Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep. # 95 Behind the Kitchen Door: The Surprising Path to Owning a Beloved Local Eatery
Arthur Toufayan's culinary journey begins like a fairytale turned on its head – born into his family's bakery business after they fled war-torn Egypt in the 1960s, he witnessed firsthand how a small North Bergen bakery grew into the nationally recognized Toufayan's Bakery brand. But rather than continuing directly in the family business, Arthur's path took an unexpected turn when he enlisted in the Army and joined an elite bomb squad unit.
This military service formed the foundation of the precision and discipline that would later define his cooking style, while also exposing him to global cuisines that expanded his palate. After completing his service, Arthur used his GI Bill to attend the Culinary Institute of America, launching himself into a remarkable career alongside culinary legends. From The Waldorf Astoria to Tom Colicchio's Mondrian, Charlie Palmer's Oriole, and Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe, he absorbed techniques and philosophies from the very best in the business.
The story of how Arthur eventually came to own Café Amici in Wyckoff reveals the winding path of a chef committed to quality above all else. After transforming the restaurant's approach by eliminating frozen ingredients and establishing relationships with local farms, Arthur has created a dining destination that's survived and thrived for 21 years – even through the challenges of the pandemic. Today, the 60-seat restaurant serves fresh, farm-to-table cuisine seven days a week, with plans to expand with permanent outdoor dining.
Visit Café Amici at 315 Franklin Avenue in Wyckoff to experience the culmination of Arthur's unique journey – where military precision, culinary artistry from New York's finest kitchens, and a commitment to local sourcing create consistently excellent dining experiences. Call 201-848-0198 for reservations and discover why this neighborhood gem has remained beloved for over two decades.
Cafe Amici of Wyckoff
Arthur Toufayan
315 Franklin Avenue, Wyckoff, NJ 07481
(201) 848-0198
cafeamiciwyckoffnj@gmail.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to an episode, another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. I am based in Harrington Park and today we are joined by Arthur and Lynn Toufayan from the Cafe Amici in Wyckoff, new Jersey. Welcome to the show. Thanks, doug.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:So we listen, cafe Amici. It's one of the few restaurants in Wyckoff I would say it's a mainstay. It's unique in that it's, you know, has that cafe experience. Anytime I go in there it's always packed. I always wonder what these people do during the day where they can have lunch. But good for them. So you know, I like to dig into not only the genesis of a business, and in this case your restaurant, but kind of the journey of the owners and the entrepreneurs that started the company. So, arthur, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background? You know how you got into the restaurant business when Cafe Amici opened and you know how things have been progressing since. Sure.
Speaker 4:So I was basically born into the business. I know a lot of chefs say that and they sometimes mean it, but I literally when and my two aunts and my grandparents. So they had a bakery in Egypt and they left everything just to get away from the war and what was going on back in the early 60s. So it was a very unsettling time time. But when they finally ended up here in New Jersey they found a small place in North Bergen to start up a bakery and I was I was like probably like excuse me like three, maybe three or four years old at the time. The bakery opened up and everything was made by hand. There was no automation back then, but with watching my grandparents bake all the pastries and then you know my uncle and my father baking the bread, Toufayan's Bakery was born and now is a nationwide, nationwide brand that everybody has heard, or most a lot of people have heard of.
Speaker 2:What street was the bakery on in North Bergen?
Speaker 4:I don't recall the first one, but the second one, when we moved, was on Kennedy Boulevard.
Speaker 2:Okay, I lived in North Bergen for a while. Kennedy and White.
