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Boxcar Burgers
Boxcar Burgers opened in January 2020 on Railroad Avenue near the Ronkonkoma train station, founded by Steve Cannon and Mike Dorian — Port Jefferson Station natives who've been best friends since they were 12 years old, and who between them have worked nearly every job the restaurant business offers, from dishwasher up through executive management. They built the concept specifically around Long Island's railroad heritage, working the theme into everything from the name itself to the interior design, under a tagline that sums up the whole pitch: "food that's off the rails." The timing turned out to be almost comically bad and then, eventually, good anyway. Cannon and Dorian designed Boxcar Burgers to catch the daily wave of commuters heading to and from the Ronkonkoma LIRR station — a captive, high-volume audience passing the door twice a day. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit within weeks of opening and emptied the commuter trains entirely, forcing the two founders to rebuild their customer base almost from scratch around local diners rather than the transit crowd they'd planned for. That the burger joint not only survived that mistimed launch but expanded to three locations, including a spot in the Smith Haven Mall food court, says something about the underlying product. The kitchen leans into quality, freshly baked bread and thick, well-seared patties rather than trying to out-gimmick the competition, positioning itself as a straightforward, ingredient-forward burger built by two self-described "working-class guys" rather than a chef-driven concept chasing culinary spectacle. The railroad framing isn't just a name slapped on a generic burger menu, either — Cannon and Dorian have said explicitly that they wanted to highlight Long Island's rail history in every detail of the restaurant, from the Railroad Avenue location itself to the boxcar-referencing branding throughout. That kind of specific, place-rooted theming is harder to find among the Island's newer burger openings, many of which lean on more generic "gourmet burger bar" branding that could be transplanted to any suburb in the country. Boxcar Burgers, by contrast, could really only exist in a Long Island train town. The Smith Haven Mall food court expansion is a particularly telling data point, since food-court operators are typically choosy about which independent concepts they'll bring in alongside established national chains — landing that slot suggests Boxcar Burgers had built enough of a track record at its original Ronkonkoma location to be treated as a proven concept rather than a risky local experiment, only a few years removed from a launch that could easily have sunk the whole idea. For a Long Island cheeseburger list, Boxcar Burgers is the essential "built around Long Island's own railroad history" entry — a thick, quality-driven patty served a few steps from the Ronkonkoma LIRR platform, founded by two lifelong friends who opened three weeks before a pandemic emptied their target audience and rebuilt anyway.
VS
Chubs Burgers Burritos and Heroes
Chubs Burgers Burritos and Heroes grew directly out of a butcher shop. Ryan Jones opened the original Chubs Meats in 2014 with a specific goal in mind — a butcher counter where "everyone felt comfortable" the moment they walked in, built on quality, competitively priced, locally sourced product rather than a more clinical, purely transactional meat-counter experience. Five years later, in 2019, Jones expanded the brand into a dedicated Burger, Burrito, and Hero shop in Farmingville, taking over the former Moller's Sandwich Shop space on Horseblock Road. That butcher-shop pedigree matters more than it might for a typical burger joint: the beef going into Chubs' burgers comes from the same sourcing relationships and hand-cutting standards Jones built his original meat counter's reputation on, rather than from a generic food-service distributor supplying a generic pre-formed patty. It's the difference between a burger restaurant that happens to grind its own beef and an actual butcher shop that decided to start serving what it sells, cooked to order, on a bun. The Farmingville menu leans into that same quality-over-flash approach across the board — a build-your-own burger section sits alongside signature, overstuffed meat-lovers heroes and burritos, plus wraps and salads for anyone not there for beef specifically. It's a breakfast-and-lunch operation built for volume and consistency, the kind of neighborhood spot regulars stop into multiple times a week rather than save for a special occasion. Jones didn't stop at one expansion, either — the Chubs brand grew to include a food truck for catering and events and a second Chubs Meats butcher shop location in Ronkonkoma in 2021, with a third location following in Smithtown. Chubs Meats has been named "Best of Long Island Butcher Shop" six times and "Best Caterer" three times, recognition that predates and underpins the burger shop's own reputation rather than the other way around — Chubs Burgers didn't build a burger following and then add a meat counter for credibility, it built a meat counter's credibility first and then opened a burger shop to put it to direct use. That sequencing is worth sitting with, because it inverts the more common pattern among newer Long Island burger spots, where a restaurant opens first and sourcing claims get added to the marketing later. Jones ran a working butcher counter for five full years before a burger was ever on the menu, which means the sourcing relationships, the hand-cutting standards, and the six Best of Long Island wins were already established, independently verified facts by the time Chubs Burgers Burritos and Heroes opened its doors in Farmingville. For a Long Island cheeseburger list, Chubs Burgers Burritos and Heroes is the essential "actual butcher shop, not just butcher-shop branding" entry — a Farmingville burger counter built on the same sourcing and cutting standards as a six-time Best of Long Island butcher shop, serving thick, quality-driven patties to a neighborhood that already trusted the meat before the burgers existed.
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