Smacking Burger Has Opened in a West Village Gas Station | Eater NY
"Inside the Mobil station at 51-63 Eighth Avenue just north of Horatio Street, I found a new West Village burger joint run by Elizabeth Torres and owned by Tommy Hondros; it brings the South’s gas-station-restaurant model to a picnic-table–by-the-pumps experience. The menu offers four smash burgers: the Classic ($5.50), a single 2.75-ounce patty with American cheese, sweet pickles, ketchup, mustard, and onions cooked into the patty; the Big Smack ($9), two onion-cooked patties with lettuce, tomato, and the proprietary Smacking sauce; the O.K.T.O. ($9), a double Oklahoma-style burger (a stack of thin-sliced onions on a patty) with horseradish sauce; and the A.T.W. ($12), which adds bacon to the Smacking formula. I watched Torres take pre-formed meat balls from a refrigerated drawer and smash them with a tangle of onions, the work punctuated by the bell as cars pulled in; the Big Smack was better than expected—not smashed so hard that the meat dried out—and the Smacking sauce is essentially mayo-based but not overly sweet, while the sweet pickles left me wishing for dill. The All-the-Way sits taller in its box but is essentially the Smack with extras; don’t miss the fries ($3), skin-on, freshly cut and carefully fried, which pair very well with the Smacky sauce. Add-ons range from 50 cents (shredduce, pickles, Dominican “hot chimi” sauce) to $1.50 (bacon jam) to $4 (bacon), drinks are grabbed from the gas station fridge (including beer), and eating at the gray picnic tables in view of cars pumping gas makes for a unique New York burger experience where the beef is good and smashed a little less than usual, leaving it tolerably juicy." - Robert Sietsema
