Jackson Hole, 64th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue

Once upon a time, I’d thought the name Jackson Hole was tongue in cheek; the only Jackson Hole I’d ever dealt with was the one in Bayside, and it looked more like your average run-of-the-mill Queens diner than a HOLE.  It was years and years ago, but I vaguely recall getting a vaguely yummy but still standard diner meal- something with mashed potatoes, a meat, whatever.  But as it happened, apparently, the Manhattan locations are really, truly holes in the wall (which, you know, isn’t always a bad thing- some really good food can be found in dives/holes!).  When a friend suggested that “You know, I used to eat there with my two coworkers, and we had to take turns eating for lack of elbow room,” I laughed it off, thinking she was joking. 

With all the hoopla lately over burgers, encouraged by BLT Burger’s grand opening a few weeks ago, and the whole In & Out vs. Shake Shack debate, my friends and I decided to go for burgers at Jackson Hole- afterall, aren’t they famous?  Aren’t they supposed to be good, from before burgers becoming “haute cuisine”?  Sure, why not. 

Before going, I hopped over to A Hamburger Today to see what they weighed in on the place.  It was worrisome at best that I couldn’t find any reviews of the place on a site dedicated to sampling burgers, and the only mention JH even got on the site was from an interview with Celia Cheng, the editor of Cravings, saying that Jackson Hole is the most overrated burger in the city.  I shrugged it off, though, because the decision had been made and to go against 5 other hungry girls is never a good idea. 

Emphasis that we originally chose the 35th Street location as it is, well, central to all of our locations, but the early people arrived to find it closed for renovations.  This is not noted anywhere on their site, nor, particularly, on the page that lists that location’s information.  Annoyed but not deterred, we trooped to the 64th Street location.  Already, though, the evening was not off to a good start. 

Immediately, I noted that the place was extremely tiny, but the waiter seemed friendly enough.  They humored me when I didn’t know what to get to drink (BB and I arrived about 10 minutes later than everyone else), and then lit up when I noticed they bottled their own root beer.  (Which was alright, a bit too caffeinated for me, but not sharp enough to be a good root beer, in my opinion.) 

Before I get into my burger and why it was the worst burger I’ve ever eaten, let me show you some pictures, with the opinions of those who consumed them:

Mushroom turkey burger
BB: “My mushrooms had no taste.  The onions weren’t cooked enough in the onion rings, and my turkey patty had huge chunks of garlic in it, which I don’t like.  I don’t like this place.”

Southwest burger, no onions
HB: “The burger patty itself has no taste but with the guacamole it’s pretty good.  The fries suck.  For half the price, I can get a burger just as big that tastes better and is in a better location, but without the same variety of toppings to choose from.  I’ll pass.”

The Baldouni burger (Swiss, mushrooms, onions)
ShB: “It was good with the toppings, but the meat itself was flavorless.  But I’m all about the toppings, so…”

Southwest burger (no fries/not a platter)
StB: “I felt like I was eating lots of ground meat.  It wasn’t particularly flavorful.”
Also, though I don’t recall her exact words, when her burger first came, it was raw.
I’m not sure what spurred her to break it open before eating, but it was a good thing she did.
She ordered it medium rare, but it came medium raw, which is disgusting.
She had to send it back, and it came back well done, but we all agreed that was better than raw at this point.
Honestly, if you make burgers that big, and all the time, how hard is it to time it to make sure it’s cooked inside???
Come on now… seriously.  And others had ordered their medium, medium rare, but had no problem.
Look at that.  How disgusting is that?  I’m not squeamish about rare steak- the picture doesn’t even capture exactly the center which was still moo’ing.  I snapped a quick shot before the guy came over and asked us what was wrong, “Do you want more fire?”
YEAH, I want more fire- I want my damn burger to be cooked.

The Santa Fe (guacamole, cheddar and raw onion)
SpB: “I’m happy, it tastes good and I’m full.”

Bacon burger
This was my first burger at Jackson Hole, and I’m a firm believer of trying out a place’s basics because if you can’t get the basics right, well, what’s the point?  I like to eat my burgers with a bit of mayo, pickles, sometimes bacon, and always tomato, no lettuce.  This burger was a huge and I mean huge disappointment to me.  The patty itself was completely tasteless; it’d never seen the joy of a sprinkle of salt or fresh ground black pepper.  Not a dash of onion powder; nada.  Is the size supposed to make up for lack of taste?  Because it doesn’t.  Maybe this is why they offer so many toppings; to shield the fact that the burger itself tastes like nothing but cooked (if you’re lucky, that is) ground beef, shaped into a patty.  I actually had to dip it in ketchup, liberally, to get some flavor and to manage to eat it.  I rarely put ketchup because if a hamburger is seasoned properly, I generally find it unnecessary: the juice of a good burger will meld with the tomato slices I put on, the bacon provides the salt, and voila, some magic combination that pleases my palate.  Unfortunately, I found no such magic combination at Jackson Hole.  Even the bun was bland; not toasted and supremely boring.

Requisite bisection shot:

Dry, dull, flavorless: yum.

I left severely disappointed and vow not to return until… until what?  I don’t know, but with the current burger trend, I really see no reason to ever return to this burger-forsaken place again.

Yvo says: AVOID, AVOID, AVOID!  Tourist trap or whatever, but unless you’re really into giant flavorless patties of ground beef, which, sure, could be the case (hey, someone is looking for greasy pizza, so it could happen), well, this place sucks.  The service was pleasant enough, and the price was okay (about $15 a person, with soda), but as HB noted, there are better places for cheaper (and probably also for the same amount of money).  The location- all of their Manhattan locations for me personally actually- isn’t exactly convenient to where I’d be or be going, so it’s definitely not a place any of us will return to unless truly pressed for a place to eat- the place is also so tiny, as to be almost uncomfortable.  I like being able to say dumb things to my friends without having someone at the next table say loudly that I was wrong.  No thanks!
not recommended at all