Openings

Flay Is Scouting an NYC Bobby’s Burger Palace Space ‘Right Now’

Photo: Melissa Hom

At Friday night’s packed, manic Burger Bash at the New York Wine and Food Festival, perennial second-place-holder Bobby Flay finally got his chance to be in the spotlight. “I’ve never won,” he told us just minutes before landing the People’s Choice award. “I come in second everywhere: Miami, here. I told [NYCWFF impresario Lee Schrager], if I come in first I’m giving it back. I don’t like it. I like being second.” But Flay’s likely not too torn up about landing a popular vote of confidence for his burger, considering that he’s finally making good on his promise to bring his Jersey, Philly, Long Island, and Connecticut chain Bobby’s Burger Palace to the good people of Manhattan. “We’re looking for a space right now,” he told us, and for that we can thank peer pressure: “Based on my friends’ and my wife’s demands for a Bobby’s Burger Palace closer by, we’re now looking for a space in New York.” As for a location, that’s less of a sure thing, since Flay is holding out for perfection. “We were kicking [the idea of a location] around today, actually,” he told us. “We thought about the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, downtown, Alphabet City, Union Square … It’s going to be the right real-estate play in the right place.”

Flay Is Scouting an NYC Bobby’s Burger Palace Space ‘Right