Brennan & Carr — Restaurant in New York

One afternoon your humble narrator made a reference to Brennan & Carr to his wife, and to his shock and amazement, he learned she had never partaken of the glory of B&C. Clearly, this is a situation that must get fixed! So your humble friend and narrator drove his wife and baby to B&C where he had hoped to recapture the glory of B&C that he remembered from his youth.

Best. Roast-beef. Sandwich. Evar.

Right? How it pains me to tell you this, oh my brothers. The experience was not that of my childhood, but of something completely different. Call it the reality of my adulthood. Call it the sophisticationization of my tastes. Call it "new management". Call it what you like, but the food was not what I remembered.

New England Clam Chowder: B- Your run of the mill clam chowder except for one small detail. Way too much cornstarch! When I first tasted the chowder, the first thing I thought was "Man, this is really thick!" The second thought "Why am I not enjoying this?" And the third "What the heck is wrong with the texture?" The problem is that cornstarch (or flour) was not meant to make a thin soup into a chowder, because if you add that much to your soup, it's going to become more of a strangely textured gloop rather than a chowder. Sadly, this was a gloop. Tasted good. But the texture was really off-putting.

Roast Beef Sandwich: B- These sandwiches get served on a fairly nondescript kaiser roll.

Your sandwich can come with cheese (the same faux cheese they put on the cheese fries) or without cheese.

You can get it "dipped" zero, one, two, or three times. This refers to the number of times your sandwich gets dipped into the roast beef au jus. Get it dipped twice and you can still pick the sandwich up. Get it dipped thrice and the bun becomes saturated with the roast beef juice, requiring you to eat it with a knife and fork.

This is the sentence that causes me pain, and is the central theme of this review: The roast beef at B&C is fairly substandard. I guarantee you this. If you take the roast beef out of the beautiful 1930's era restaurant, hide the fact that it's "Brennan and Carr roast beef" and slap it down on the counter of a nondescript diner in the middle of Astoria, you wouldn't give this roast beef the time of day.

The roast beef isn't tasteless, but it's not particularly flavorful. The juice (which I suspect is waaaay more beef broth than it is roast beef drippings, IF it actually has roast beef drippings) is what gives the roast beef its flavor. It's not a tough roast beef, but it's not exactly a soft roast beef either. Is it garlicky? Nope. Does it have a deep roast beef flavor? Nope. Oniony? Nope. Is the kaiser roll special in any way? Nope.

Sad NYC fact: The roast beef sandwich at Brennan and Carr is average roast beef on an average kaiser roll served with yummy beef broth in a beautiful old-time restaurant that comes with a quintessential New York cache from being a Brooklyn icon for over 60 years.

Now. Can you please turn around so I can cry in peace?

Cheesy French Fries: B+ Classic case of "sum of the parts is greater than the parts of the sum". The fries are totally bagged frozen. Better than what you get with a Hungryman dinner, but still not worth the calories. The cheese is faux American cheese sauce. Yet the combination is actually pretty good in an oink-oink snort-snort "look at me Ima pig" kind of way. I could feel my weight increase with every fry I ate.

Onion Rings: B- Again, bagged frozen onion rings from the corner store. You know how some onion rings are deliciously oniony? Not these. Can't taste the onion at all. The breading is good in a frozen supermarket kind of way, but they have overtones of oil that needed changing. I tried them both dipped in roast beef juice and with ketchup. Still not worth the calories.

Gargiulo burger: Special Mention I didn't actually eat this, but my step father did. It actually looked like fairly...

You don’t stumble into Brennan & Carr by accident. It’s not on a foodie walking tour. It’s not nestled in some tree-lined brownstone Brooklyn fairy tale. No, this shrine to meat and memory is perched unapologetically on a Sheepshead Bay strip that smells faintly of auto repair and nostalgia.

It’s old. Old in the way that matters. Built in 1938 by two carpenters who knew a damn sight more about beef than branding, Brennan & Carr is the kind of place that survived by ignoring the whims of culinary trendiness. Truffle oil? Go back to Manhattan. Vegan aioli? The door’s over there. What they have here is beef. Real beef. And broth. Lots of it.

The menu’s crown jewel—and let’s be honest, the reason you’re here—is the roast beef sandwich. But calling it a sandwich feels like calling Miles Davis a guy with a horn. This is the hot beef. A secular sacrament. A soft kaiser roll, lovingly soaked (double-dipped, if you know what you’re doing) in a broth that could resurrect the dead or at least keep them coming back.

