What to Know
- The Broadway-based Harlem Public bar is serving up a peanut-butter burger with bacon, sharp cheddar cheese, and thick peanut butter sauce
- Although it's been on their menu for years, it recently gained more publicity after a video of it went viral on Twitter
- The bar goes through at least 100 - 200 of these burgers a week
Peanut butter and jelly -- now that’s a combination that can’t miss. But peanut butter and burger? While it’s downright different, a peanut butter burger served up at Harlem Public has turned out to be one of the bar's most popular menu items.
Harlem Public Bar first launched the creative concoction over six years ago when they opened the bar in 2012. Co-owner Chad Vigneulle had been creating his own version of it for as long as he could remember.
“It was a combination I made at home,” Vigneulle said. “Since Harlem Public was the first bar we built, I said, ‘Screw it, lets put this on the menu.’ It might work, and it might not, so let’s just take a shot.”
Although released at the opening at the bar, the peanut-butter burger only went viral recently after a video was published showing how it was made. While most people seemed to have more negative reactions on social media -- some tweeting they weren't fans of the sandwich with a "Nope," or "It's a No from me" -- Vigneulle says the peanut butter burger has been a hit for years.
“It’s odd because it recently just became this huge thing again,” Vigneulle said. "Even though we’ve been successfully selling it for years. It started trending on social and it’s really cool."
The house-made chuck and brisket patty is charred, then topped with New York State sharp cheddar cheese, and thick strips of bacon, glazed with brown sugar. A thick, peanut butter sauce finishes off the entrée, and it's topped with a brioche bun branded with the Harlem Public logo before serving. The combination between the savory burger, the sweet bacon, and the nutty sauce makes for a unique flavor combination that customers seem to gravitate towards.
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“It’s been one of our top sellers, if not the top seller,” Vigneulle said. “We probably go through six or seven hundred burgers a week, and at least 100 of those are peanut butter burgers.”
The peanut butter burger is just one of the many novelty sandwiches the bar sells, even though it is their most popular. The bar is gearing up to release an even more quirky one by the beginning of November: the fried baloney sandwich. Made with “thinly-sliced, stacked high” fried beef baloney, American cheese, and then topped with funions, it might even knock the peanut butter burger out of first place — though we doubt it.
