Classic ($5.50), a single 2.75-ounce patty with American cheese, sweet pickles, ketchup, mustard, and onions cooked into the patty, like it’s done at Hamburger America; the Big Smack ($9), with two onion-cooked patties along with lettuce, tomato, and its proprietary Smacking sauce; the O.K.T.O. ($9), a double patty Oklahoma-style burger (a stack of thin-sliced onions on a patty, cooked together on a griddle) with horseradish sauce; and an A.T.W. (“all the way,” $12), that adds bacon to the Smacking burger formula.
I watched, enthralled, as Torres took pre-formed, ground-meat balls out of the refrigerator drawer, and smashed them with a tangle of onions with the back of a spatula: Her working was punctuated by the ringing of a bell as cars drove into the service station driveway.
I was instructed to go outside and wait for my food at one of the gray picnic tables near the gas pumps. The double-pattied Big Smack was better than expected; it had not been smacked so hard that the moisture was completely gone from the meat. The Smacking sauce could have been any mayo-based sauce, only it’s not particularly sweet, which is good. The pickles were sweet, and I would have preferred dill for more balanced flavors.
The All-the-Way burger with bacon sat up higher in the red checkerboard box, but it’s essentially the same as the Smack burger, with more items. Make sure you don’t miss the fries ($3): They are made from fresh potatoes, skin-on, and have been carefully fried. And the Smacky sauce goes very well with them, so ask for it if you didn’t get extra with your burger.
The menu promises all sorts of add-ons, priced from 50 cents (for “shredduce,” pickles, and Dominican “hot chimi” sauce) to $1.50 (for bacon jam) to $4 (for bacon). I found the burgers gloppy enough already without any additions.
For drinks, turn around and select one from the gas station grocery’s refrigerator case: All the usual sodas are available, and this one has beer, too. You can drink it with your burger and fries at the gray picnic tables, as people pump their own gas, and the motorists in the line of cars honk at the other drivers in the hopes of getting their gas faster.
