The Meatball Shop
“The kitchen sink plate is THE BEST for someone not super into carb-heavy things.”
“Ordered walnut brownie cookie and blueberry cheesecake ice cream, got the wrong cookie (snickerdoodle).”
“Delish meatballs, a cool inexpensive menu, great service, and an amazing staff..all tucked away in a quiet part of Chelsea on 9th ave!”
The Meatball Shop
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Accepts Apple Pay: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Outdoor Seating: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
Rate and write a review Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Good meatballs, but if you're boasting "meatballs" in your name, those balls better take me to cloud 9.
I got the special meatball of the day (BBQ) with the special sauce of the day (also BBQ) on top of the Kitchen Sink (which is like a sampling of different seasonal salads). The meatballs themselves are a bit more dense than I prefer (they aren't melt-in-our mouth soft where they cut easy). The BBQ sauce was pretty tasty, but nothing really memorable. I did enjoy the 4 salad options that came with the salad, one was a chickpea/celery mix in a vinaigrette, another was composed of shaved cauliflower with pine nuts, a squash/quinoa succotash, and marinated button mushrooms. All tasty, but once again, nothing too stand-out.
Overall, a good place to get a quick meatball fix, but I'm thinking there's more legit meatballs somewhere else in Manhattan.
"Don't you forget about me", the 80's hit song by Simple Minds was playing in the foreground — and it was very appropriate for The Meatball Shop located on 9th Ave in Chelsea. Loud, great energy, and extremely good balls are very memorable. Men are beautiful. Woman are certainly beautiful. When eating these meatballs, all people, young and old, are beautiful. These are peacemakers, for friends and enemies alike.
It's Italian, sure, but the decor is like an antique shop. Not the modern, industrial, reclaimed wood that's so trendy, it's classic. Adorning the walls are decorative frames with black & white old photos. Dark red walls give it romance, with chandeliers and a classic long bar with seats all along, and small 2-4 seat tables with chairs that can be rearranged for a larger party.
THERE'S A LOT OF OPTIONS
The somewhat confusing menu can be summed up in one phrase, "Meatballs". Pick the type You can get in a bowl of 4, 3 with a vegetable side, or a slider of 1 — all in all you, you choose the meat, the sauce, and the side. With a marker, you check, check, check. Still look puzzled? They'll help you and mark up the card.
MY ORDER
1. Beef meatballs with mushroom gravy over mashed potatoes and a fried egg atop — the combination is a spectacle. The mushroom gravy is unreal, great mash, but I would order this with the spicy pork, the beef had the least best texture (kinda firm) and overall, the least unique. ($9 balls/$6 mashed/$2 egg, 4.0 stars)
2. Spicy pork meatball slider with Parmesan cheese sauce — easily the best ball of the night. Not too spicy, just right. Oh, and that sauce. ($3.50, 5.0 stars)
3. Chicken meatball slider with Pesto sauce — quite delicious and a worthy ball indeed. ($3.50, 4.5 stars)
4. Ice Cream sandwich with Oatmeal cookie and White chocolate Sea Salt Caramel ice cream — holy, holy, holy. Cookie could have been softer, but the ice cream was amazing. Big portion, but not too big for me to finish when I was already beyond stuffed. ($6, 4.5 stars)
SERVICE
Friendly, outgoing, pleasant personality, casual, and very responsive. Very appropriate for this environment. Overall, wonderful.
CONCLUSION
I loved every moment of it. If I lived again in NY, this would easily be part of the regular rotation. Great experience. Go already.
Update: the company message me and truly regrets a lackluster experience. They invited me back to have a better and I really believe based on the quick response I may have had a odd man out meal on an off night. While I wont have time to revisit and re-review anytime soon, I would like to give them credit on the great follow up service.
Review:
I ordered a couple sliders and the special risotto.
Sliders are very small- I got two and was still pretty hungry. The veggie ball was good and the beef was alright. I was a little let down by the sauce- just a drizzle and didn't add much to the sliders. They were Luke warm too, as though they had been sitting there a while before hitting the table.
The risotto was inedible. I took three bites and it was so undercooked (and sauce was cold) that couldn't continue on with it. My friend chose the restaurant – he lives here and I'm from out of town, I kept my thoughts on it to myself as to not to ruin his experience or make him feel like he picked the wrong spot to take us.
