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Let’s be honest:  Moving into the former Brasserie space inside the Kilmer Building at 31 Lewis Street has got to be any restaurantaur’s wet dream.

It’s got history; it’s got class. It’s big and bold and you feel instantly more impressive just for having stood inside. In fact, the whole Kilmer building feels that way.  Frank Whitney, the building’s current owner, once treated me to a tour of all six stories, and I have to say that the only thing cooler than standing inside the restaurant is standing inside Dr. Sylvester Andral Kilmer’s former lab—ya know, he’s the guy that made gazillions of dollars off Kilmer’s Swamp Root Herbal Tonic before the federal government decided it was a good idea to actually put labels on stuff and explain whether or not it really does anything.

Well Kilmer had a nephew, Willis Sharpe Kilmer, who, as it turned out, was both a marketing whiz (he spun Kilmer’s Swamp Root into a household name) and obsessed with naming things after himself—only backwards.  He owned Remlik Hall, Remlik Post Office, Remlick Railway Car, and even Remlick Yacht—which was purchased by the US Navy for antisubmarine duty during World War 1.

It’s in that tradition that the owner’s of the new Kilmer-housed restaurant decided to name their eatery: “Remlik’s”. Ed Wesoloski—or “Whisky”, as you should call him… Actually, you have to call him Whisky; I showed up at the restaurant, asked for Ed, and nobody knew who I was talking about…  Anyway, Whisky and Kelly Holbert, two of the owners, were “geeking out” on Whisky’s front porch when they did a little research and discovered the yacht’s name.

They seem to have put that much thought into just about everything in the restaurant—and it’s a good thing:  Remlik’s historic space can be both a blessing and a curse—in that it seems to be unshakably linked to a somewhat undesirable “upscale” label.  Is Remlik’s a spot to kick back and have a beer on a Tuesday night, or the place to impress a dinner date before a Saturday night at the Forum Theater? The owners hope it can be both. And with a name like Whisky, you have to imagine there won’t be too much stuffy formality when he’s behind the bar. Plus, how stuffy can a restaurant that’s got a lunchtime take-out salad bar actually be?

So what’s changed about the restaurant’s look since its Brasserie days? Not a ton; I mean, why mess with wet-dream-quality decor? But there are a few distinct changes. Carpeting at the front host stand now creates a more smooth transition into the Kilmer Building’s lobby; hip, modern light fixtures tone down the “this building’s too good for your sorry ass” formality; black and white photography will adorn the walls (it was leaning up against the walls when I visited); and the bar… The bar’s is the big change—perhaps triple the size of the old one, a triangle with seating on two sides, it’s much more accessible for busy nights and big parties. And the giant windows behind the bar are uncovered, a welcome change that allows you a beautiful view of the trains as they pass by and the Ari Mesiel-owned Depot Street lofts across the way.

I’ve found that there’s a fun, chaotic energy that fills a restaurant just before it opens—I was at the River Bistro the night before it opened for Valentine’s Day and they were still laying carpet—a task I was told that listed till 4 AM. OK, maybe the chaos is just fun for me. But it’s definitely present tonight at Remlik’s as they prepare for a press-invited ribbon cutting tomorrow and a 400-person friends and family hors d’oeuvres night on Saturday. Although they seem pretty well ready to open, there are still the finishing touches; curtains were being carried in and hung as I sat down with a fairly well-exhausted Whisky for an interview in their underground bunker of an office beneath the restaurant…

First thing’s first; a lot of people already know what the room looked like under the name "Kilmer Brasserie." How are the aesthetics different now?

We tripled or better the size of the bar which is gonna be the focal point of the restaurant now.  Put a beautiful concrete top on it. We resurfaced all the existing structures.  We’re trying to make it a little more lounge-friendly than it was and make it a little more… I don’t know with a room that size you can say intimate, but the way it was before, it was a little cavernous. Now people will see each other and have an easier time talking.  And of course we added the salad bar.

How will the salad bar work at lunch?

One of three things; they can go and order a salad and take it over to a table. They can order a salad with their server from the table.  Or they can come and get it and we’ll put it in a nice eco-friendly container and they can pay by the pound and take it to go.  If they need to get in and out, they’ll be able to get in and out. There are people with real time constraints.

And the menu. If you have just a few words to sum it up, what would you say?

Classic American comfort food with a twist.

What’s the twist?

