October 2026 · 12 independent restaurants
Average burger price in New York, NY: $16.75
We checked 12 independent restaurant menus across New York, Brooklyn, Woodside, Astoria. The median burger costs $16.75. Prices run from $9.00 to $34.00. Chains are excluded, and every price links to the menu where we saw it.
Just added · all 12 checked today
$16.75
Median burger · 12 independents
$9.00–$34.00
Range, cheapest to priciest
2.4 lb
of Northeast region retail ground beef ($7.02/lb, Sep 2026) costs the same as the median burger
The restaurants
Every burger we checked in New York
Sorted from cheapest to priciest. Click a column to re-sort. The status column shows how fresh each price is.
| SMASHED NYC | New York NY | Classic Smashed (single)small local group; lunch combo ignored | $9.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Ethyl's Alcohol & Food | New York NY | Hamburger | $11.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Royale | New York NY | Royale | $13.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Wylie's Astoria | Astoria NY | Smash Burger w/ fries | $14.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Idaho Bar | New York NY | Hamburger | $16.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Donovan's Pub | Woodside NY | Hamburger | $16.50 | Fresh · checked today |
| Ulysses | New York NY | Ulysses Cheeseburger (single) | $17.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Cozy Royale | Brooklyn NY | Cheeseburger | $22.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| The Odeon | New York NY | Odeon Burger | $29.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Balthazar | New York NY | Balthazar Burger (lunch) | $29.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Minetta Tavern | New York NY | Minetta Burger | $33.00 | Fresh · checked today |
| Red Hook Tavern | Brooklyn NY | Dry-Aged Red Hook Tavern Burger | $34.00 | Fresh · checked today |
12 restaurants · median $16.75 · Download CSV · Each link goes to the page where we saw the price.
How the status badges work
- Up $1.00 · 2 wks ago Down $0.50 · 3 days ago A later check found a different price than the one before it. Shown for 60 days after the check that found it.
- Holding · 4 wks The same price on at least two checks. The time shown is only the span we verified, from the first check at this price to the latest. We never assume a price held between checks.
- Fresh · checked today First checked today, so there's nothing to compare against yet.
- New this week Added in the last 7 days, one check so far.
- Checked 3 wks ago One check, older than a week. Stale · checked 2 mos ago Not re-checked in 45+ days.
Badges are worked out from each price's first-seen and last-checked dates, then recalculated in your browser against today's date. Hover over or tap a badge to see the exact dates.
The cost side
Beef costs for New York
BLS publishes a New York-Newark-Jersey City index for "meats, poultry, fish, and eggs" (CUURS12ASAF112), but no beef-only or dollars-per-pound series at the metro level.
Ground beef, $/lb
Local meat prices (metro CPI)
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How much is a burger in New York?
In our October 2026 check of 12 independent restaurants in the New York, NY area, the median burger price was $16.75. Prices ranged from $9.00 (SMASHED NYC, Classic Smashed (single)) to $34.00 (Red Hook Tavern, Dry-Aged Red Hook Tavern Burger). Chains are excluded.
Where is the cheapest burger in New York in this index?
The three lowest prices we found: SMASHED NYC in New York NY, Classic Smashed (single) at $9.00; Ethyl's Alcohol & Food in New York NY, Hamburger at $11.00; Royale in New York NY, Royale at $13.00. Prices can change, so check the restaurant's menu before you go.
Are burgers more expensive in New York than in other metros?
New York's median is $16.75. The other metros we track: Providence $16.48; Boston $17.50; Sarasota–Tampa $14.95; Los Angeles $10.25; Chicago $16.95; Dallas–Fort Worth $9.99; Houston $10.00; Miami $14.50; Washington, DC $16.49; Atlanta $14.00; Philadelphia $12.25; Seattle $13.99. For a national reference, Toast's Menu Price Monitor reported a $14.80 median restaurant burger in September 2026 (source). That figure includes chains.
How do New York burger prices compare with beef prices?
BLS doesn't publish a ground beef price for individual metros. The closest public series is the Northeast region average retail price for 100% ground beef: $7.02/lb in September 2026. At that price, the median New York burger costs about the same as 2.4 lb of ground beef. The BLS New York-Newark-Jersey City index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs is up 37% since January 2019 (Sep 2026), compared with 41% for the U.S. city average.
Are restaurants in New York raising burger prices?
We can't say yet. Every New York price in the index has been checked once (Oct 17, 2026), and the Price Pulse only compares a restaurant's price with its own previous check. It will show raises, cuts and holds after the next monthly check.
How are these prices collected?
We read each independent restaurant's own website, menu PDF or ordering page and record the cheapest standard full-size beef burger. Kids, happy-hour, late-night and slider prices are skipped, and so are menus we couldn't verify. Every row links to its source. See the methodology.
How often is this page updated?
Menus are re-checked monthly, and each price shows a status badge (New, Holding, Up, Down, Stale) based on its check dates. The current prices were checked Oct 17, 2026 to Oct 17, 2026.