The Third Avenue Saloon Whose Burger Nat King Cole Called the Cadillac
One of NYC's oldest continuously operating saloons still knows what it is. Grab a bar stool, order a Perfect Manhattan, and let the room do the work.
The mahogany bar at 915 Third Avenue has been in continuous service since 1884, which is the kind of detail that would be exhausting if the room itself made anything of it. It doesn't. The floor is tile, the light is low and yellow, the bartender is pouring a Manhattan for someone who ordered it without adjectives, and the room is doing what it has done for a hundred and forty years — which is feed people burgers and pour them classic cocktails without commentary.
There are four P.J. Clarke's in the city now, which is worth stating up front: only the Third Avenue original is the 1884 saloon. The others are restaurants that share a name. If someone tells you they went to P.J. Clarke's and it was fine, ask which one. This review is about the one where Nat King Cole ate the burger.
The room is the point, the burger is the pretext, and the Manhattan is what keeps you from leaving.
Editorial Deep
The Perfect Manhattan is the order — Sazerac Rye, both vermouths, a black cherry, made by a bartender who has made ten thousand of them and will not ask what you mean by 'perfect.' The Smoky Old Fashioned with Willett's and walnut bitters is the other move if you want something that reads as considered rather than inherited. The Bluecoat Negroni sits under Classics and drinks like one.
Tile floor, tin ceiling, dark wood, brass fixtures dulled by decades of hands. Sconce light throwing yellow into the corners. The Third Avenue Bar itself is the anchor — a long mahogany run with stools that fill from six onward and don't empty. Behind it, a dining room with white tablecloths and cushioned banquettes that feels quieter than the front by design.
Midtown East at this address means finance in the six o'clock hour — suits two-deep at the bar, ties loosened, ordering Manhattans and beers in the same round. By nine it has softened into a mix: tourists who did their reading, older regulars in the same seats they were in last Wednesday, a couple who walked over from a hotel. The volume climbs at peak and never quite tips into loud. The crowd is the product here — a working New York bar with the working New York in it — which is also why a bar stool at 6:45 is a competitive sport.
The trap is ordering food at the bar during peak. Service slows down when the room is three deep, and a burger that arrives twenty minutes after you ordered it is a worse burger than the same one in the back room. Eat at a table or eat off-peak. At the bar, drink and work the raw bar — that's what the seat is for.
Come back on a Tuesday at six-thirty with one other person, take two bar stools if you can get them, order Manhattans and a dozen oysters, then move to a back table for the Cadillac. That is the P.J. Clarke's night, and it is a very good one. The Cadillac itself has been revamped — new grind, new bun — and regulars are split on whether the change was needed; if you want the burger that made the room famous, know that the version arriving is a recent one. Skip this bar if you want a modern cocktail programme or a quiet first date. Come here when you want the room a New York saloon is supposed to be.
Order this
Drink this.
Perfect Manhattan, half-dozen oysters at the bar, Cadillac Burger at a back table
“Sit at the bar, order a Manhattan, remember why the room has lasted 140 years.”
The Third Avenue original — and only the Third Avenue original — is the reason to know the P.J. Clarke's name. Come for a Manhattan and oysters at the bar, or a burger at a back table. Skip the peak-hour bar burger; the service backs up and the food suffers for it. Go elsewhere if you want a modern cocktail programme.
The Verdict
