Obama Burger w/ David Meerman Scott

I owe a great debt to David Meerman Scott for advancing my social media comedy career, and now I also owe him for lunch.  David authored the top selling book New Rules of Marketing & PR, and included my first corporate comedy

YouTube video as a case.  He’s been a huge help in getting me on the speaker circuit. We missed lunch during our tech-check, so after speaking we ducked out of the Inbound Marketing Summit for a cheeseburger at Five Guys in Foxboro, MA.  The same chain where President Obama made a cheeseburger run with Brian Williams.  No sign of either of them this time.  The establishment boasts Zero artificial trans fats, which is why POTUS has enrolled it a critical component of fixing health care.

A few years back, David, Scott Teems and I created a trilogy to promote World Wide Rave. Here’s episode 2:

Yelp gives Five Guys 4.5 stars

296 Bleecker St
Manhattan, NY 10014
(212) 367-9200

For more locations, click here.

About the Cheeseburger & Comedy series.

Ted’s Steamed Cheeseburgers + IMS10

On the to way Foxboro, MA to perform a little comedy at the Inbound Marketing Summit, my car uncontrollably veered off of 691 into Meriden, CT, and parallel parked itself in front of Ted’s which has long been on my list.

This burger would be served well by a wheat bun.  The cheese was unquestionably the best cheese I’ve ever had on a burger, and maybe even in block form.  The place is incredibly small and smokey, but we’ll worth the stop, as Adam from Man vs. Food will tell you.

Yelp gives Ted’s 4.5 stars.

1044 Broad St
Meriden, CT 06450
(203) 237-6660

About the Cheeseburger & Comedy series.

Mr. Bartley’s @ Harvard Square

When you’re at Harvard, you have to make smart decisions, and mine was to never again order a cheeseburger with barbecue sauce.  I arrived at that decision after eating at Mr. Bartley’s, a venue the Boston Herald describes as “Boston’s best burger, in cheerfully, post-hippie dorm surroundings.”   I got into the barbecue sauce-on-cheeseburger habit back in my high school days, ordering the Rojo Burger at Chili’s.  I thought it was a classy move, but not everyone agreed, including my prom date. (btw, “Rojo” is the Spanish word for “impossible to get out of Taffeta”).

This place has a fun student vibe,  and I kept thinking I’d see Will Hunting sitting in the corner solving word problems.

I was on campus to speak about using comedy in social media to help put a face on the corporation.  Below is a short clip of my PowerPoint disaster.  And check out this review of Bartley’s from Billy Idol:

Yelp gives it 4.5 stars

Mr. Bartley’s

1246 Massachusetts Ave

Cambridge, MA

(617) 354-6559
About the Cheeseburger & Comedy series.

Conan O’Brien and Burger Joint

Behind a velvet curtain that reaches from the lobby floor up to the ceiling of the swankyLe Parker Meridien Hotel hides one of the best burger joints in Manhattan.  And it’s completely unmarked,  except for a neon sign of a burger.  So I had to save this spot for a special night — when Ian and I went to the Team Coco Tour at Radio City Music Hall.

Complimenting this juicy burger was a glass of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon available in Manhattan in a box.

About the Cheeseburger & Comedy series.  Yelp gives it 4 out of 5 stars.
118 W 57th St, between 6th/7th Ave

Comedy & Cheeseburger blog series

My doctor told me to cut back on dairy and red meat, which in layman’s terms means “write a blog about cheeseburgers.”  I’m no food critic, and a pretty simple man in general, so most burgers will score a 10.  This purpose of the series is not to offer useful information on where to find the best patty in NYC.  It’s to provide a structure for sharing stories about the pursuit of comedy in Gotham, and  a justification for the increased dining-out expense.  My wife is a former Deloitte accountant, so I get audited every fiscal quarter.

I’ll date back to the New York Comedy Festival to mark the official birth of this series, giving me an excuse  to re-post my photo with Ricky Gervais.   Before the show, Ian Berger, producer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and I grabbed dinner at the Redeye Grill.  The venue is not on my list, but Ian picked it for proximity  as it’s directly across 7th Ave from Carnegie Hall.  about a 60 second commute.  Or approximately 90 secs in traffic.  It was a little on the swanky side for my liking, but the burger was very good.

After a hilarious one-hour set which included an Elmo cameo, we went backstage to give Ricky a few notes on his Noah bit; chatted with the opener  Todd Barry, also Janeane Garofalo, then headed off to the afterparty at the Empire Hotel rooftop bar, where they served some amazing Kobe beef mini-burgers that tasted even better than our dinner.

After much internal debate  over the burger critique, I decided to give the Redeye Grill  a 10.

Redeye Grill
890 Seventh Ave. @  56th St.
(212) 541-9000

See reviews from Zagat and Yelp