Walk down Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene today and you’ll see plenty of polished windows and expensive menus. But for a solid decade, the corner near the corner was anchored by something different. It was 67 Burger. It wasn't fancy. It wasn't trying to be a "concept." It was just a place where you could get a very good burger and a very thick milkshake without feeling like you were paying a Brooklyn tax for the privilege.
When people talk about 67 Burger New York, they usually lead with the nostalgia. It opened back in 2004, a time when Fort Greene was still finding its modern identity and "artisanal" hadn't yet become a dirty word. Jeffrey Maslany, the owner, didn't set out to reinvent the wheel. He just wanted a neighborhood joint. He succeeded. Then he opened a second one on Flatbush Avenue. For a while, it felt like 67 Burger was the blueprint for how to grow a local brand without losing its soul.
Then it vanished.
The Customization Trap and Why 67 Burger Nailed It
Most burger places today give you three choices and tell you to deal with it. Not here. At 67 Burger New York, the menu was basically a math problem. You picked a patty—beef, turkey, veggie, chicken—and then you chose from about 15 different "styles."
The "67 Style" was the namesake. Blue cheese and bacon. It sounds simple because it is. But the quality of the blue cheese mattered. It wasn't that weird, chalky stuff you get in a plastic cup at a wings place. It was creamy. It cut through the fat of the beef.
- The Flatbush: Topped with cheddar and fried onions.
- The Alpine: Swiss and mushrooms, a classic for a reason.
- The Mediterranean: Lamb-style seasoning that actually tasted like lamb.
Honestly, the veggie burger was the sleeper hit. Long before the "Impossible" or "Beyond" patties took over the world with their lab-grown heme, 67 Burger was making a homemade patty that didn't taste like a hockey puck. It was chunky. You could see the actual vegetables in it. People who weren't even vegetarians ordered it. That’s the highest compliment you can pay to a non-meat burger in Brooklyn.
The Logistics of a Neighborhood Staple
Running a restaurant in New York is a nightmare. Everyone knows this. Rent goes up, the Department of Buildings shows up to ruin your day, and suddenly your margins disappear.
For 67 Burger New York, the struggle wasn't a lack of fans. The Fort Greene location was a victim of its own success and the changing landscape of the neighborhood. When the Barclays Center opened nearby in 2012, everything changed. Foot traffic increased, sure, but so did the pressure on small businesses. The Flatbush Avenue location felt that shift more than most.
The original spot at 67 Lafayette Avenue had a specific vibe. It was narrow. It was loud. If you went there on a Friday night, you were probably bumping elbows with a Pratt student on one side and a family with three kids on the other. It was a true "third place"—that sociological term for somewhere that isn't home or work.
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Why the Burger Wars Changed Everything
By the mid-2010s, New York was hitting "Peak Burger." Shake Shack had gone public and was expanding everywhere. Five Guys was on every other block. Then you had the high-end spots like Minetta Tavern or Peter Luger’s trying to convince everyone that a $30 burger was a basic human right.
67 Burger New York sat right in the middle.
It was better than fast food. Way better. But it was cheaper than the "destination" burgers. In the restaurant industry, the middle is a dangerous place to be. You have to maintain high-quality ingredients while keeping prices low enough for the regulars to come back twice a week. Jeffrey Maslany often spoke about the importance of the "neighborhood feel," but the neighborhood was getting more expensive by the minute.
What Actually Happened to the Locations?
The end didn't happen all at once. It was a slow fade.
The Flatbush Avenue location closed first. It’s hard to compete with the sheer volume of chains that moved into that corridor once the arena became the center of the Brooklyn universe. Then, in 2017, the original Fort Greene flagship shut its doors.
There was no big scandal. No massive health code violation. It was the classic New York story: a lease that couldn't be renewed on terms that made sense. When a business operates for 13 years, its original lease reflects a world that doesn't exist anymore. By 2017, the rent prices in Fort Greene had leaped into another dimension.
A lot of people felt like they lost a limb. You’ve seen this happen before. A place closes, and suddenly everyone realizes they took that Tuesday night burger for granted.
The Menu Legacy: Fries, Shakes, and Sides
We have to talk about the fries. At 67 Burger New York, they didn't just do standard spuds. They did sweet potato fries that were actually crispy. Most places serve sweet potato fries that are limp and sad, like they’ve given up on life. These had structural integrity.
