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- Burger restaurants have long been the largest category of fast-food establishments in the United States and show no signs of going away — despite record beef prices in 2014, hamburger consumption rose 3 percent — but the old burger order seems to be crumbling. McDonald’s recently announced sales declines for the first time in a decade and closed hundreds of locations. Last July, a Consumer Reports survey of 21 fast-food burgers rated the McDonald’s burger last. Hamburgers are no longer being taken for granted, and the so-called better-burger movement is on fire — a few years ago, Five Guys was declared the fastest-growing restaurant chain in the country, and Shake Shack, the first chain since TGI Friday’s to originate in New York rather than the heartland, went public in January. In fact, New York has become a locus of innovation at all tiers of burgerdom, with ever more chefs both fancy and plain making bids for burger greatness.