Cozy Soup and Burger

Cozy Soup and Burger

739 Broadway
New York City, NY
(212) 477-5566

Cozy Soup and Burger is in the area of NYU, and in the '80s it used to be 1/2 the size with about 5 booths, the counter, just a small window in the front, and not nearly as sunny as it is now. It was a traditional diner where, if you ordered a burger, the short order cook would open the drawer of ground beef, take a scoop of beef, plop it on the grill that was along the back wall, and fry it up. In the '90s, Cozy must have bought out the next door neighbor, and Cozy added a bunch of tables, another row of booths, and a fancy water and soda station adorned with tchotzkes, such as a ceramic chicken and tall glass bottles filled with oil and lemons, and these things are what you would see in a suburban model home kitchen for counter top decoration. Cozy also moved the grill to the back, and put a service door up, so you don't see the short order cook slapping beef anymore. Long ago, you would have to walk through the kitchen to use the restroom, and now, after the expansion, there are 2 tiled bathrooms that are relatively clean accessible from the back of the dining room. The walls are all texture painted in a calming green with yellow trim. It all seems as thought Cozy has gone a little shee-sheee.

Luckily for us, only the facade has changed. The milkshakes and cherry tumble are still the same as they used to be. The milkshake has a lot of milk, and the best NY style chocolate syrup. You can actually drink it with a straw, and it is frothy and delicious. There is no equal to this milkshake. The cherry tumble is simply seltzer with a shot of cherry flavoring and no sugar added. Fabulously simple. There is nothing better than a New York Seltzer with a sqirt of flavor.
Then there is the burger. The menu says 9 oz, but I would put money on the real weight being closer to a pound. The burger comes with steak fries, a pickle, lettuce, tomato, coleslaw a piece of decorative kale. Cozy still uses the same burger cooking technique where they slap the beef on the grill, then they cover it with what looks like a Revereware pot cover. This steams the burger with the evaporating burger juice that comes off the burger during cooking to keep the burger moist, and the surface of the burger that is flat on the grill is getting grilled with a nice browning layer. Fantastic!

Here is a picture of the burger while being eaten. I swear it is about 2 inches tall. It is a big ass burger. It took some stamina, and not eating the fries, or finishing my soda, but I ate every bit of my burger. I cannot believe I did it. We ended up walking around town for the next 7 hours just to feel un-stuffed. Anyway, to really follow tradition of eating at Cozy Soup and Burger, afer lunch we stopped into Astor Place Barber so Matt could get a hair cut. That was a much needed rest after feeling a bit Thanksgiving like after finishing that burger.