[We interrupt the Spanish Tour with a new restaurant in our back yard]
We visited the highly publicized 5 Napkin Burger in our home neighborhood of Hells Kitchen earlier tonight. It's a second restaurant from the owner of Marseille next door and it replace the never too successful Jezebel.
Unfortunately, they're still working out some kinks in their operations. We waited for over 45 minutes to be seated though we were told 15-20. When we were finally told by the host that we were the next party to be seated, a different manager then sat two other two tops in front of us. I wandered over to the host to ask what was going on and even though I had been in the same seat at the bar for so long, the manager said he had sent out a search party and they had not been able to find us. The host just looked embarrassed.
At this point, we were hungry, so when the waiter eventually showed up, we ordered everything right away. And then we waited another 40 minutes for our food to arrive. We finished up in a short time and ... waited for the check, finally having to flag down a manager to get it.
Interestingly, while waiting, I noticed Adam Kuban show up. He was smarter than we were and ate at the bar. I'm curious what he thought, and even more curious that no one working at a hamburger place knew who he was.
So, onto the burger. Even though I asked for something between Medium Rare (their default) and Medium, mine was definitely on the other side of medium rare. The meat was good and the bun was tasty. It was a larger burger than I've become used to, but it had a good consistency. I especially liked that they kept the fries (which were good) separate.
Overall first impressions: It's got potential if it can work out it's kinks. It's not cheap ($4 for an small glass of iced tea, $15 for the burger) but the food was pretty good. Their biggest weakness is their service, which while good intentioned and friendly, left us waiting for a long long time. It's not good when you make the Shake Shack line look speedy.