Iron Man
Late-Night Burger Purists in Alphabet City

You're an adventurous person, but sometimes when 3am rolls around, you just want a burger and a beer, preferably from somewhere with a short menu and a lot of ketchup. And we mean a lot of ketchup.

Welcome to Black Iron Burger Shop, the newest go-to spot for late-night burgers, soft-opening tonight in Alphabet City.

Tucked into a hole-in-the-wall on East Fifth, this spot is for burger purists only. That means no bacon, no mushrooms, no hydrogenated soy paste, no cinnamon sugar buns, no funny business. In the old-school style, they're serving up flatter burgers than you're used to, and griddle-frying instead of flame-broiling them so you won't miss out on any juicy runoff. And the true genius: The shop keeps the grill open until three, which, according to our in-house lab, is about when your yearning for ground beef peaks (although truly, we might have preferred six). It's the less sceney, more burgery option than other recent additions to the late-night food landscape.

As you'd expect from a burger shop, the decor is stripped down—the main decorations are the massive line of ketchup bottles that will run along the perimeter of the saloon (it's total condiment immersion in there)—but what the bartender might not tell you is how green the place is. They may not be recycling their grease just yet, but the tables are all from reclaimed wood, there are no paper menus, and the beer is all on tap to avoid any wasted bottles.

Not to say they're against being wasted...