Honestly, we don’t do the late-night food thing often. I’m well-aware that we’re six to 10 years too old for that. But sometimes it’s 1:30 am in Northampton and you’ve had two Blue Moons at the Toasted Owl and a tiramisu martini at the Tunnel Bar and you smell delicious burgers cooking. And that’s when Local Burger looms in front of you like a munchie oasis.
Local Burger is a little gem on the main street of Northampton. On weekends, it’s open until about 3 a.m., serving burgers, fries, wings, onion rings, milkshakes and hot dogs to hungry college students and barhoppers. All of the burgers are made with locally-sourced produce (grass-fed beef from a farm in Easthampton, dry-aged beef on weekends from Brimfield, MA) and the fries are hand-cut and cooked in peanut oil. Everything’s cooked to order, so you wait a bit. But one bite and you’ll wonder why you ever went to Denny’s at 2 a.m., or waited in line for a questionable ‘street-meat’ hot dog on Worthington Street in Springfield.
Grass-fed burger with bacon, American cheese, sauteed onions and fries
The burger was delicious, if a little dry (my fault for asking for ‘no pink.’) The fries were of the salty, crispy skin-on variety, truly addictive.
Our friends ordered fried pickles with what looked like a cornmeal breading (I like pickles about as much as I like mushrooms, so I didn’t sample) and chicken fingers coated in, of all things, crushed Captain Crunch cereal. Served with a honey barbecue dipping sauce, the combo was almost too sweet.
Another friend ordered buffalo wings, and judging by the big pile of clean-stripped bones, he liked them a lot.
Mostly, we were impressed by the bright, clean interior, the friendly service and the fact that such good late-night food now exists in Northampton. Our friend summed it up best in this sentence:
“Local Burger. Making me want to get drunk more in Northampton since 2009…”
Leeanne Griffin is a freelance writer and food enthusiast.
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Hey, there is nothing wrong with Dennys!
No, unless you want to get beaten to death with a chair.
Is this place new?
Yes it is, I think it opened last December?
It looks so good! I miss Noho.
The first time Kat and I went, I was kind of at an impasse as to how I felt about the place – wasn’t bad by any means, but nothing exciting either. I’m glad I gave it a second go around. The grilled pineapple and teriyaki burger was so killer. The sweetness of the pineapple, accentuated by the caramelized sugars from the grilling process, played perfectly with the sauce and also added another dimension textually to the burger.
The Captain Crunch-coated chicken tenders just rocked and I agree with you that the side sauce of their homemade honey barbecue sauce may be too sweet, but it was one of the stars of the night for me.
If I had to offer criticism, it’s that I think the burger menu options are pretty limited. The actual burgers themselves aren’t in the league of White Hut (or from what I hear, probably In and Out) which they don’t have to be, but when they get creative with toppings it separates them from the pack. You look at Flay’s burger joint and places like Max Burger and you see how inventive they are – you know theres endless possibilities to the old backyard grilling staple.
I loved those chicken tenders too, but they might have benefited from another dip, something sweet-n-sour or even savory since the cereal coating was sugary. And did you know Red Robin has a pineapple teriyaki burger too? Never tried it but I wonder if it’s as good as LB’s. But seriously, we should go back up there soon