Speaker 4:Right next to the White Castles and the Seer Bath Company and all that so Okay, so near near the park, near Yep. Yeah, okay, yeah I was only like a half a block away from the park entrance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I lived on Boulevard East, right across from the park.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, yeah, sure. So this was all kind of happening around. You know, by the time they got settled and they were working right around, like the late 60s, early 70s, the name started to catch hold. The product was really was something that everybody enjoyed and they had a retail store as well, retail store as well. So I was working there when I was a young kid and packaging and and all, and learning how to basically deal with customers. Um, so you know, my, my grandfather at the time, who didn't even speak English, um, took a ride uh, I don't know how he found his way, but took a ride to um Damascus bakery, which was, I believe, in Brooklyn at the time, and he went there to just basically scope out how the automation of the bread was working, because back then it was all brand new stuff. So he didn't write anything down, he just memorized it all and then, when he came back, he explained it to my family and my uncle and then they started the automation process and slowly, the, the, the bakery started to take off with that.
Speaker 2:So the automation sorry for automation and bakeries. So you know I'm thinking, you know I'm visualizing by hand. You're mixing the dough by hand and you're putting it, you're forming the bread by hand and then you're placing it in the oven. So what part of it is automated today and what started to be automated back then?
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, so let's start from the beginning. They would mix the dough in a mixer and take pieces of that dough about like five or six pounds worth and lay it on this machine. That would make exact size balls like dough balls and those dough balls were thrown through a sheeter and they would make a flat round disc and then they would put that by hand into the oven, and then it would make pita bread by hand into the oven and then it would make pita bread.
Speaker 4:So now the whole thing is basically there's I mean, there's still people obviously working in the factory and stuff but now the dough is mixed, you know, to the exact calibrations, and then the dough balls are made like really really fast, and it's again it's all done by machines and then they're laid out on a mass conveyor belt and they have to proof.
Speaker 4:So they go through a proofing table that's probably I don't know it takes maybe about 20 minutes for the entire process. It just keeps going back and forth on a conveyor belt in a controlled environment, that's that's, humidity controlled, and then the yeast starts to activate and then it goes, and then it follows that into a, into a, like a 600 degree oven, and the oven is also on a conveyor belt, and it then pops the dough into a, into a pocket bread. The dough into a pocket bread, basically because the water that's inside that dough steams and when it steams, with the yeast that's in there, it expands and with the heat it just blows the bread up into two pieces that are sealed together all around Wow.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, sorry to interrupt. So I ask this because I've always been, I've worked in restaurants but I've always loved bakeries. I remember I was a kid growing up in Long Island we would go to these German or Jewish bakeries after church but I always love the smell of the fresh rolls coming out. And then I was living in Manhattan at one point and there was a French bakery, like in Gramercy, flat iron district and they had the open kind of kitchen and you could watch the making, everything. And it's kind of like going to Balthazar and Englewood today but there's no.
Speaker 2:You know the movie chef I don't know if you saw it was John Favreau and yeah, so they there's an offshoot of that movie on Netflix which is different episodes of Jon Favreau and Roy Choi, who was the chef who trained him for the movie. And they go initially in LA and they go to different restaurants and they go to places where they learn how to make the food for the movie. But then they travel around the country and they go to this one place was, but, uh, this place called tarpan where these two um are artisan bread making. Um, I don't know what you call pastry chefs. Show them how they make. A lot of it was sourdough but everything that goes into it and a lot of it's artisan, so it, or you know it's, it's handmade. But the whole fermentation and the yeast and having that starter, you know you have the starter dough that helps you make more and more of it. It's very fascinating and it's very, you know, chemistry-like class, you know scientific stuff that goes into making bread. It's really interesting.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, for sure, the starters. Some of the starters are hundreds of years old, believe it or not, and as long as you keep you know, you take a piece out that you need and you would be able to then just refortify it by adding more flour and water and it would just create more starter.
Speaker 2:But some of them are decades old and obviously the longer they last, you know, the more flavor that they, they they bring in. So, yeah, all right. So now you're so we're going to fast forward. So you're working in your you know, your family bakery. You're working in the retail store. You're a kid. Now you're in high school, you know you graduate high school. So where did you go from there?
