Wall Street Burger Shoppe: Bringing the kool back to old skool

What we love: Shoppe Singles for $4, braised pork belly, and our token vegetarian reports the mushroom burger was delicious.

What we could live without: The Shoppe Singles are $3 more upstairs than they are downstairs.

Burger scale: A

Price range: $$$ out of $$$$ upstairs, $ out of $$$$ downstairs.

Payment method: cash, major credit card

Kudos to the Wall Street Burger Shoppe (WSBS) for opening a retro burger joint in a neighborhood that becomes a ghost town after dark. The Financial District needs more places like the WSBS.

Co owned by the same guy who started Pop Burger, the WSBS brings back retro in two ways. The downstairs part of the restaurant is a vintage Philly diner with vinyl topped stools and formica countertops. The Bar Room upstairs is a nod to classic New York gangster movies, complete with a wood bar that could have easily come from the set of the Untouchables. We sat upstairs and ordered from the Bar Menu.


The WSBS gets their Hereford beef from Ottamanelli & Sons on Bleecker, and it certainly tastes like quality beef. Our Bar Room Burger had a nice char on the outside and was tender and a perfect medium rare on the inside. It came on a sesame bun and was topped with gruyere, sauteed mushrooms, onions and braised pork belly. The pork belly seemed an odd choice, but we liked the complexities it added to our burger. Despite its heaviness, it gave our burger a slightly different texture, saltiness and flavor than a standard bacon cheeseburger and made our burger interesting in ways that makes us want to go back and have it again.

For more pictures of our visit to The Wall Street Burger Shoppe, go to the album.

Burger Series 13: The Wall Street Burger Shoppe

Goodbye summer, hello fall!

We meet at the Wall Street Burger Shoppe this month. Its burger made NY Magazine's 2008 Cheap Eats list:

"In a space done up like Nate's Peach Pit from Beverly Hills, 90210, hordes of bonus-starved stock touts take refuge in old-fashioned four-ounce cheeseburgers adorned with nothing more than lettuce and the house special sauce for just $4 a pop."

Although if you're dying to splurge, the WSBS is also home to NYC's most expensive burger. For $175, you can treat yourself to a "Kobe beef patty, lots of black truffles, seared foie gras, aged Gruyere cheese, wild mushrooms and flecks of gold leaf on a brioche bun."

To get to the WSBS, take the 1 to South Ferry, the 2,3 to Wall Street, the 4,5 to Bowling Green, or the N,R,W to Whitehall / South Ferry. The restaurant is on Water Street right after Broad Street.

Can't wait to see you there!