Johnny Rockets

Pretty awesome south street seaport location especially during the summers where there’s breezy weather.
Burgers are decent but overpriced in my opinion. The food is not bad, but also not solidly remarkable. I would say everything is OK, but that because the setting is so great, would get ³⁄₅ stars.

I had such a fun time here! I ordered the Streamliner (or is it called the Steamliner? Ah, either way. The burger begins with an S and ends with a «liner»). It was delicious. Our server was very accommodating and I took full advantage of the bottomless fries! My only complaint, which someone else mentioned-​was that our jukebox didn’t work. Boo!

You have run out of ice. So no ice cream or shakes. You have no onion rings. The chicken wings I ordered still have large, easily discernible feathers in them.
Guess who isn’t coming back to this location? This girl.
You’re dirty and gross.

If you like burgers, fried accompaniments, and sugary drinks, you’ve come to the right place. Not to mention dancing waiters, tourists, and non-​operating jukebox machines (are they all like this or just ours?). The milkshake was delicous but combined with the bacon cheeseburger, fries, and onion rings, Johnny Rocket’s caused an afternoon food coma.
Service by the local 18-​year-​olds was actually kind of charming. The wait for the bathroom behind groups of 3 children was not.

As a long-​time resident I felt a little embarassed to be there, but in the end, when your bill is $ 25 for two burgers, chili fries, and a rocket fuel (more on that in a bit), it might be worth it, especially when all the other places on the seaport are so overpriced.
The burgers are surprisingly good and well sized (¹⁄₃ of a pound, I think?). However, if you don’t indicate otherwise, it will be cooked well. I liked how many pickles they put on there! The chili on the fries was tasty but I felt that the fries were a bit lukewarm. My husband, on the other hand, thought they were delicious.
My main point of advice is to NOT get the rocketfuel drink (and probably same goes for the margarita). There is very little alcohol in it and it’s mostly syrup. We literally watched our waiter try to squeeze out the frozen drink from the machine (reminded of us constipation…) until they decided to pour more syrup into the machine and then it gushed syrup and a little bit of ice. It was pretty gross and cost more than the burgers.
Service was bad until everybody started yelling at the waiters and then everybody shaped up. Not a bad place to go but I wouldn’t travel down from Harlem again to seek it out.

I understand why they have such wide calorie ranges on their menu. It all depends on how much of the burger you are able to eat before the bread falls apart. My hands had to tightrope between bun and exposed meat/​toppings and apply the correct amount of pressure (to not go through the bread or have it all slip out).
The workers still do dance performances around the clock (which should be perfect for a tourist trap like the Seaport). The onion rings were tasty and crunchy, but the french fries seemed underdone. We went on a Monday and somehow they were already out of bacon by noon (it would have fallen out of my slip and slide burger anyway).