Old New York: A Sad Last Look at What's Left of Big Nick's

By Mitch Broder

It was clear almost immediately that I was not going to be getting a hamburger.

And yet I stayed. Surely someone would show up and say it was all a mistake.

I'm never in the last four stages of grief. I enter denial and I stay there. This applies to the loss of places as much as to the loss of people. So when I visited Big Nick’s Burger Joint & Pizza Joint a few days after its closing, I was sure that it would be coming back. Despite all that crap in my booth.

Big Nick’s is the joint that had more character in its 28-page menu than most restaurants in New York today have in their 28-day lifespans. Ironically, for all its earthiness, it gave the Upper West Side class. It closed last week because its space can now be rented for the price of 10,000 hamburgers a month.

Nevertheless, Big Nick — ever the gracious host — invited me in, even if, for the first time, I would have to leave hungry. I roamed the ruins, unsure what I craved more, the earthiness or a hamburger. It didn’t matter. Neither one could have existed without the other.

The earthiness included framed photographs of mostly stars of the future, and little signs for selections like the Sumo Burger (“Over One Pound [1 LB.] of Meat”). The hamburgers included 60 varieties among which was the Sumo, although, if you were going strictly by weight, that one should have counted as two.

Nick always embraced his jointhood. He put quotes on the back of the menu like: “Big Nick’s is a 24-hour dump that … inspires affection.” His place was a roadside diner, except that the road was Broadway. On his tables, there was never a laptop. On his TVs, there were always Three Stooges.

Nick is actually Demetrios Niko Imirziades, who arrived from Athens in 1961 to make his Broadway debut. He washed dishes. But he also diligently attended restaurant school and worked his way up to manager at the coffee shop that he would buy in 1964.

He renamed it The Burger Joint (now the name of the unconnected joint at Le Parker Meridien). A few years later, he unveiled the Big Nick burger in response to the Big Mac. In 1976, he renamed the place Big Nick’s. The name was accurate. Nick had once excelled in discus and shot put.

Through the years, Nick has opened and closed about a dozen other joints. One was Big Nick’s on 71^st Street, which still exists but is no longer his. The last to go, before the flagship, was the nearby Niko’s Mediterranean Grill & Bistro, which closed in 2011. It had been inspired by his mother’s cooking.

I thought of all this as I trudged past the now burgerless grill, the now empty stools, and the now Stoogeless television sets. I thought of it as I gazed at the corner booth where I once sat with Nick, when he told me that it was the booth in which he’d had a heart attack thirty years ago.

Now, before I left, I spoke with Nick outside. He seemed confident that he’d be opening another place, around 20 blocks up. “It’ll be a little bit more limited menu,” he said. “It’ll be a combination of what I sold at Niko’s and what I sold at Big Nick’s.”

“I will know in September if something’s happening, and if it doesn’t work out, maybe we’ll try something else,” he said. “Nothing is set a hundred percent.”

Except for this: The old Big Nick’s will be back. I know it. No need for anger, bargaining, or depression.

And definitely no need for acceptance.

Big Nick’s was on Broadway at 77^th Street. I’ll let you know when it comes back.

VISIT THE CITY’S OTHER VINTAGE SPOTS BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. FIND THEM ALL IN THE NEW BOOK “DISCOVERING VINTAGE NEW YORK.” IT COVERS OVER 75 PLACES THAT TAKE YOU BACK IN TIME. IT INCLUDES THE WHOLE STORY OF BIG NICK’S.

Vintage New York Presents: The Great Joints of New York City

By Mitch Broder

You can always get out of a joint — unless, of course, it's the joint.

But you can't always find a Joint, unless you bone up on your Joints.

New York just got its latest Joint, Sticky's Finger Joint, which is a great joint if you happen to like Joints that have fingers. But in its Jointhood, it is a rarity: New York is not crawling with Joints. It has little more than a handful, and they're not exactly hip joints.

Here, nonetheless, is a gallery of Manhattan's best-known Joints. I won't be surprised if I've missed a couple. Joints are just the sort of thing you blow.

Above is Big Nick's Pizza Joint, which is to the left of Big Nick's Burger Joint, which is shown at the top. The joints are on Broadway near 77th Street. I took these pictures on February 22nd, the day that Big Nick celebrated his golden anniversary by selling burgers for sixty cents. The enormous lines alarmed passersby.

While Big Nick also founded Big Nick's Burger Joint & Pizza Joint Too, he no longer owns it, though it still acts as if he does. It's on 71st Street at Columbus Avenue. When I took this picture, its burgers were $6.75, and there were no lines.

Paul's Da Burger Joint, on Second Avenue near St. Mark's Place, has long claimed to have the best burger in the city. Either way, it has one of the best fake burgers in the city, and it's next to Gem Spa, which has long claimed to have the best egg cream in the city.

Behind a great curtain at Le Parker Meridien is the somewhat secret Burger Joint, whose only signage is a neon burger and the jaunty poster you see here. The hotel is fancy; the joint is a dump. That's the irony. Find it on 56th Street between Sixth and Seventh.

