The Problem Is Never the Food. It Is the Clock.
Every game day order in this neighborhood follows the same shape. Somebody volunteers their apartment on Tuesday. Nobody mentions food again until Saturday night. Then it is twenty minutes to kickoff, six people are already on the couch, and the person who owns the TV is standing in the kitchen scrolling an app with a growing sense that this is going badly.
The food part is easy. Bay Ridge is not short of places to get a burger. What is hard is the timing: ordering something that is still good when it gets there, getting it there before the window you actually want it in, and not ending up with twelve identical sandwiches and nothing else on the table.
We are a waterfront cafe at 10 Bay Ridge Ave, open 6 AM to 9 PM on weekdays and 7 AM to 9 PM on weekends, and a decent share of what leaves our counter on a fall Sunday is headed to somebody's living room. So here is the practical version: what travels, what does not, and how to order around a kickoff instead of against it.
What Actually Travels Well From a Cafe Griddle
Burgers, With One Honest Caveat
The Burger Factory board is the obvious anchor: the Smash Burger, a double smash patty with American cheese and special sauce on a brioche bun; the Chopped Cheese; the House Burger; the Bay Ridge Burger; the Beach Burger; the grass fed organic option. If you want the longer version of what goes into them, the beef sourcing and the smash technique both have their own posts.
The caveat: a smash burger is at its best within about fifteen minutes of leaving the griddle. That is not a Pier 69 thing, it is physics. If the TV is a few blocks away, pickup beats delivery every time, and sending one person out at the two-minute warning of the early game is a better plan than hoping a bag arrives at exactly the right moment.
The Things That Do Not Care How Long They Sit
If the room is far from us, or the group is large enough that the food will be eaten over a half hour rather than all at once, order toward the items that hold. Wraps and chicken sandwiches are built for it — The Anytime, with grilled chicken, avocado, bacon and Swiss on a wrap, is as good forty minutes later as it is at the counter, and the wrap board in general is the most forgiving part of the menu.
Pastas are the underrated game day order. The saucy tomato penne, the Mac n' Cheeseburger, the pesto chicken, the Alfredo bacon penne: they arrive hot, they stay hot in the container, and one tray feeds more people than the same money spent sandwich by sandwich. Soups do the same job. So does a Caesar or Mediterranean salad, which is usually the thing that disappears first from a table of fried food, to everyone's surprise.
Fries Are the Item You Plan Around
Fries are the most time-sensitive thing in any order, from any kitchen, anywhere. Ours come in two sizes and they are worth getting, but they should be the last thing packed and the first thing eaten. If you are picking up, carry them on your lap and not in the trunk. If you are ordering delivery to a room ten minutes away, order them anyway and accept what they will be, or skip them and get an extra pasta.
Order the burgers for the people who will eat immediately, and the pastas and wraps for the ones who will wander over at halftime.
Order for the Window You Are In
Afternoon games are the easy case. An early kickoff means ordering by late morning, which is comfortably inside our day, and a late afternoon kickoff means you can order at halftime of the earlier game and still be ahead of the rush. Both windows are the ones where delivery through GetSauce works smoothly.
Night games are where people get caught. We close at 9 PM, every day of the week. That means a late kickoff has to be fed before the kitchen closes rather than during the third quarter. The fix is simple once you know it: order in the evening so the food lands before nine, or feed the room during the afternoon and keep it light later. If you are planning around a specific start time, call (718) 777-6969 and tell us when you want the food to arrive. We will tell you honestly whether it works rather than letting you find out.
Saturdays, when the games run all day, tend to start earlier for us — the coffee order comes in before noon and the food order comes later. We open at 7 AM on weekends, so the first half of a long day of watching is covered by La Colombe and a bag of pastries, not by burgers.
The Morning Shift: Youth Sports and Early Starts
There is a second version of game day in this neighborhood and it happens at eight in the morning on a field, not at one in the afternoon on a couch. Kids' games mean parents standing around in the cold, and the food question is the same one in a different coat.
We open at 6 AM on weekdays and 7 AM on weekends, which is early enough to catch a team on the way out. Coffee for the adults, hot chocolate for the small ones, pastries and breakfast sandwiches for everybody, juice and smoothies for the players who will not touch coffee. For a whole team afterward, the school and group catering setup is the same one we use for PTA mornings: trays, not individual orders.
Drinks, and the One Thing to Ask
The bottled list on our menu includes Corona, Modelo, Stella Artois, hard seltzer and soda, plus Essentia, FIJI and Poland Spring. One honest note: what can go out with a delivery order is not always the same as what you can carry from the counter, so ask when you order instead of assuming it will be in the bag.
For the half of the room that is not drinking, the cold-pressed juices and the smoothies do more work than another round of soda, and a cold brew is the correct answer for anyone who still has to drive home afterward.
Six People or Twenty: When to Stop Using the App
Under about eight people, build the order yourself — an app cart or a phone call both work, and you can get specific about who wants what. Above about ten, the math changes and so should the method. Individual orders for a dozen people take a long time to build, take a long time to make, and cost more than the same food in trays.
That is what catering is for, and it is less formal than it sounds. Platters, trays and boxes, delivery and setup, serving utensils and disposable plates included, with a menu we put together around your headcount rather than a fixed package. For a watch party the useful shape is a tray of handhelds cut in halves, one pasta, one salad, fries timed to arrive last, and a coffee setup for the people who came for the company rather than the game. Birthdays that happen to land on a Sunday get the same treatment.
Tell us the headcount, the kickoff time and the address through the party catering form or over the phone, and we will come back with a menu and a quote. We usually answer within a few hours during business hours.
Where to Find Us
Pier 69 Market is at 10 Bay Ridge Ave in Brooklyn, open 6 AM to 9 PM Monday through Friday and 7 AM to 9 PM Saturday and Sunday, with delivery through GetSauce. Browse the full menu, check hours and directions, or look at what else works for lunch in the neighborhood when the game is not the point.
Feed the Room Before Kickoff
Burgers, wraps, pastas, salads and fries from 10 Bay Ridge Ave. Open 6 AM to 9 PM weekdays, 7 AM to 9 PM weekends. Call (718) 777-6969 for anything over ten people.
