The Burger Shop, Brighton’s Kebeer Spin-Off, Now Open
Brighton Beach bar and restaurant Kebeer has carved out a section of its storefront to make way for The Burger Shop, capitalizing, perhaps, on the bar’s popular $5 burger-and-soda deal.
I stopped by the restaurant last night for a burger and a beer, and found the new counter-service business operating out of the Kebeer storefront at 1003 Brighton Beach Avenue. There are no seats in this open-kitchen establishment, but there are doors leading into Kebeer’s dining room. They serve burgers, hot dogs, sausages, ice cream and floats, and more – and for what looks like pretty good prices for the area.
When I got home I poked around for more information online, and found that The Urbanographer, run by Manhattan Beach resident Valerie Landriscina, had discovered the establishment about a week after it opened in late September. She writes:
The Burger Shop seemed to have come out of nowhere. It exists as a parallelographically-shaped subdivision of Kebeer, the darkly lit triangular sports bar at the southeast corner of Brighton and Coney Island. (I still dont know what Kebeer means or if it does mean anything.) It’s arrival reminds me of how out of place Starbucks seemed when it was new to the town. American barnacles strapped on to the Russian muscle that is Brighton Beach. … Burger Shop has raised various questions in my mind: who was the architect? who is the developer of the space? is this a chain? how do they know young Americans like thin brown paper colored menus? who decided on their vintage meat processor/churning logo? who are they marketing to with their English signs, American menu, and lack of glitz? Simply put: Has a North Brooklyn-American invaded Brighton Beach?
The answer is no. The Burger Shop is locally-owned, as Valerie discovered. But, at $5.00 for a burger, fries and soda, who really cares?