Page 28 December 14, 2012
DAN’S PAPERS
danshamptons.com
Cheese (Continued from page 27) “Yes, we’re open.” I looked at my watch. It was now 8 p.m. “How late?” “We close at nine.” I finished what I was doing, packed up, and then went out the door into that Sunday night to begin the drive over there. It’s a 30-minute drive. I’d get there in time. Bay Burger shines like a beacon in the dark on the Sag Harbor-Bridgehampton Turnpike. It’s a wooden building with large glass windows on two sides, originally built in about 1970 as a fast food place, though not one of the chains. It was a retail bakery for a while, but in recent years it is back to basics. It’s a world of ice cream sundaes, burgers prepared on a grille anyway you want it, Coca-Cola, French fries and iced tea. You eat at wooden picnic tables in a large room with the counter at one end and the grille and refrigerator behind. When it’s crowded, you take a number and you can wander off and come back. But that was not how it was on this night. At 8:50 p.m., just 10 minutes to closing time, I was all alone in there. Behind the waitress, a man in a white apron turned ON the grille. She read back to me what she had written down. “Cheeseburger medium rare, American cheese, pickle, coleslaw, sliced onion on it, then on the side lettuce and tomatoes.” “And ketchup.” “Ketchup is right over there.” She pointed to a counter where there the ketchup dispenser was. There were small cups
you could hold underneath while you pressed the button. I walked around awhile. There’s a side room, partially separate from the main dining room, where there is a TV on. On some tables there were copies of Newsday. There were leaflets thumbtacked on some of the walls. I got a CocaCola from the refrigerator case. As I was returning to the counter, I saw a man with a broom come out from behind the counter to begin sweeping the floor. A woman in a white apron went into the side room and shut off the TV. I got my cheeseburger. It was in its basket, just perfect, just as I ordered. And so I turned to take it to a seat at one of the wooden tables to begin to enjoy my meal when I thought of something. “You open every day now?” I asked the woman who had served me. “Oh no. Just weekends,” she said. “And this is our last one.” “Oh.” “But we’ll be open again in April.” Behind her, the cook was once again turning off the grille. It was 10 o’clock, closing time. In a back room a light turned off. “Okay if I eat this here?” I asked. “Oh sure,” she said. “It will take us about a half hour to get closed up. Take your time.” “I will,” I said. “You have the BEST burgers in the Hamptons.” And so, I sat, and I ate, savoring the meal. I squeezed the cup of ketchup inside the bun on top of the burger. Using the plastic fork, I had a bite of the coleslaw. This was heaven. I took a
bite of the pickle. Aaaah. I pondered life on earth, here in the Hamptons, in late autumn, where the sun sets in the afternoon and we grope around in the darkness until we get home. I was sitting here in Bay Burger, the best place for a cheeseburger in the Hamptons, just at closing time on the final Sunday of the last weekend they are open until next April, eating their last cheeseburger. They had probably served 10,000 cheeseburgers this year. I took my first bite. It was so good. The onion slice crackled, the ketchup gave it that tang, the ground beef inside, nestled between the buns, was crunchy on the outside, slightly red in the middle. This was one damn good cheeseburger. I took a bite of the pickle. I took another plastic forkful of the coleslaw. This is a milestone, I thought. And an honor. It’s an honor to be eating the last Bay Burger cheeseburger of the year. Now the Bay Burger people will close up, and the place will be dark, and there will be no more cheeseburgers for a long, cold time. Why does the Earth wobble on its axis the way it does, so that it gets dark in the wintertime in the middle of the afternoon? I stared at the cheeseburger but it gave me no answers. So I ate it. And then, I thanked everybody, all the people wiping down the tables, cleaning up, putting things away, for their cheeseburger they had prepared for me. And then, sadly, I left. Maybe we should take a trip to the Caribbean in January. Tell us where to find the best wintertime burger in the Hamptons at danshamptons.com
Beach (Cont’d from previous page)
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special tax only on the homeowners along the included beaches, which will range from a few thousand dollars to more than $200,000 per house per year depending on waterfront size in Bridgehampton, and on both waterfront size and property value in Sagaponack. According to Garvey, they have worked with Assemblyman Thiele to put a bill through the state legislature to allow the town to provide tax relief retroactively. Sand dredging, in which compatible sand from the ocean floor is pumped onto the beach, is especially important here. Not only would the wider restored beaches enhance the area’s natural beauty and offer a place to relax in the summer, but they would also provide more protection to nearby houses. If and when other natural disasters hit the East End, this restoration could prove vital. In the wake of Sandy’s damage, Bridgehampton has even raised the cost of their project slightly to put additional sand on their beaches. “Town approval is only one step in several steps to get this project all the way through,” Garvey noted. While permits would still be needed if the referendum passes (in addition to approval by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), the project’s leaders can start working on the details and timing. It could be initiated as early as next summer. For more information on beach restoration in the Hamptons, visit Danshamptons.com.