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.