Speaker 4:Once I graduated high school, I was I enlisted in the army, so I took a detour from turning from cooking. So you know, I basically signed up and enlisted as a non-commissioned officer.
Speaker 2:And this is right around the end of the Vietnam War, right, this is after the Vietnam.
Speaker 4:War. This was after, this was in the mid 80s, I graduated mid 80s.
Speaker 2:Ok, because I OK got it, Got it.
Speaker 4:So when I went into the Met Station in Newark they were asking what I wanted to do. I initially wanted to be a helicopter pilot and at that particular time they didn't have anything open for for flight schools or for none for for warrant officer school. So the next thing that I saw on the list was explosive ordnance disposal EOD. So I said, what is that? And the recruiter had no idea because it's a top secret. It was a top secret job in the military and basically is a bomb squad. So you're on the count of being in this one position that only 600 active military personnel can achieve. So it's very rigorous.
Speaker 4:It was a really crazy schedule but you know, I was young, I was single and I was able to kind of go wherever they asked me to go or told me to go, rather, and the great thing about that was that I was able to sort of you know, food and culinary was still sort of, you know, always in the back of my mind, but I was able to see different cultures, taste different foods from around the world and really, you know, expand my palate that way. So when I finished, when my time was up, I had the GI Bill, I saved up some money and I was accepted into the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and I decided to take that on. So I went there and received my degree and basically had the military pay for most of it.
Speaker 4:I still had to work during the time, but then, once I got out, I had a job lined up at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. So, I was working there for about a year and I had benefits. I was making about 16 an hour. This is in 89, 90 so you know back then it was pretty good money um and working banquets and all the restaurants that that the waldorf had to offer um, and I got a call one day that there was this up-and-coming chef, um, tom calicchio who had a restaurant on 61st Street called Mondrian, and he was looking for some extra help, so I decided to go and visit him and he offered me a job that was paying about I don't know $200 a week, and that was for six days.
Speaker 2:And no benefits. Yeah, it was pretty rigorous and no benefits.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was pretty rigorous. It was crazy. Tom was a very demanding chef at the time and he really lasted about two years, about a year and a half in. Another chef kind of walked in and was basically going to stage there or just work for six months and his name was Thomas Keller. And Thomas Keller just closed a restaurant at that time and was looking in California to open up a place called French Laundry. So when his time was up and he was ready to go, he asked a few of us to kind of join him in going out west and helping him open this place. Well, I had to stay back just because I had obligations here and there was no way I could relocate. But at one particular time Thomas Keller did ask me to go open up French Laundry. So you know, and then my wife and I went and visited French Laundry a few years back and you know he signed a book for us and all that.
Speaker 4:So it was nice, but yeah and uh, you know he signed a book for us and all that, so it was nice. But yeah, well, once mondrian shut down, um, uh tom went over to open up uh gramercy tavern and um, at that particular time I went to work at uh oreo restaurant with charlie palmer. Um, so that lasted about two years restaurant with Charlie Palmer so that lasted about two years.
Speaker 4:I was that was on 42nd okay and that was when, like, Charlie was just kind of getting known. Like you know, he was over at the River Cafe. He opened up Oreo and Oreo was just kind of getting known. Like you know, he was over at the River Cafe. He opened up Oriole and Oriole was just starting to like get get its legs underneath it and was really starting to run. So all of New York was really just starting to, you know, burst. You know everybody was opening restaurants left and right. The money was flowing in.
Speaker 4:It was during the dot com era and you know the money was just was, it was during the dot-com era and, uh, you know, the money was just, uh was not a obstacle whatsoever. So, uh, we watched and helped uh charlie, basically, you know, become one of the best chefs in america or one of the one of the notable chefs in america. Um, we helped him with his cookbooks and then I got an offer to come out to Jersey at the time. Now, at that particular time, I was married to my first wife and we had three children, so I needed to stay sort of close to home and I was executive chef at Bakari Grill in Washington Township for about six years and that went well until I basically wanted to get back into the city because I missed it so much and Danny Meyer was somebody who was looking for some help and I went down to Union Square Cafe and started working there as a roundsman and a line cook.
