The West 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe – Outdoor Flocking for LaFrieda

The West 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe
http://www.boatbasincafe.com
West 79th Street & The Hudson River
New York, NY 10024

THE CONQUEST
When the sun comes out from behind the winter’s clouds and the temperature heats up enough for jackets to come off, New Yorkers entertainment needs focus towards the outside. In a city where we are in big ass buildings all day long and beach front property, well doesn’t exist, we search out any outdoor / open-air venue we can find. One such place is The West 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe.

Located right off the Hudson River, facing New Jersey, just at the West end of 79th street, you’ll find a very popular outdoor NYC refuge. The West 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe is a casual restaurant placed in an open-air cafe whose ceiling is the West Side Highway. One can choose to sit along side the bike path, in the covered dining area or in the back patio, that is if one can find an open table! On nights and weekends, weather permitting, the place is banging with many a sun seeker looking for outdoor food and drinks. The menu is simple, focusing mostly on picnic / cookout foods like Hot Dogs, Grilled Chicken, Salads and of course, Burgers.

In fact, the Boat Basin, as it’s popularly known, doesn’t have just any old Burger patty, their ground beef is supplied by none other than LaFrieda Wholesale Meat Purveyors. Pat’s meats are world renowned for quality, freshness and taste and quite frankly, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Boat Basin proudly used his product. While on a visit recently to the Boat Basin for a meeting with my pal Brian from the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, he talked me into eating on. What that really means is Brian said “let’s have a Burger,” and I said “OK.”

THE BURGER
The Burger at the Boat Basin Cafe comes on a Sesame Bun with Lettuce, Tomato, Onion, Pickle and with a side of Potato Chips served in a plastic basket. There are no frills here, just simple, yet tasty, picnic foods. The fresh ground Beef is thick and tastes exactly as a Burger cooked on a grill should, Beefy and with that taste reminiscent of family cook outs. The produce is fresh and crisp, the Cheddar Cheese is tangy and savory and the Bun is soft.  No real surprises here, The West 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe Burger tastes like that backyard BBQ Burger that our pops used to make for us when we were kids.

FYI – They also have Sierra Nevada at the Boat Basin, lots of it…and it does a fine job of washing down LaFrieda Burgers!

7 out of 10 Ounces
-Rev

THE BURGER COUNTQUEST
420 Burgers

June 21, 2011 – 2:13 PM

The Rev Meter for Social Community
“The Rev Meter” is a social community meter for assessing how optimized a bar or restaurant is with social networking. By taking what he considers to be the 10 most important social networks and creating a point system, The Rev can accurately asses how well the business is using social networking as a tool. His goal here is to educate and assist great business to better effectively use these tools

The West 79th Street Boat Basin Cafe scores a 2 on The Rev Meter.

SCORING:
4 points or less    You’ve missed the 5 basics and are less than optimized
5 points                 You’ve covered the basics, which is better than most but far from optimized.
6 to 9 points        You’re doing better than most and on your way to becoming a well respected social community whiz.
10 points              Congrats on a perfect score! Are you hiring?