Jesus fucking Christ. We’d start every post like that if everyone in the world were as stupid as the loud-mouthed citizens of Prince Street who caused turmoil at Tuesday night’s State Liquor Authority meeting discussing a license application for the forthcoming Shake Shack on Prince and Mulberry.

Locals decried the mess that a liquor license for the establishment would create — falsely envisioning some sort of all night disco party of thugs and and frat boys that would take over the former parking garage. But then, as it turns out, these people just seem to be against any change in use of the facility.

As Eater reported, someone actually cried out: “People will be eating burgers and looking over a cemetery – that’s sacrilegious!”

Again, dear reader, whether you eat meat or not, we are sure you will agree with this sentiment. Jesus fucking H. Christ.

In the end, Shake Shake has withdrawn its application. So it is a dark (and snowy) day in Gotham. When they visit Danny Meyer’s new NoLita palce, burger lovers will be denied that one most glorious accoutrement to Pat LaFrieda’s blend: a beer.

But hey, we are consoled by one thought that warms our cold little butcher heart on this freezing day. The residents of the surrounding buildings have something coming to them. We all know what happens to people who live on top of a cemetery.

If you get on the ridiculously snaking line at Citi Field’s Shake Shack expect to miss a good three to four innings of on-field action. There are no screens broadcasting the game there, and no sight lines to the field, though you are technically in the stadium. The line makes the one in Madison Square Park look like a drive-through window at a Roy Rogers in Bethlehem, Pennsyvania. If this $6 burger is good enough to warrant spending half the game away from $180-a-seat tickets that actually offer a view of the action, please let us know. This past inaugural-weekend Saturday there were still folks lined up in front of the Shake Shack as much as half an hour after the strike-em-out-throw-em-out double play that ended the game. At least they weren’t missing anything.

The West Village, it can be said, has an embarrassment of riches. Some of these riches are just embarrassing — such as Marc Jacobs boutiques popping up on every corner as if through the work of especially prodigiously over-copulating metrosexual rabbits. But then there is the abundance of some truly exceptional burgers (despite some recent kerfuffle over the vaunted Corner Bistro burger. Still, few can argue (successfully with a mouth full of bacon and cheese, anyway) that the Corner has not earned it’s place in the pantheon of chopped sirloin. Danny Meyer and Keith McNally be damned.)

There is, in the West Village, this one small special area centered roughly on Abingdon Square, which is the Bermuda Triangle of Burgers. It is the sort of place where a man on a burger binge can get lost and never be heard from again. So, yes, there’s the Corner, and then just a few blocks away, is the Spotted Pig, home to one of the grandest, tallest Roquefort-dripping patties in the land, served with a heaping pile of crisp matchstick fries dotted with rosemary — April Bloomfield’s crowning achievement. And now, completing this holy trinity is Paris Commune with its PC Burger. The PC Burger is a weighty thing, as different from the SP Burger as that feast is from the quick satisfaction of the CB. The PC Burger comes topped with caramelized onion on a juicy and thoroughly thick patty, with just a hint of char on the edges and a soft center that makes your mind think tartare. It was introduced only a couple of months ago, but seems to really be hitting its stride. And there’s a bonus: Before 7 p.m. any night, the price includes a beer.

If Braeburn decides to join the fray we may really be in trouble.

What did we tell you? Once Shea is meets the wrecking ball it’s going to be champagne and Kobe beef dogs for Mets faithful. Maybe not exactly Kobe, but grade-D shredded beef patties padded with cardboard fiber filling are going the way of neon silhouettes and purple walls. Good-bye Bubba Burger; hello Pat LaFrieda. A just announced deal by the New York Mets and vendor Aramark with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group will bring a Shake Shack to the new ball park (though you’ll likely have to get on line in the top of the third to to have any hope of getting food by the seventh-inning stretch). Double header burgers. Six types of dogs. Also a Blue Smoke, too. Now that the Mets are winning they deserve Kansas City ribs and pulled pork. In addition a Meyer-run taqueria and Belgian frites stand are planned. So it might not be the greatest burgers and barbecue to ever hit New York, but it sure beats the monstrosities currently thrust on those who go through all the trouble of trekking out to Willets Point.

The burger will be an oft-covered and much-discussed subject on The Butcher Blog. Our position on the burger is this: Burgers are the most commonly abused food item in America—and also one of the best. A great burger is as rare as a great steak. Its sheer simplicity and perfection has been obscured by decades of processing, marketing and unnecessary tinkering. Don’t mess with the burger. It doesn’t need a nickname, a cartoon character named after it, or a slogan. It also doesn’t need to be packed with foie gras, crab meat or topped with a quail egg. We don’t dismiss craft and complexity, but if that craft and complexity serve only to obscure the burger’s basic mission, then you’re wasting your time and ours.

We also don’t believe in burger hype. It’s our position that certain burgers receive far more accolades than they deserve. For instance, the Shake Shack burger is an overrated burger. There’s a certain cache that the Shake Shack burger enjoys because of its provenance (Danny Meyer created, Pat LaFrieda supplied, in a park) that rewards atmosphere and ancestry over quality. Don’t get us wrong, it’s a fine burger—but one of the best around, it is certainly not. In the end it’s the dame with great gams and a butterface.

Burgers and Atmosphere (see also, above): Often a decent burger will be elevated to “great” status due to the atmosphere or the moment. We recognize these moments—we’ve never had a bad burger on the Fourth of July at the beach—but we will endeavor to critically evaluate the burger both in context and also in the abstract, as a burger, and only a burger.