Speaker 2:I mean you're name dropping right now you got Danny Meyer, Colicchio Keller. I mean it's like name dropping right now you got Danny Meyer, Colicchio Keller. I mean it's like the who's who and it's right. I mean, like New York City, I used to work in the music industry in the late 90s, early 2000s and Douglas Rodriguez was a guy, up and coming guy who won the James Beard Award. We started the huevoino kind of craze. But oreo, you know that was I had gone there once. We'd been to gramosy tavern. Uh, you know, I don't think I ever went to union square cafe and even I worked around the corner at the coffee house and then a restaurant across the street from that called the metropolitan cafe when I was going to college and was bussing tables. But yeah, it was an incredible time and, like the late 90s, Flatiron District was building up, you know, South Park Avenue South that whole area, Union Square. It was a really fun time to be going out and having an expense account.
Speaker 4:Well, the second opportunity that I kind of missed was when I was at union square cafe. Danny meyer sat me down one day and said you know, I'm thinking about doing this burger thing in the park. I'm like, yeah, whatever another burger joint, you know right right the first.
Speaker 2:The first Shake Shack opened in Madison Square Park, Right and you know, yeah, and that's where.
Speaker 4:that's where he started there. And then, at that same time, charlie Palmer called me back up to Oriole, or asked me to go back up as as his executive sous chef. So I left the Danny Meyer group and I went back up to Charlie and I was his executive sous chef for eight years.
Speaker 2:Wow. So somehow you got all that New York experience world-renowned chefs, and somehow you make your way to Wyckoff.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I left. When I left, when I left Oriole the second time, I opened up a small. Well, I had a partnership in a small restaurant in Ridgewood called the Village Green and at the time the existing chef passed away suddenly and the proprietor and other partner was looking for a chef to come in, and the proprietor and other partner was looking for a chef to come in. So I I fit the bill and what I did was I said let's just do, let's just attempt to try all tasting menus and nothing. You know we're not serving any large plates, you're just going to do either four course, five course or six course tastings. And it took off. The New York Times got wind of it. They came out, did an interview. Good Morning America wanted us on. You know I cooked at the James Beard House during that time, so it was a pretty successful and a great time to be part of it. So that worked out well.
Speaker 2:That's great, all right. So now, when did Cafe Amici come about?
Speaker 4:So at that time, Linda, who was my partner we just received like three and a half stars from the Bergen record and things were moving along. I was there for about four years. She said that she was going to be relocating to California. She wanted to go to Napa Valley and start doing some consulting work in the wine, in the wine department. Start doing some consulting work in the wine department. So I had a choice I was either going to buy the place or I was going to not buy the place and find something else to do. So I was grappling with it. Even though the business was good, I still kind of wanted to go out. I didn't want to be stuck in one place at that time. So I told her I wasn't going to take on the restaurant, and that's right. Around that same time there was an opening at cafe Amici. Now this is that. This is probably around. Let me just see if I can get that. It was like 2006, 2007.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:And uh, cafe Amici just opened up, uh, a year or two before that and, um, they, they brought me in as head chef. I changed the whole menu around. At that time they were using all front, like one of the walk-in refrigerators. Down here was a freezer at the time loaded, you know, with everything frozen. I cleaned all that out. We did everything from scratch, from sauces to stocks, to meats, fish Everything was brought in on a daily basis. We started working with local farms and we turned the restaurant into a farm-to-table eatery and it took off. It was great. Then there was a little discrepancy with well, first there was a fire and then, once the fire hit, there was a fire, um, and then, once the fire hit, there was a little tug and pull between the owner and I and I got a very lucrative um offer to work at ramsey country club and be the head chef at ramsey golf and country club okay so I never worked in a country club before, didn't know if it was my thing at that.