Clearly, joints are for meat, except in the case of Kate's — which may be why her joint, on Avenue B at Fourth Street, shut down last week. Kate Halpern's "vegetarian diner" sold things like Buffalo Unchicken Wings and the Not Reuben Sandwich. At the end, Kate was thinking of adding some meat. Maybe she just should have changed the name.

Tell me if you know of another Joint. Just don't get yourself out of joint.

Fanelli Café: Can a 164-Year-Old New York City Bar Survive Me?

By Mitch Broder

I recently had my first lunch at Fanelli Café. I like to give a new place a century and a half to settle in.

If the findings of Richard McDermott are correct, there has indeed been lunch of some sort at the site of Fanelli since 1847. McDermott made it his hobby to pinpoint the ages of the city’s old bars. He put Fanelli second after Bridge Café, born in 1794, the year of the Whiskey Rebellion.

When I got to Fanelli I saw seven doors, which made me feel welcome. I chose the two under the transom that faces the street corner. The glass bears the name of Nicholas Gerdes, who sold the bar 110 years ago. I was too late for his food. Also for the Fanellis’. They sold the bar 30 years ago.

My corner. I'm not in the picture.

Nevertheless, I’d heard that the place still has a great burger. I sat in a room with yellow tin walls and wooden chairs that could predate Nicholas. It was cozy. I ordered the burger. It came, and it looked just fine — except that the bun was riddled with pulverized onion.

I don’t like onion. Even pulverized. I told the waitress, and she offered to exchange my bun for a lobster-roll bun. I accepted. She also assured me that I was not the first with this problem, which was a surprise, as was the lobster-roll bun, since Fanelli doesn’t sell lobster rolls.

The burger was delicious, though for a while I was craving lobster. I wondered why they serve everybody onion buns without asking. I spoke to the owner, Sasha Noe. He was sympathic, but he appeared to think that I actually was the first with this problem.

And yet he was troubled. We spent some time talking of the bar’s history. McDermott’s research shows that Fanelli began as a grocery, but it points out that there was a fine line then between “grocery” and “saloon.” A succession of people became the saloon’s keepers, including Gerdes from 1878 to 1902. Michael Fanelli took over in 1922. Sasha’s family replaced the Fanellis in 1982.

But as we talked, Sasha kept coming back to the onions. I felt bad. I’d had my lobster bun. I tried to reassure him. He had the second-oldest bar in New York City, I reminded him. But he still seemed wounded. If you happen to make onionless burger buns, this might be the time to pitch him.

I said goodbye to Sasha and again mentioned that I loved his burger.

“Now you got me thinkin’,” he said. “I’m not gonna sleep tonight.”

Choose your bun at Fanelli Café, 94 Prince Street, at Mercer Street, in Manhattan.

The Primeburger Coffee Shop: Have Lunch With Some Tomatoes

By Mitch Broder

Among the best scenes for meeting chicks in Manhattan are the lounges, the clubs, the cafés, and that old place where you eat in a high chair.

The chicks you meet there may live in Argentina, but I never promised a lasting relationship.

The place is The Primeburger, whose menu attraction is the Primeburger, but whose main attraction is its portrayal of 1965. It has barely changed since its renovation that year, which is why it still has the high chairs, which I personally see as airplane seats, which doesn’t make them any less humbling.

The seats are in three-sided nooks. The nooks have two seats in each side and an end table in each corner. They’re like little living rooms. When you sit, your waiter locks you in with a swiveling fake-walnut tray. When food is on it, you can’t get up. Neither can the chicks.

I recently had four Argentinian chicks in my living room (not including the women above). They were tourists, as many Primeburger patrons are. We were sitting there facing each other. They had to at least smile at me. Fortunately for them, I was more interested in 1965.

The Primeburger began as part of a chain called Hamburg Heaven. The store opened in ’42 and became The Primeburger in ’65. The current owners bought it in ’76 and decided that one renovation was enough. That has helped them survive, not that it’s hurt to be across from St. Patrick’s.

The walnut Formica walls are original. The blond Formica counters are original. The black perforated conical midcentury-modern light fixtures are original. The mechanical change-maker is original, the burger broilers are original, and at least one waiter is, too, though they all wear white coats with “The Primeburger” embroidered on them, so they will all look original.

Most of all, the seats are original — and rare, if not unique. People wait to sit in them, because the people who are already in them tend to stay there. “I take pictures all day long,” says the co-manager Michael Di Miceli. “We get people in here on their first day in New York, and they come back the whole week.”

So there might be time for a lasting relationship, though I’m not looking. I chatted a bit with my chicks and sent them packing to Argentina.

Of course, you may not even get chicks. Your may get four men in black suits, which is what replaced my chicks. But then, that could be just what you’re looking for.

Make friends at The Primeburger, at 5 East 51st Street, between Madison and Fifth avenues, in Manhattan.