Maddey's Craft and Cru, Downtown - Closed

If you are a assiduous reader of this journal then you will know that they and I got off to a rocky start. Three times I tried. And three times they weren't open. I really was loaded for bear (is it bear as in I'm going to kill a bear?). I tried them at lunch on Wednesday. They are behind Hamburger Mary's on Church Street. I had the Angus burger because I had been in the UK for three weeks and I wanted something home spun. Plus the pulled pork didn't seem like it would tell me much about how they cook on the fly. It has to be made ahead of time. The burger came on a pretzel roll with a green tomato jam and white cheddar and a side of Parmesan fries. It cost $14. A little steep. The roll wasn't very pretzel-y. That is a good thing in my book. It was kind of brioche-y. Fresh. The cheddar was cheddar in a Vince Vaughn slangy 90's compliment way. I couldn't taste the jam. The meat was good. A wide grind. Seemed lean. Beefy flavor. Good color. I ordered it medium rare and it was rare. That made it hard to review the flavor. The seared coat was beefy tasting though. The patty was big and hand made. They didn't push down on it while grilling it. It broke the string of bad burgers I was on. The fries were thin with a touch of skin on the ends. They timed the fry nicely. They gave me two portions worth. The grated cheese was an unneeded touch of flare. They served some home made catsup that was more of a tomato sauce (no sugar). I liked the effort. Tells you something. Soda was $2.50. They use crushed ice. Sometimes that stuff stinks worse than cubes. Not here. Hopefully, they will keep the ice machine mildew free. The menu is limited. Burgers, salads, apps, pizza and pasta is most of it. They add a steak and fish ( I think) for dinner. It's pub grub and pizza. The theme seems to be NYC. If they can do the Italian side of the menu as well as the American, then I think we have something here. Nothing to get crazy about. My brother used to get all these hard core porno magazines and one (Hustler I think) had a movie review scale with erect penises. Not sure why I'm telling you this, but, I'm sick of the usual rating devices and this seems unusual. The best was "fully erect". These guys are "3/4 erect" based on what I've seen so far. It's not new. It's not progressive. It was just one slightly under cooked (but acceptable) burger and some fries. I still hate the layout (as always) in this location. It still looks like a work in progress (ie wine cellar area isn't operational and full of junk). However, it seems like they are taking this seriously. Service was good. It was clean. The menu seems manageable. Prices are ok. They said they have been open for three weeks. The place was almost empty at 1pm. Maybe the lunch crowd had already passed. Maybe the dinner level prices at lunch scared them away. Maybe nobody who works downtown goes out for lunch when it is 95 degrees? It's just an observation. Give them a whirl.