Tom just DM’d me to let me know the Prime Burger closed. That’s where I went with my dad, who worked round the corner. The last time I went there with him was about three months before he died, that’s 25 years ago. I don’t even remember the first time.
It’s one of the only things that never changed in NYC. The waiters dressed the same, they served off the same menu, they actually were the same waiters that had been there when I was a kid. One of them was a singer in The Coasters, still went on tour occasionally. He told me stories I’ve forgotten.
One of my favorite things about having grown up in NYC is taking friends not to the hippest spots, but to the oldest ones, ones where the tiles are rubbed down from a million pairs of shoes. New York is so bad at nostalgia, you can only catch traces of its scent at the edges of the most unfashionable neighborhoods.
The Prime Burger wasn’t the best burger in NYC. But it was the best place to get one. They had a little metal jar with five kinds of relishes. And the little seat-trays, like you’d find on an airplane that no longer flies.
And Andy Cameron, I don’t know how to write what I want to say, I can’t even, and maybe that’s why I’m writing about a burger restaurant instead. I’ll tell you this, though: Andy Cameron would have loved the Prime Burger. He would have fucking loved it.
PRIME (by thismustbetheplace)
