JG Melons--Manhattan

(212) 650-1310

I'm torn about this one. I just had lunch there the other day with a friend, a chicken sandwich (I limit myself to one burger a week--and Donahue's normally fills that slot) and some of their cross-cut fries. It was decent. The weather was nice and we procured an outside seat, so we could watch all of the Upper East Side faux milfs scoot by with their two thousand dollar scooters and LL Bean slacks.

I'd been to this place a million times about a decade ago, and my only relevant memory is of a friend pulling a box staple out of his mouth. It was about an inch long and hidden in his salad and the server was about as apologetic as Heidegger post WWII. I suppose that she might have had a bad day but a staple? What other things might accidentally fall into the salad bin on the lowboy counter top when you're not looking? A band aid? Cockroach? Human hand!?!

That was years ago so I'm sure that an establishment like the Melon's has not cleaned up its act one iota. With that said, you can only trash so many institutions before you get a bad name for yourself. So I'm going to keep my insults to a minimum. If you're stuck on the Upper East Side, this place is charming enough. If you have some prep school, Upper-East-Side douche-bag singing its praises, know that he probably has way too much copper and iron in his bloodstream. How's that?