Speaker 4:That time Lynn and I were married and she was working at a whole different field. But I went to Ramsey. I worked there for about two years and then Amici called me back and said we want to make you a partner and come on back. So, without any money down, I was able to secure a position and be a partner at Cafe Amici and then, as time went on, I slowly bought out my existing partners and now I basically own the restaurant and my wife Lynn and I work here full time.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow.
Speaker 4:So that's the whole. That was the whole story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that is that's quite a story and it's um, the restaurant business is not for the faint of heart, but I think, for you to have a career and have had so many amazing experiences, obviously it's something that you love to do. You were born into it in some ways. I mean, being in a bakery is a lot different than running a kitchen, for Danny Meyer it's. You know so. So what do you? How would you describe Cafe Amici in terms of the, the, the menu, the atmosphere, like? What are you guys trying to achieve? Is there? Is there something that would describe philosophy of what you do there?
Speaker 4:Well, we're. You know, we we've had opportunities to change and the the restaurant's been in existence for 21 years now. I've been here for 17 of those 21. And uh, it's been sort of uh the same. You know, we've kept it status quo, even though we've had opportunities to change and and and maybe um do something different or rebrand, we kept it the same and we are really focused in on the freshness and the quality of the food. So that's always been the forefront and we support local purveyors as opposed to like ordering everything from these.
Speaker 4:You know huge companies that make ordering from them very attractive. Right, they give you 10% or 15% incentive. So if you spend, you know, $100,000 with them a year, you're going to be getting back a good chunk of that at the end of the year, and so we never went down that road. We had opportunities to, but we always kept it to. Where you know, and this is the training I think I got from the uh all the restaurants in York you know they always kept um, the, the, the local purveyors, and and um fishmongers and and and uh butchers, uh, very close to their chest and and that's what we did here. We've we've acquired a great reputation with them all and the guests know it. They come in here for specific items. We've tried to change a few of the staples and they ask for it right back. So we're kind of limited on how much we can change, just because we don't want to upset our guests. But we also do daily specials, which are are done, you know, pretty much within an hour before service starts.
Speaker 4:Just because, we're kind of putting things together that are the freshest and the most accessible um, and we, you know, we we do great catering, also a lot of off-premise catering. We have a very, very small restaurant here. It's only 60 seats, but we're looking to expand that and possibly do an outdoor patio.
Speaker 3:Oh nice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's talks in. Now we're looking at 21 years and surviving through COVID. We are maybe on the cusp of possibly rebranding ourselves and bringing in a bar and doing that. So we'll see.
Speaker 2:There's there's a lot of different changes that that are on the horizon that could be possibilities I mean, during covid you had, you know wyckoff was um, you know, the town allowed you to have a tent in the parking lot and a lot of the restaurants, uh, you know, allowed you to do that and that was very cool to be able to sit outside. I sat out there a few times. Um, we're always sorry to see that go, but um, you know, I guess did that give you the idea of saying, hey, this outdoor dining thing was a hit and be great if we could have this.
Speaker 4:you know, all the time yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just that. That was pretty much it. We once the um, once our. Our permits were pretty much um taken away or or they expired right I mean after I think it was after three years of covet.
Speaker 4:Last year was the first year where we weren't able to set up the tent and you know the tent was great, like when we had no other option, but it was also kind of it was kind of cheesy, right like I mean, you have a tent, you're sitting in the parking lot you know 90 degrees out it's hot, so we we made the best of it, but it definitely wasn't something that we can continue on. So I hired an attorney and I hired a architect to come up with with some plans that we submitted into the town and we're waiting for approval. So hopefully, if that does get approved, then we're going to be able to make a nice outdoor seating space for everybody.
