🍔 JG Melon is Overrated
and other thoughts and opinions
GM everyone hope you had a lovely weekend. Let me quickly recap mine—
Went to eat omakase at No Name Friday night. Delicious 13 courses without being too fussy.
Saturday was beautiful here in NYC. Grabbed a late breakfast at Waverly Diner then had wine at Casetta all day.
Then I went to JG Melon to finally try the ‘quintessential NYC burger’ and I have some thoughts I’ll expound upon.
Sunday I woke up and ran 10 miles around Manhattan and meandered around all day before watching the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm last night and it was… not good. Ugh.
Okay before we get to some relevant news here are my thoughts on JG Melon—
The Most Overrated Burger in NYC?
Last Saturday I was waiting to eat at Minetta Tavern when I struck up conversation with another pending diner. This guy lived in Tribeca and I asked him for his thoughts on The Odeon. His face quickly soured and he told me he thought The Odeon was one of the worst restaurants in NYC. As someone who loves a classic Keith McNally institution (they’ve been open since the 80s) I was shocked to hear his opinion. I love their burger and fries.
I mentioned how I live on the Upper East Side and he asked if I had been to JG Melon, one of the longest running restaurants in the city. I had not yet despite it being a 5 minute walk from my apartment. He said I needed to try it, and that it was the BEST burger in the city.
So I made plans to dine there. My friend and I arrive there to find a bustling line. It’s a very popular establishment with all the trappings of an old school restaurant. It feels like a saloon inside, its small, the table clothes are a great shade of green, and they only take cash.
The maitre’d was rude first of all, but this I can handle. We go get drinks and wait before heading back and snagging a table near the door. JG Melon attracts a diverse crowd of people: the Upper East Side generational millionaire with an Hermes scarf, the downtown Goldman Sachs analyst, and trios of touristy looking girls.
We get bacon cheeseburgers and their famous ‘cottage fries’ which come in the small discs, and beers of course. The burger was fine and the fries were super bland. All in all, not worth the hassle of having to take out cash and wait. Pretty disappointed and won’t be going back. I’d take The Odeon burger any day, and will proudly continue to rock my cringey TO baseball hat around town.
Okay time for news—
Headlines
Vogue is offering a membership with access to exclusive in-person events. The first event features former J. Crew creative director Jenna Lyons, who will be discussing her new brand. Access to the in-person talk is contingent upon a $30/mo Vogue membership. I think subscription model is really smart and selling access to creatives and industry professionals is genius. More brands are doing IRL events centered around education and connection, and monetizing this access is a great way to diversify revenue streams and create a true community people will pay to join. Sporty & Rich is doing this with their speaker series at the NYC flagship, which I’ve written about.
Bode’s Nike shoe is looking clean. The brand’s first athletic shoe collaboration is a contemporary, luxury take on the Nike Astrograbber. This shoe seems to be trying to capitalize on the popularity of the Wales Bonner Samba. We will see if it pops off like that or if its relegated to the same lane as the Jacquemues Nike’s.
The Apple Vision Pro is out in the wild. Over the weekend, numerous Apple Vision Pro adopters (tech nerds) were spotted wearing the new augmented reality headset on the street, at the gym, at dinner, and even on the subway. The discourse on this is pretty split, with some VC and design people I follow touting how amazing the experience is, and others discussing how dystopian this all feels. I am deeply worried about the consequences of this product on society if it takes off and gets smaller, cheaper, and more accessible. We are already living in a social hellscape of phone addicted people. Loneliness is already a public health crisis according to the Surgeon General. A device this enthralling may exacerbate this, disconnecting us all and fragmenting us to live in our own controlled reality. This tweet summed it up well—
Hailey Bieber and Rhode are f*cking brilliant. Rhode has surged in popularity amongst Gen Z women with their viral lip glosses. Now they are teasing a perfectly Instagrammable phone case that features grooves to hold the gloss. This is absolutely genius as it allows people to show their gloss while taking a selfie, turning each Instagram story into a user-generated marketing vehicle. This is going to blow up in a few months.
Ayo Edebiri dresses better than most male celebs. Co-star of 2023s hottest show, ‘The Bear’, Edebiri was serving some fire looks around NYC before hosting SNL.
Okay that’s all for today. See you tomorrow.
About the Writer
Jake Bell is a content marketing and creative strategist based in NYC. He specializes in content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
To learn more about Jake visit www.jb.studio
Have a tip email me jake@jb.studio
Like video? Check out his TikTok
Like fit pics and pictures of chairs? Visit his Instagram.