The man behind America's burger boom

NEW YORK - "We have over a million and a half pounds of beef, just in this room."

Pat LaFrieda's warehouse is just two miles outside Manhattan. It's where the butcher has carved out the Fort Knox of filet.

"There's enough beef to feed New York City for a few weeks," Pat said.

The LaFrieda family has been feeding the city for more than 90 years, beginning with his great grandfather in 1922.

It almost ended in 1992 when Pat's father insisted his son do anything else.

"I was the generation that was supposed to jump out of this business," Pat said. "I wasn't supposed to work these hours, I wasn't supposed to be in these 35 degree temperatures. Famous quote my dad told me when I asked him to joining the family business, was 'why would you want to do this. You're going to be rubbing pennies for the rest of your life.'"

Pat worked on Wall Street for a year selling cheap stocks. He despised it. So with the family business struggling, Pat ditched the boiler room to get back in a meat locker.

"We had about 44 customers. My mother did the books. We had two drivers. My dad and I were the two butchers," he said. "Now I have 60 butchers."

The LaFrieda family business hit a turning point when Pat met Mario Batali.

Before becoming a celebrity chef, Batali was desperate for a much-needed veal loin. Pat convinced his father to let him buy on credit. Batali rewarded that loyalty with all of his business since.

Now Pat supplies the meat for Danny Meyer's Shake Shack empire, along with the burgers and steaks at elite restaurants throughout New York City and around the country.

The best of that meat comes from his ever-expanding dry-age room.

"We control the temperature and wind circulation," Pat said. "This is my library. Everything is stacked in here perfectly. Everything is dated as to when it comes in, what the gross weight was so we can track it.

It's row after row of carefully cataloged cuts.

"Restaurants asked me, 'Pat, where can I find some butchers? I'm opening up a restaurant and need someone to prep the meat.' And I explain, we don't find butchers, we make them," Pat said. "Even in the culinary institutes, they don't teach enough about cutting meat."

LaFrieda pays regular visits to his customers, including Alex Guarnaschelli at NYC's Butter.

"It's an art form," Pat said. "Our butchers carve steaks with passion all night long."

That passion was born in New York's famed meatpacking district, where the dramatically transformed landscape has made butchering unfashionable, pushing LaFrieda to New Jersey.

" It was very tough to leave Manhattan," Pat said. "I really struggled with that because our roots are in New York City. The Meatpacking District is completely different when I was a kid ... it was swinging beef and swinging lamb and meat hooks and traffic and that's where all of New York City came to get meat for restaurants for New York City."

Pat LaFrieda Sr. had never been up on the High Line -- a tourist walkway where the cattle were once brought in on freight trains -- until this week.

"I don't see the market anymore, you know what I mean," Pat Sr. said. "What do I see? A bunch of bushes?"

Despite the changing landscape, one thing remains: a father's pride in his son.

"You know something, I'm very proud of him," Pat Sr. said. "He's a good creator, you understand? And he's always thinking about what he's going to create next. We got guys in the meat business 50 years and they can't create a hot dog, you understand?"

LaFrieda not only butchers, he creates original, top secret blends for his customers, like Minetta Tavern's $28 black label burger, and the burger at Butter.

"Burgers were always popular in New York City, but now as I travel the country, to see burgers on every menu from high-end restaurants to low, I mean there's just a place on every menu for a burger," Pat said. "It's not going to change."