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. [more]

From the October issue: Like a truly recession-weary New Yorker, this year restaurant mogul
Steve Hanson has opted to swap foie gras for burgers and fries. In January, Hanson, founder of the B.R. Guest restaurant empire,
stunned foodies by shutting down his three-star Italian gem Fiamma, a
Soho spot famous for its $92 prix fixe menu laden with indulgent foods
like foie gras and quail eggs. In published reports, Hanson blamed the recession’s decimation of Wall Streeters’ dining dollars. Now he’s firing up the grill for a far more modest American culinary staple: burgers. Hanson has leased the former home of barbeque joint the Hog Pit at 22
Ninth Avenue at 13th Street in the Meatpacking District for Bill’s Bar
& Burger. It’s slated to open later this month, serving up turkey
burgers and perhaps even spiked milkshakes.