Chef Lutz. [Steven Lutz is his name—but they just call him “Chef”.] He comes from all over the country. So when I say classic American, there may be a south-western twist to things. There may be some north-western twist. There may be Southern things. And there may be some East Coast stuff.  American is from all over the country; it’s not just hot dogs and hamburgers.

Can you go into a little more detail?

Mondays we’ll do Meatless Monday. They’ll be vegetarian specials. And then we’re also doing Thanksgiving Thursdays with turkey, mashed potatos and stuffing. Saturday nights are going to be a very affordable surf and turf.  We’re also gonna have prime rib all the time; rotisserie chicken; pot pie; beef tips.

The historic building and grand room kind of scream "upscale". Is this a label you reject or embrace?

I suppose that when people walk in, they’re gonna THINK they’re not able to afford us; because the room is beautiful; the building is beautiful; I think we did stuff to make the venue even nicer than it is. But we’re trying as hard as we can not to be a “fine dining restaurant” and not having “fine dining prices”. We’re trying to make it so everyone feels that they get a value for what they spent and have enough variety on our menu that they can control what they wanna spend.  We wanna make it so that it’s not an “occasion restaurant”.

I know that you’d like to serve local food. Tell us about your efforts…

We have a couple that just bought a farm in Marathon that is eventually going to grow all our produce. We’re sourcing all of our beef locally.  And Chef went to the farmers market in Vestal and met with a lot of local farmers and we’re going to source a lot of our produce from that.

You’ve worked in restaurants and bars for years, of all types. What are you taking from all that experience and bringing to Remlik’s?

I think that I’m very good at making people feel comfortable and I want them to try different things. I’m comfortable sampling different wines or different beers or featuring a cocktail. I’ll make a small one and let them give it a shot.

Will you be working behind the bar?

Every night. That’s what I’m looking forward to! That’s why I’m a partner here; I love it and that’s why I think I’ve been successful through the years.

So who else owns the joint and what are their backgrounds?

Sylvia Vestey is from San Francisco and she has probably 15 years catering experience and party planning. Mike Tulsey has been in the business for 20 years; he owned 3 different places in North Carolina and he and I have worked together for the last 10 at Number 5 and Lampy’s. And Kelly Holbert has worked in the restaurant business for 4 or 5 years. After she finished college, she both taught at CFJ Elementary and worked at Lampy’s.

Putting aside the food and drink for a moment… any special events you already have in mind? Parties?

We certainly have 2 great rooms—one holds about 40 and the other holds about 60.  We’re happy to take rehearsal dinners; any kind of birthday parties. The rooms can be booked. We’re planning on hosting some wine dinners.

Anything else?

We’re on Open Table and will accept reservations online.

I had hoped to start this blog entry off with some charmingly folksy tale about the humble beginnings of the American hamburger and explain how Burger Mondays (23 Henry Street), downtown Binghamton’s newest burger joint, fit into that long, beefy tradition.  I had hoped to begin this blog entry that way, but alas, I can not do that.

You see, there’s a stupid amount of drama over who invented the American hamburger.  Drama that is neither charming nor folksy.

What DOES seem clear is that the hamburger draws it’s routes from Hamburg, Germany. Duh. According to Wikipedia (the compendium of all human knowledge that may or may not turn out to be true), the chopped beef creation that eventually became known as the hamburger was brought from Russia to Germany as steak tartare. At some point, somebody must have decided cooking the beef was a neat idea (also that e coli was a fairly terrible idea), and the Hamburg steak was born. Then, in the late 18th century, American street vendors, trying to attract German sailors to their New York harbor stands, started serving the stuff that had been so popular in their homeland.

Here’s where the story gets all mucked up. One version claims that the first American hamburger was sold at a cafe in Athens, Texas. Another says it was found in 1904 at the St Louis World’s Fair. Residents of Hamburg, NY insist it was first grilled up by the Menches brothers at THEIR county fair–but the NY Times disputes this and say the Menches brothers invented it in Akron, Ohio. The Seymour Community Historical Society says their “Hamburger Charlie” cooked it up in Seymour, Wisconson, and the Library of Congress says it happened in New Haven, CT.

See how much server space I’ve already wasted tracing the history of the hamburger? That’s not charming. And the Interweb is going to get angry at me very soon.

So all that’s beside the point. What’s more to the point is that at some point the hamburger went a bit astray. These days, a lot more people end up with greasy, processed patties somewhat laughingly referred to as beef as they’re passed out drive-thru windows–not “Hamburger Charlie’s” delicious recipe. (I’m just going to assume Hamburger Charlie’s recipe was fabulous or else they wouldn’t have caught on.)

