Burgers, Fries and Synchronicity
An American Classic Often Is the Measure of a Menu 

With the exception of Ray Croc and the meatpacking industry itself, perhaps no other form of business enterprise in the country has benefited more from the hamburger than the bar.
    Bars make their reputation off the burgers they ply to patrons along with their other beer and spirits mainstays. One hand washes the other, so to speak, with the sale of a bar burger and fries naturally requiring a brew or two to wash it down.
    Even other bar classic foods, from chicken wings to pizza to tacos to French fries, owe much to the hamburger in all of its variations for greasing the wheels of an on-premise comfort food boom worth billions of dollars annually. 
    Occasionally, some well intended soul will challenge the institution of the hamburger as a retro food with no place in a heart-healthy society where red meat –– and the onion rings that complement it –– are a proven no-no.
    But as Barmuda Corp. Director of Marketing Jennifer Kramer Williams has come to understand in helping to create the menus at the several bars and restaurants owned by the Iowa-based food and beverage chain, “It doesn’t pay to get between patrons and their burger and fries.”

The Cadillac of Hamburgers
    While it began as a pub in New York City back in 1884, Manhattan’s P.J. Clarke’s owes its reputation and its future to the hamburgers for which it is famous around the world.
    Owned in part by George Steinbrenner of New York Yankees fame, the historic P.J. Clark’s location at 55th Street and Third Avenue is burger heaven for the famous and the not so famous and has been so for more than a century.
    With a bevy of awards presented to it for what is widely viewed by everyone from Esquire magazine to The New York Post as one of the best hamburgers in the whole of the Big Apple, and sales numbered in the thousands of burgers each week, P. J. Clarke’s indeed is a testament to the macho power of the hamburger to make a bar’s reputation.
    “Our famous hamburger is the Cadillac of hamburgers,” says General Manager Patrick Walsh. “That is the way that Nat King Cole described it.”
    A 6-ounce slab of Nebraska beef prepared on a flattop grill and served on a traditional bun with a slice of onion, Walsh says the house hamburger, starting at $8.50, can be ordered in a number of sizes and in countless combinations, and is one of three things for which P.J. Clarke’s is renowned.
    “The first is the Tiffany-glass-dome urinals located in the middle of the venue that Esquire once called the best in all the world,” Walsh says. “The second thing is our famous hamburgers, and the third is the service that you get when you come here.”
    In addition to its standard classic hamburger, patrons such as Axl Rose and the Hiltons can stop in and have a beverage and a burger with Swiss, Mozzarella or Bleu cheese, with smothered onions, chili or sautéed mushrooms, or opt for the Bernaise Burger. Mini versions of the house classic burger also are available on the appetizer menu.
    When it comes to the hamburgers at P.J. Clarke’s, Walsh says his customers, as many as 1,500 of them every day, are highly creative and ruggedly individual about the way they eat them.
    One of the most inventive ways that customers enjoy the burgers there involves the onion strings also found on the P.J.’s menu.
    “Customers will order chili cheeseburgers and add on some of our deep fried onion strings,” Walsh says.
    If patrons occasionally are in the mood for something different or more substantial, they can order up one of P.J.’s 14-ounce Sirloin steaks, served with shoestring fries, home fries or mashed potatoes. Another specialty potato side is known as Bubble & Squeak. “It is a small Irish potato pancake made with bacon and cabbage and cooked on the flat top grill,” Walsh says. “We call it that because that is the sound it makes when you cook it.”

Ketchup, Mustard and Nostalgia
    Although the hamburger has evolved over time, Walsh says much about this egalitarian and thoroughly modern food source remains unchanged.
    “When it really took hold of people’s imagination, it was a meal on the go, sold from off of wagons and lunch carts,” he says. “It was what was affordable, what was nutritious and tasty. These guys (hamburger peddlers) were the pillars of the community. They had a smile for all. After all, when you think back to when hamburgers become popular, things were not too bright.”
    “Part of the synchronicity of the hamburger is that as the staple American standard, if you do the best one around, it becomes a measure of how good you are across