A Flatiron restaurant is offering free meals for a year. The only catch: a lifetime endorsement on your skin.
Burger & Lobster, the restaurant at 39 W. 19th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues with a menu limited to its two eponymous dishes, is teaming up with a Union Square tattoo shop to give free ink to customers on Wednesday night.
And anyone who gets a tattoo of the restaurant’s logo gets to eat free meals for the next year.
Wednesday will mark the second time that Burger & Lobster has offered free tattoos by artists from Rising Dragon Tattoo, located at 51 W. 14th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues, with the promise of free meals should customers get the logo inked on their skin.
Two people last year got the logo, a stylized mock up of the restaurant’s name, and come in from time to time to cash in, but not as often as you might think, according to Steven Costello, Burger & Lobster’s operations manager.
“I guess there’s only so many times you can eat at the same restaurant, even ours,” Costello said.
Artists from Rising Dragon will be on hand at Burger and Lobster from 6 to 9 p.m. offering free tattoos first come first serve to anyone who buys a meal at the restaurant during that time, and as long as ink supply lasts.
There will be pre-drawn tattoos ready to be drummed into the skin of daring diners, but customers may also bring their own designs, as long as it meets the one-square-inch size restriction.
Burger and Lobster will congratulate of-age tattoo customers with a free shot of tequila.
For those willing to give a patch of skin over to the restaurant’s marketing department, there are few restrictions to the deal: the tattoo will buy you one meal and one drink per visit. Other than that, the newly-inked living billboards will be able to chow down to their heart’s content, Costello said.
“This is just a matter of us wanting to be part of our community,” Costello said. “We want to contribute to New York culture, not suck the life out of it.”
Burger & Lobster, a London-based chain with 17 restaurants worldwide, opened the Flatiron location, it’s first in the United States, in January 2015.
(Don't forget that although the tattoos are free, it is customary to tip your artist.)
