By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — Columbia University students won't have to worry this fall about easy access to college's most important survival tools: pizza, burgers and beer.
Mel's Burger Bar opened this week on Broadway and West 111th Street, just blocks from Columbia's campus.
And Two Boots Pizza recently unveiled a location at Broadway and West 95th Street.
Mel's specializes in gourmet burgers, a wide variety of beers and "boozy milkshakes," according to Zagat. It also offers a service sure to please thirsty students: take out beer, reports Zagat.
Mel's will only be open for dinner for the next couple of weeks, after which it will add daytime hours to its schedule, a Mel's bartender told DNAinfo.
Two Boots is known for "old-fashioned, thin-crust, really spicy laden-with-everything-in-the-kitchen" pizza, according to a New York magazine review. The pizzeria has 11 other locations, including restaurants in Hell's Kitchen, the Upper East Side, Baltimore and Los Angeles.
