Saturday, May 2, 2009

Jackson Hole, Englewood

362 Grand Avenue
Englewood, NJ 07631
Pie $3.75
Coffee $1.25
There is no reason to go to another eatery in New Jersey for pie if you can get yourself to Jackson Hole Burgers. (What were they thinking, naming an eating establishment Jackson Hole Burgers? The tiniest migration of syllable stress from bur- to hole brings up so many unfortunate ass-ociations!) But we should say, there is no reason to go to another eatery for pie, unless you want cherry pie. They don't make it. Their blueberry and apple pie are both homemade, and delicious. They serve it gently warmed, seemingly not in a microwave, and with a spritz of whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate that made us wonder at first, but ended up being tasty. Jersey Pie was heard to exclaim with eyes opened wide, "This is so fucking good, why don't they make cherry pie?!" A follow up inquiry made at the cash register confirmed that apple and blueberry are the only fruit pies popular enough to merit home-making. Maybe we'll present them with the results of Jersey Pie's own survey: 3 out of 5 people surveyed prefer cherry pie! ; )

Jackson Hole is an immaculate 50's style boxcar diner, at least in architecture. So clean you could eat off the floor, as they say. The seats sparkle like starlight. The chrome fixtures gleam. The coffee's alright. Breakfast is always on the menu. They even have jukeboxes on every table. Not open 24 hours tho. And, as the name makes clear, the emphasis is on the burgers, 7oz's cooked on the grill right before your eyes. Vegetarians beware; they'll test your moxie. Check out the Jackson Hole menu, and post a comment letting us know whether you think it's a diner menu. New Jersey Diners.com loosely defines a diner as a place that serves coffee, has a counter, is open 24 hours with their entire menu available, has a neon sign, and has jukeboxes. Jackson Hole has most of this. But it's a chain. Being a chain puts it into the Denny's/IHOP category, according to Diners.com, where it doesn't seem to belong, either. Jersey Pie doesn't mind Jackson Hole's ambiguous detailia, but lacking cherry pie, we cannot end our quest here.

3 comments:

Kate Forster said...

That Twitter slice looks like the right kind. Flakey crust, plump cherries. Where'd it come from? It looks just like Mom's. I'm glad the search goes on, but sorry that Jackson Piehole didn't make it.

Mia said...

Hey!
Nancy and I ordered from the Upper East Side Jackson Hole today and I was musing, as I ate my big burger crumbled into salad, that my favorite Jackson Hole is the one in Englewood.

I am so saddened that they don't make cherry pie!

Kate Forster said...

Jerseypie meets Kirkland, WA
At the Kirkland Art Studio Tour (KAST) last weekend, the cherry pie painting featured on your home page was the most arresting sight on the tour. As Artist Phyllis explained how it came to be, a woman in the gallery exclaimed, "I know people who follow that blog! It's very hip."
Coast to coast. A mighty presence, indeed.