Still pretty hungry, I embarked onto the dessert menu. I got the special "s'mores" cookie and vanilla icecream. Cookie was mediocre and icecream wasn't outstanding either. If you specialize in something I have high expectations and it fell short.
Overall pretty affordable so not end of the world. I wouldn't return. Also the ordering concept feels awkward and impersonable. You mark on a dry erase menu at your table for what you want, the sever then reads it back to you and then you get a fast casual card that marks your table.
Overall, I'd like to give it a 2 but there are so many good reviews a bumped it to a 3 thinking maybe I'm stacking it up against some pretty epic food I've had in the past.
I ended up grabbing a slice of pizza on the street a hour later… And I'm not usually one who needs a lot of food, but those sliders are super small.
Warning: Portions may seem small but are filling beyond belief. Come hungry!
My second time at The Meatball Shop and I would definitely come back again. The fun of being able to customize your own meal between the types of sauces, meats and sides! They also have rotating daily specials for your mains, sides, desserts and drinks!
This time we decided to try the Kitchen Sink option, select one meat type, your sauce and Chefs vegetable selection. I decided on the daily special meat – breakfast sausage topped with a mushroom gravy sauce.
At first we thought it was disproportionate the amount of meats to vegetables being that there were more vegetables than meatballs. But as I started eating through the heavy and quite large meatballs, I was thankful for the amount of fresh vegetables they plated. It was the perfect balance and prevented the dish from being too overwhelming. There was also four vegetable items as well keeping it interesting with all the textures and flavors- spicy chickpea salad, tangy fennel salad, summer squash with quip a and grape tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms and a bed of fresh leafy greens. A well thought out meal that we were more than satisfied with.
Friendly front of house staff, acceptable pick-up register dude (friendly, but not very sincere). Reasonably quick turn around time for take out. Manageable crowd for a sit down option for Monday night, especially if you're down for outdoor seating.
The portions look quite ample. The food I took home was good (a couple bites a bit heavy on the salt, but nothing offensive).
Same throughout the entire chain is the issue with the price-to-portion ratio. But it somewhat balances because of the MYO structure.
Good option to know about, if you're in any of their 'hoods and the seating/wait aren't cray…..and a good option for folks with kiddos.
So I discovered the Meatball Shop a few years ago and since then I've been obsessed with this place. My go-to location is the one in the LES, but I decided to check out this location since I was in the neighborhood. This location is much bigger than the one in the LES, the one in the LES is more of a "shop" compared to this one. Honestly, I like both.
So here's how it works, a plastic menu and marker is given to you. You check off the type of balls, sauce, & sides you want. You're practically creating your own item. It's pretty awesome.
My favorite is their veggie balls. Although the chicken & beef balls are just as good. You can't really go wrong with those veggies balls though. Those are the only balls that goes in my mouth that hasn't disappoint. Haha. Jeez, now I want some balls in my mouth!! (Veggie balls that is).
Save room for dessert their ice cream sandwich will give you life!
If you love meatballs this is totally the place for you!!!
They have a great menu of meatballs. You get to pick the meat and sauce! If you want something either on the side or under your meatballs. And the menu is fun inactive menu with a dry erase marker to mark your selections! With so many flavor combinations you can keep coming back and back!! We tried the mini buffalo chicken ones so great! Loved the flavor! Also had spicy pork with the Parmesan sauce! Which was a great combo!
They have ice cream sandwiches for dessert which also had great flavor combinations. You get to pick the cookies and the ice cream! Got the chocolate chip with espresso amazing!!!
Our server was great! We were sitting on the patio enjoying the sun and he told us no rush or hurry! Which was great because it was a nice patio!
What a cool little joint in Chelsea. This is a mini NYC chain and it is worth venturing into. We were looking for a place to kill time and grab an aperitif before our Omakase around the corner at Ushiwakamaru. So we wandered into this hipster meets neighborhood restaurant and sat at the bar.
Our very cool bartender made a couple of handcrafted off the cuff cocktails as we were looking for some tweaks to their existing cocktail list. So he made us what he dubbed the Mexican firing squad-accented with hot sauce-the tequila cocktail was great.
We absolutely loved the vibe and the appetizer (meatball slider) and would certainly come back for more food and to try their choose your own ice cream sandwich.