Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Superiority Burger rather quietly — and officially! — debuted for a few hours last night in its new home at 119 Avenue A.
The restaurant — "the theoretical vegetable restaurant," per its Instagram account — recently passed all its city inspections and got the gas turned on after 20 long months of city bureaucracy... not to mention planning and renovations here between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place.
Before last night's opening, East Village resident Brooks Headley and his team had been hosting weekend dinners to train staff ... and develop/test out menu items...
For starters, anyone who visited SB's popular previous location, a mostly to-go operation with six seats around the corner on Ninth Street (b. 2015), will be pleased to see that there is ample room inside for dining... and the space looks very similar to the previous tenant — Odessa Restaurant (1995-2020) right down to the tables, chairs, cash register station and soda counter. (The owners of Odessa remain the landlords of 119 Avenue A.)
The new SB has a classic diner look and feel, though, with the Jam, Slant 6 and the Fall on the soundtrack. (Headley played drums in several punk-hardcore bands and seems pleased by the often-obscure playlist not above dropping in a deep cut from A Flock of Seagulls.)
During two recent EVG visits, Headley (below) seemed to be in constant motion, bussing tables, chatting with customers, fiddling with the PA's volume (it's no Key Food, he admitted of the sound system) and inspecting plates of food from the kitchen...
First, a look at some of the menu items... like the Superiority Burger ("Megamouth" size, pickles, muenster cheese, mustard, roast tomato, iceberg, mayo)...
... the Collard Greens Sandwich (slow-braised collards, Cooper sharp cheese, housemade focaccia) ...
... Yuba-Verde (Hodo City yuba, sausaged ceci, broccoli rabe, Matouk's mayo on a roll)...
... twice-baked potato ...
... burnt broccoli salad...
... and there are a lot of desserts... (check the pastry case!) and ample gelato and sorbet...
SB also has a bar — the exact one from Odessa previously — and a bar area for drinks ...
... featuring homemade bar snacks (if you have a quarter)...
Headley is particularly proud of his hard-to-get Suntory Toki highball machine that dispenses super cold and extra fizzy seltzer water — billed on the menu as Best Seltzer Ever ... (and you never know who might be serving it from the bar area)...
The restaurant has many nice touches... from the placemats featuring local businesses...
... and the menu cover that quotes reviews of the first two Ramones records, as seen in a Rolling Stone ad — "Ramones get noticed..." from March 1977 (Headley found the advertisement in a shop in Japan).
Tamara Shopsin and her husband Jason Fulford designed both the placements and the menus...
... to some EV ephemera on the walls... like an ad for See Hear on Seventh Street ... and a photo outside Dojo Restaurant on St. Mark's Place...
For now, SB is open from 5 p.m. to midnight, Thursday through Monday. 
Headley said they would add lunch and eventually a breakfast menu later. Oh, and no reservations.
19 comments:
The Fall on a vegan burger joint's playlist! Can diners survive it?
Also, a flock of seagulls have deep cuts? Or actually, all their songs, besides one, are deep cuts?
Funny, when I arrived to the EV in '97, I assumed Odessa was there for decades...
Mike and Steve ran the "old" Odessa next door at 117 Avenue A for 33 years until 2013.
I'd say A Flock of Seagulls had four big hits — "I Ran (So Far Away)" (1982), "Space Age Love Song" (1982), "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" (1982) and "The More You Live, the More You Love" (1984).
And maybe a few mid-tier hits — "Nightmares" (1983) and "Transfer Affection" (1983).
The first three studio records have some under-appreciated songs that qualify as deep cuts IMO. After that, the band was never really the same starting with record No. 4 — Dream Come True (1986).
"Rainfall" from 1995's The Light at the End of the World is OK, but only if you don't listen to it while watching the video.
So happy to see this! Loved Odessa, love SB
I walked past it after the final ncaa men’s game ended. What time were they open ? Also PAVEMENT (mark ibold) and seltzer!! My two faves
@12:50
They were open from 9 p.m. to midnight last night
I can’t wait - but there is sure to be king lines - just like at all my favorite spots now. I am happy with good enough food if I can get a table in 20 minutes.
There i was gonna bide my time until the hoopla quelled but ya hadda put photo's of the food in there Grieve so lines be damned it's SB for dinner tonight! it ain't been since Kate's there was a veggie spot with some solid tunes so double extra bonus!
Long Live SB and thanks Brooks and Co. for keeping the flame burning!
I actually saw them live in '82, with a very small crowd, somewhere in the east Mediterranean.
Hope they keep the petrified holiday wreath on the door! Just need a small, brown, discarded Christmas Tree on the sidewalk as an extra classy touch!
Thank you, Superiority Burger! I'm so glad to see how little you did to the space - I can't wait to come see!
Brooks has the soda jerk look down. Huge congratulations for getting it open after such a struggle. As another Baltimore boy, very glad to see Divine in her rightful place. The menu and placemats are so so great, and so SB. Thanks Brooks, can’t wait to visit….still doing TFTs on Mondays?
So blissed-out after going here tonight. And the Pearl Pie is truly a gem.
So... I went there once without realizing it was vegan. I had heard them mentioned very positively. I bought the burger and a couple things.. brought them to a friend's place and was like "people RAVE about this burger" ... and i was so thoroughly disappointed at the taste. I had NO idea they were vegan .. so I give them that credit. But I really was so very disappointed by them as to what I was expecting... so yeah.
But go for it. Happy to see a local business do well.
Thank you for the wonderful discussion on A Flock of Seagulls. I agree, they have plenty of under-appreciated hits that are definitely deep cuts. Can't wait to stop by and try Superiority Burger! Glad they kept the integrity of Odessa.
Wow, talk about a win for the neighborhood! A beloved diner shuts down, the SB team saves it, invests in the space while keeping its soul alive and really gets the EV vibe with the decor. All of this, while also being vegan to boot!
Well done Brooks and team, bravo!
Please tell me Mark Ibold will be the new bartender.
The first song I heard from A Flock of Seagulls was the single It's Not Me Talking which the guy at 99 Records played for my fellow college DJ and me. Better than the album version.
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