The thick burger had a good run. For decades, American restaurants competed to make the tallest, fattest, most towering stack of beef possible. Half-pound patties. Triple stacks. Burgers so thick you had to unhinge your jaw to take a bite. They looked impressive. They photographed well.
They were also, objectively, the wrong way to make a burger.
The Science: Why Thin Wins
The flavor of a burger does not come from the interior. A thick, pink, medium-rare center is pleasant texture-wise, but it is essentially unseasoned ground beef. The flavor comes from the crust -- the thin, deeply browned exterior that forms when beef touches a surface hot enough to trigger the Maillard reaction.
The Maillard reaction is a chemical process that occurs above 280 degrees Fahrenheit. Amino acids and sugars in the beef react to produce hundreds of new flavor compounds -- the complex, savory, slightly sweet flavors that we associate with "grilled" or "seared" meat. More surface area touching the hot surface means more Maillard reaction. More Maillard reaction means more flavor.
A thin patty has a higher crust-to-meat ratio than a thick one. That ratio is the single most important variable in burger flavor.
A smash burger maximizes this ratio. You take a ball of ground beef, place it on a screaming-hot griddle, and press it flat. The result is a thin patty with an enormous surface area relative to its volume. Every bite is mostly crust. The flavor density is extraordinary.
The History: Nothing New
The smash burger is not a recent invention. The original American roadside diners and lunch counters of the 1920s and 1930s made their burgers exactly this way. A ball of beef, pressed flat on a hot griddle, cooked fast, served on a soft bun. This was the American hamburger before the restaurant industry decided bigger was better.
What we call the "smash burger trend" is really a return to the original technique. It took a few decades of oversized pub burgers for the industry to remember what diner cooks always knew: a thin patty on a hot surface is the best burger you can make.
The Pier 69 Burger
At Pier 69 Market, the smash burger is a double. Two thin patties, each individually smashed and crusted, stacked with American cheese melting between them. The cheese choice is intentional -- American cheese melts at a lower temperature than cheddar, which means it goes fully liquid and coats every surface of the beef.
The bun is brioche, toasted on the flat-top for structure. The sauce is proprietary. The total package costs $12.50 and takes less time to eat than it took to read this paragraph.
That is the beauty of a smash burger. It does not demand your attention. It does not challenge your jaw. It just delivers flavor, fast, in a format that has been perfected over a hundred years of American cooking.
Pair it with a cold brew or a Rishi tea, and walk down to the waterfront. That is a Bay Ridge afternoon done right.
Ready for a Real Bay Ridge Coffee?
La Colombe espresso, Rishi tea, and the Pier 69 Burger. All at 10 Bay Ridge Ave, Brooklyn.
