It primes the senses for the salty, fatty explosion to come. The first thing that hits you is the tang from the special sauce. The bun, slathered in butter and burnished on the flat top, is the Martin's potato roll popularized by Shack Shack and now ubiquitous in NYC.Īnd what about the taste? The burger deftly draws on the strengths of the forms that it combines. The patties are aggressively seared on a flattop giving them a charred, crunchy crust, not quite the sear of the smashed Shack burger, but close. This insures that the burger is still juicy when cooked to medium, as all of them are (since the patties are so thin, the bar doesn't offer a choice). Because the patties on the burger are quite svelte at three ounces each, Neidich opted for a 70/30 lean to fat ratio. Neidich tried several different blends, and arrived at one that primarily features chuck with cheek thrown in for added depth of flavor. The beef comes from noted butcher Pat LaFrieda (who also supplies Shake Shack) and tastes beefier and more steak-like than anything In-N-Out offers. The double patty stack is aided by a comical amount of American cheese, which cascades down the burger face in an oozing mass, and in a deviation from both In-N-Out and Shake Shack, which both use whole leaves of lettuce, this burger sits on a pile of shredded iceberg.īut if the visuals are old-school West Coast, the essential ingredients themselves betray another more contemporary and specifically New York influence. But here it also contains mustard, making it less sweet over all. The menu description - two all beef patties, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, confit onions, special sauce - sounds strikingly close to the McDonald's Big Mac jingle (excluding those fancy confit onions, of course) but when you are confronted with the towering sandwich, its resemblance to an In-N-Out double double is clear.īeing inspired by California, the burger is suitably appointed with a 'special' sauce similar to the classic Russian dressing used as the spread at In-N-Out. Neidich looked to the diners and the drive thrus of the same era, and came up with a double patty, griddle cooked burger that is pure California. But the 'Happiest Burger' at the Happiest Hour turns out to evoke a different style. The bar is patterned on the mid-century beach resorts of California and Florida, the sort of places where one presumes a flame grilled burger, tickled by fire and seasoned by the salt in the wind would be the thing. While the bar has an accomplished chef in Thomas Lim, the burger is principally the work of Neidich, who spent close to two months exhaustively researching and developing it. The Happiest Hour is the West Village cocktail lounge from Jon Neidich of Acme and Tijuana Picnic and Jim Kearns, late of Pegu Club and The Nomad Bar. That's great news for Texans, but if a trip to the Lone Star State isn't in the cards for you, there's a better option right here in NYC: The Happiest Hour burger, which manages to combine the best of both places. But late last year in Las Vegas, and this week in Austin, TX and next year in Los Angeles, the two burger titans go head to head for the first time in the same market. The burger chains, from the West and East Coast respectively, have transcended food and become part of the popular cultural dialogue, and recently they've existed in separate universes.

In-N-Out Burger and Shake Shack garner similar breathless devotion from their followers.

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