There’s a taxonomy to the broth-dunking process that borders on the spiritual: the Dingle Dangle for the timid, a polite brush against beefy baptism; the Double Dip for the true believers; and then, the apex—the Knife & Fork Job (KFJ)—a glorious, drippy, soggy mess that turns bread into sponge and beef into velvet.

The broth—God, the broth—isn’t some factory-made salt bath. It’s an elixir, the liquified essence of roast, steeped in its own truths. No shortcuts. No compromises. Just beef, bone, and time.

Step into the dining room and you’re back in a world where wood paneling was a lifestyle and not an aesthetic. The waitstaff doesn’t perform, they serve. Efficient. Warm. Human. You might sit next to a cop, a city worker, a judge, or a guy who sells knockoff handbags from the trunk of a Lincoln. All are welcome. All are eating the same thing. That’s democracy.

And then there’s the Garjulo Burger, a glorious monstrosity that answers the eternal question: what if we took a burger and gave it the hot beef treatment? American cheese, sautéed onions, roast beef stacked high like a Bronx tenement, and—of course—a generous bath in that sacred broth. This is not fusion. This is a fever dream. And it works.

Nothing here is pretty. It’s better than pretty. It’s honest. The food isn’t plated—it’s presented, with the reverence of a family heirloom. And while the city’s culinary elite are out chasing fermented sea foam and beef tartare lollipops, Brennan & Carr stays exactly where it’s always been—serving food that doesn’t need to change.

So here’s the verdict, for what it’s worth: 5 stars. Not because it’s perfect, but because it doesn’t give a damn about being perfect. Brennan & Carr is what happens when a place doesn’t try to impress anyone—it just tries to feed you well and make you feel like you’ve come home. And in a city that forgets itself daily, that’s more than enough.

So grab a napkin—hell, grab a stack. Order the hot beef, double-dipped. Eat with your hands, your elbows, your heart. And when the last bite is gone and your fingers smell like broth and memory, raise a glass to the simple, noble act of feeding people the right way.

To Brennan & Carr. To...

Brennan and Carr's is a roast beef sandwich restaurant that's a Brooklyn legend that has been around since 1938, and it looks like it. The facade and interior have not been modernized at all. See attached pics.

It's located on the edge of the Sheepshead Bay and Marine Park neighborhoods. There is a very tiny parking lot that fits 8 cars maximum (one is reserved for handicapped parking), but it is pretty easy to get parking on the street and I suspect many people use the adjacent bank parking lot, as well.

When the weather is nice, they have a walk-up window to process take out orders. When you walk through the door to the place it is like entering a time warp. The first room you're in has a big counter and some stools for people who are ordering out that don't want to wait outside. If the dining room is full, this is where people wait to be seated.

All the servers are male and they wear a very long white waiter's shirt uniform with pants and shoes. I've never seen a server here wearing sneakers or jeans. Some servers have been working there so long that I remember them serving me over 20 years ago.

Once you're seated, you'll need to look at the menu on the wall for prices. The menu is very simple, containing soups (I recommend the New England clam chowder), appetizers, sandwiches/burgers, beers and dessert. See attached pic. The tables all have a napkin dispenser, a squeeze bottle is Goulden's spicy mustard, Heinz's ketchup and salt and pepper.

I only really go there for the roast beef plate. It's pretty big as it contains enough meat to make two full sandwiches, and two sides, with a small toasted bun. The sides are either fries, onion rings or vegetables. You can mix and match, or double up. I personally avoid the veggies as I find them to be too watery. I just get onion rings and fries and for 80 cents, they'll make them cheese fries.

The meat and accompanying au jus are delicious and the beef comes standard as medium rare. Most people put mustard on the beef and others think it's a sacrilege...I use the bun it comes with and make a sandwich with mustard and black pepper.

Warning: If you order the roast beef sandwich, you should specify whether or not you want the au jus separately (for dipping) or poured on top of the sandwich (making it a "fork and knife job" sandwich). Some people love it that way. I prefer it separately for dipping as it's less messy, though.

Service is great here, just tell them exactly what you want and how you want it. Prices are good for what you're getting. When you are ready to pay, I recommend having cash on hand to leave the servers on the table for gratuity, because you pay at a cashier booth that is right by the exit/entrance.

I highly recommend this place if you're in the area, or just want to travel to this special roast beef place....