Well fear not, Binghamton. The beef pattie had been righted.  And you’re about to get a taste of some seriously yum gourmet American hamburgers.

I was lucky enough to be invited to (well, really, weasled my way into through continual harassment) the friends and family weekend at Burger Mondays this past Saturday afternoon.  The first thing I noticed was obvious: the renovations owner Rob Hutchings and his partners had done since the space housed DC Dunster’s/ZaZu. While I loved nearly everything about ZaZu, the restaurant did feel a bit cavernous inside. And the new dividing wall separates a nicely sized bar area from the seating part of the restaurant. The host stand lives in its own little room as well–THANKFULLY preventing at least a bit of the cold winter breeze from contributing to diner death by hypothermia–an all too common problem in greater Binghamton eateries.

As for the menu: they weren’t screwing around when they named the place Burger Mondays. 10 different designer burgers–with an option to build your own. And if you REALLY believe in your own creation, you can talk to your server about having it added to the menu–clearly, it should be named after you as well, because you’re awesome.  And an egomaniac.

Of course, the term “burger” is somewhat liberally applied here. A “Buffalo Chicken” burger with smoked bleu cheese and celery relish offers an alternative to the beef-fest and an “Ahi Tuna” burger with wasabi aioli is a seafood option. There’s even a choice for you kooky veggie-only-eaters. And no, they didn’t go the Boca Burger route. Seriously, if that’s what you’re after, you’ve got a microwave at home to help torture your taste buds.  (I can say that with authority because I was a vegetarian for 4 years–before I realized how much more delicious chicken nuggets were than morals.) For you veggie folks, Mondays serves up a pesto-marinated portabella mushroom with a balsamic reduction and house aioli called the “Animal Lover”.

Now we have to talk about the most important part of Burger Mondays: the milkshakes. It is highly probable that I’m the only one that feels they’re the most important part, but I’m writing this blog, so you’ll just have to cope.  Seriously though, if you’re going to indulge in gourmet comfort food, you might as well go all the way. Rich, creamy, delicious–I could feel both my waistline and my sense of contentment with life expanding generously. But there are certain milkshakes which overwhelm the sense of guilt you experience for having had them, and this was just such a shake. The day I visited, they were serving free (and rather large) samples of the chocolate, but they promise there’ll be plenty more flavors from which to choose. I’m going to give you some important advice that you can ignore at your own peril: DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT GETTING YOUR FIRST BURGER WITHOUT  A MILKSHAKE. Your inner child will weep buckets of tears of deprivation and I, having shared the preceeding advice, will have no sympathy. None at all.

The Milkshake Sample

(PS, I should mention that all the burgers come with fresh-cut fries. And also house jarred pickles–which are reportedly phenomenal, but which I did not eat. Because I hate pickles. And kind of wish they didn’t exist. Sorry.)

Oh right, so the burgers! My lunchmate Mary Kaminsky and I split the Mondays Original and the Southern BBQ. Both delicious, though flavored quite differently… we spent the rest of the meal arguing which was better: I liked the original and Mary preferred the BBQ, but you won’t go wrong with either. There are also a number of soups and appetizers on the menu (I’m interested to try the farro risotto or orasted garlic cheesecake), but we were pretty stuffed by what came on the burger plate.

I could definitely see a nice bar scene developing at Mondays. Three sizable flat-screen TVs are mounted on the wall–one behind the center of the bar, the other two at each corner–and the bar area is roomy enough to get quite a party going without seriously disturbing the dining area. Mary and I stuck around for a glass of pinot grigio after lunch and the “friends and family” crew were already camped out for a relaxing afternoon.

Of course, one mystery remained: why the name ‘Burger Mondays’–(besides the obvious parity with other days-of-the-week restaurants like ‘Fridays’ and ‘Tuesday’)?  Bonnie Jones, mother to exec chef Matthew G Jones, cleared it all up for us. Apparently, Matt had been working at another restaurant in town where friends gathered to watch football and have dinner on Mondays. The weekly gathering turned into sort of an impromptu burger-making competition, with various cooks working to come up with more and more creative burgers. That night was a partial inspiration for Burger Mondays, which, incidentally, opens today in downtown Bing.

(Rob Hutchings, one of Burger Mondays owners, was insanely busy at post time, but you can expect an interview from him shortly…)