Number of burger joints on the rise

New Yorkers will be able to enjoy a variety of burgers in 2010 with the opening of a number of burger restaurants in Manhattan.

Elevation Burger, the Virginia-based chain specializing in an organic, grass-fed, free-range burger, has signed a lease for its first location at 103 West 14th Street in Union Square. The 1,900-square-foot restaurant will seat 50 to 60 guests. The restaurant, which will also have an outdoor café, is scheduled to open in May.

Also in May, Stephen Hanson and B. R. Guest Restaurants’, Bill’s Bar & Burger is scheduled to open in Rockefeller Center. The company has signed a lease for 10,000 square feet of Space On The Street and concourse levels at 50th and 51st streets, between Fifth and Sixth avenues. The first Bill’s Bar & Burger opened in October 2009 in the Meatpacking District, as The Real Deal reported in “Burger Joints Supersizing in that month’s issue.

Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group opened its first Shake Shack in Madison Square Park in 2004. In the fall of 2008, a second location opened across from the American Museum of Natural History at 366 Columbus Avenue, followed last spring with a venue at Citi Field in Flushing. Later this year, its newest location will open on the Upper East Side at 182 East 86th Street between Third and Lexington avenues.

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Five Guys Burgers and Fries debuted in the fall of 2007 with its first Manhattan location at 43 West 55th Street. The company now has four locations with the recent opening of a store at 690 Third Avenue near Grand Central Terminal. In December, the local franchisee leased its fifth Manhattan location in a 2,400-square-foot space at 36 West 48th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

At Bloomingdale’s on Third Avenue between 59th and 60th streets, you can create your own burger near the men’s lower level. Bloomingdale’s got its first build-your-own burger joint, Flip, a year ago this month.

Michael Stoler is a columnist for The Real Deal and host of real estate programs “The Stoler Report” and “Building New York” on CUNY TV and on WEGTV in East Hampton. His radio show, “The Michael Stoler Real Estate Report,” airs on 1010 WINS on Saturdays and Sundays. Stoler is a director at Madison Realty Capital as well as an adjunct professor at NYU Real Estate Institute, and a former contributing editor and columnist for the New York Sun.