Salt Bae's Burger Restaurant Has Officially Shut Down For Good

If you've been on the internet in the past five years, chances are you haven't been able to avoid Salt Bae. Real name Nusret Gökçe, "Salt Bae" is a restaurateur persona known for viral videos in which he cuts meat while sporting dark sunglasses and slicked-back hair, sprinkling salt in a signature fashion by flicking his wrist and dropping it from his fingertips past his forearm. In the late 2010s, he was everywhere, using edible gold wrapping to a degree few chefs would dare.

As of a few days ago, however, he's in one fewer place. Salt Bae Burger, one of the New York locations in his international restaurant empire, closed earlier this month. A sign on the door apparently said the restaurant would be moving to a new location — but the new address lists one of his steakhouse locations, claiming it will serve the burger spot's menu, a bit of attempted misdirection that ultimately doesn't hide the closure.

Salt Bae isn't exactly a favorite of food critics, and Salt Bae Burger particularly with its $99 gold leaf milkshakes has been savaged in the past. Eater's Robert Sietsema and Ryan Sutton wrote how couldn't even tell which burger they ordered was which. Gothamist's Scott Lynch was even more vicious, at one point saying "The food is terrible here" and declaring the place the worst restaurant in New York City. Given its closure, the public apparently didn't like it any more than they did.

This isn't even the first time one of Salt Bae's restaurants has been ripped apart by critics. GQ's Joshua David Stein torched the menu at Gökçe's signature steakhouse, Nusr-Et, for being both limited and ludicrously overpriced, with steaks running as high as $275. The New York Post's Steve Cuozzo went at the place as hard as perhaps any restaurant review ever, referring to it as "Public Rip-off No. 1." And Pete Wells, The New York Times restaurant critic who once memorably devastated Guy Fieri, said he'd come away with an unexpected souvenir when Salt Bae's ballistic seasoning approach heavily salted his pants. 

Gökçe has also spent the years since his rise making headlines for all the wrong reasons, managing to turn public opinion against him in a variety of unique ways. He was sued for wage theft, sex discrimination, and National Labor Relations Board violations, all in relation to how he runs his restaurants.