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And the shakes? They were thick enough to cause a localized vacuum in your straw. They used Ciao Bella gelato for a while, which gave them a different texture than the standard soft-serve mix you find at most joints.
What Made the "67 Experience" Different:
- The Buns: They used brioche, but it wasn't that overly sweet, cake-like bread that falls apart the second the juice hits it. It held up.
- The Beer: They actually cared about the tap list. You could get a local Brooklyn brew long before it was mandatory for every bistro in the city.
- The Atmosphere: No white tablecloths. Just wood, brick, and the smell of searing meat.
If you look at Yelp or TripAdvisor archives for 67 Burger New York, you see a recurring theme: "Reliable." In a city that thrives on the new, the trendy, and the "limited time only," being reliable is actually a radical act. You knew what you were getting. You knew it would be good. You knew the staff wouldn't treat you like you were an inconvenience.
Misconceptions About the Closure
Some people think 67 Burger failed because the quality dropped. Having eaten there toward the end, I’d argue that isn't true. The burger was still great. The problem was the math of New York City real estate.
Others think it was "pushed out" by a specific competitor. It wasn't. It was pushed out by an ecosystem that no longer favors the medium-sized independent restaurant. To survive now, you either have to be a tiny hole-in-the-wall with zero overhead or a massive corporate entity with a legal team and deep pockets.
67 Burger New York was a "mom and pop" that grew just enough to be successful, but not enough to be invincible.
The Search for a Replacement
Since 2017, people in Fort Greene have been looking for the "new" 67 Burger. There are plenty of options, but nothing feels quite the same.
- Gotham Burger Social Club: Great burgers, but it’s a different, smash-burger vibe.
- Emily: Incredible burgers, but it’s a "pizza place" first and it’s significantly more expensive.
- Shake Shack: It’s fine. It’s consistent. But it lacks the grit and personality of a local shop.
The reality is that 67 Burger New York represented a specific era of Brooklyn. It was the era of "New Brooklyn" before it became "Luxury Brooklyn." It was a time when you could still have a relatively affordable dinner in a cool neighborhood without a two-hour wait or a reservation made three weeks in advance on an app.
How to Recreate the 67 Burger at Home
If you're still craving that specific flavor, you can get close. The secret wasn't a "special sauce"—it was the assembly.
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First, get high-quality ground chuck. You want a 20% fat content. Don't go lean; lean is the enemy of flavor. Don't overwork the meat. If you pack it too tight, you’re making a meatball, not a burger.
Second, the "67 Style" requires a pungent blue cheese. Don't be shy. The bacon needs to be thick-cut and rendered until it's crispy but still has some chew.
Finally, the bun. Lightly toast a brioche bun with a little butter. The heat from the patty should slightly melt the blue cheese, creating a sort of natural sauce that binds the bacon to the meat. It’s simple, but it’s a science.
What This Means for the Future of NYC Dining
The story of 67 Burger New York is a cautionary tale for foodies. We often celebrate the new "hot" opening while ignoring the staples that have been feeding us for a decade.
When these places close, a piece of the neighborhood's character goes with them. The space at 67 Lafayette has seen other tenants, but for those of us who lived there in the 2000s, it will always be the burger joint.
If you want to support the current "67 Burgers" of the world, the advice is simple: Go eat there. Don't just order delivery—which eats up their margins with fees—but actually show up. Sit at the counter. Order a shake.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Diner:
- Check the Lease Status: If you have a favorite local spot, keep an eye on how long they've been there. Often, a 10-year or 15-year anniversary is when the "rent hike" danger zone begins.
- Order Direct: If you’re getting takeout from a local Brooklyn spot, call them or use their own website. GrubHub and UberEats take a massive cut that can be the difference between a restaurant staying open or closing.
- Look for "The Middle": Seek out those restaurants that aren't fast food but aren't fine dining. They are the most vulnerable part of the NYC food ecosystem right now.
- Explore the History: Understanding the history of spots like 67 Burger New York helps you appreciate the culinary map of the city beyond what’s currently trending on TikTok.
The "Best Burger in New York" lists will always change. New contenders will pop up with wagyu beef and truffle oil and gold flakes. But for a lot of people, the best burger was the one they could afford on a Tuesday night, three blocks from their apartment, served on a paper-lined plastic basket. That was the magic of 67 Burger. It wasn't trying to be the best in the world. It was just trying to be the best for its neighbors. And for thirteen years, it was.