Speaker 2:It's funny about outdoor dining in Manhattan. If you could sit outside on Broadway or whatever street it is, just to be able to sit outside, even though it's noisy, it might smell. You've got people of all sorts, all sorts walking by dining outside in Manhattan. You love it, you know right. Just the fact that, and obviously after COVID, a lot of these like sidewalk, um, you know, uh, I guess, outdoor dining temporary stands, some of them, I don't know if they're still there, but they were very European, like you know, it's like outdoor dining temporary stands, some of them, I don't know if they're still there, but they were very European-like. You know, it's like going to Paris or something. Yeah, and I think New Yorkers and obviously a lot of people in Wyckoff we live in Burton County because a lot of us worked in Manhattan or from like the proximity to it.
Speaker 2:I know you said it was cheesy, but just the fact that you could sit outside, could sit outside, even though I was in the parking lot and even though, you know, franklin turnpike's, right, it didn't really matter, franklin average, it's like we're outside, we're under a tent. This is great, right, right, I think, new yorker in us. Just, you know, we don't mind that there's some homeless guys sitting next to us. I could bring my dog. That's what matters. You know I'm outside. I got somewhat of a fresh air experience. Um, yeah, you know. So think you know it's obviously a good if Wyckoff can get around to approving that. I think people will come in droves for that, so that's great, yeah.
Speaker 4:I think it's good, I think we're looking, it's looking good, but you know, but the tent thing definitely planted the seed for me and for my wife and we came up with a great, a great. With the architect's help we came up with a great sketch. The other thing about the tent was that I also had my servers bringing food back and forth. You had to walk about 30 yards. You're in the middle of an active parking lot.
Speaker 2:The danger factor was a part of it too active parking lot, and it was true, you know, the danger factor was part of it too, that's true. So since you mentioned your wife a few times, can we bring her in and and uh, talk to win a little bit?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure, yeah hi hey, so lynn, so you were, you were a wine consultant, so you've worked in the, in the we'll call it the hospitality industry. I guess your whole career, um, so how did so? How did you go from you know being in the wine? Well, how did you get into the wine business?
Speaker 3:I? I actually wasn't in the wine business okay um, I, uh I uh worked for a high-tech electrical distribution company before I worked with Arthur. So I had nothing to do with the restaurant industry. When I was younger I did do some catering for big events, but other than that I kind of came in with not really knowing much. Yeah, wow, okay I like talking to people and making people happy. So that's 50 of it right there right.
Speaker 2:So where did I? Where was the going to napa valley thing? Where did it? Where did I hear that?
Speaker 4:oh, that was. Yeah, that was the my partner from the village green.
Speaker 2:Oh, got it, got it, got it. Okay, yeah, when you said her name was Linda, she was leaving.
Speaker 4:She wanted to leave and go out to do the whole wine thing out there and become a consultant.
Speaker 2:Got it. Okay, linda, not this. Okay, god, that's how I got.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's, linda yeah.
Speaker 2:There we go. Sorry about that. So I mean it's an exciting. You know, having gone through COVID, obviously you've been through a lot of, a lot of different economic things that we've seen over the last, you know, 20 or so years. What, what do you see now in the restaurant industry post COVID? That is been a challenge. That has also been a positive change. I know one of the biggest issues was staffing. Hopefully that's kind of leveled out now. But you know and you talk about, you know California and Alice Waters and her whole farm to table movement back in the day. You know you see more and more restaurants that are locally sourcing food and promoting locally sourced farms, whether it's in New Jersey or New York, and I think that's great. But are you seeing, like, what's changed in your mind that for the better since 2020, 2022?
Speaker 4:Lynn, you want to answer that with me.
Speaker 4:I mean, I don't mean to be on the spot, but yeah, no um, for well, the first thing obviously was when, right out of the gate, everybody just wanted to go out, right, that was the first thing. So, so, the once, once things started opening up, we had a huge influx of people that just came out to eat, just to leave, you know, just to get out of their house, um, and then uh, and that progressively continued for probably about a year or so, and then it started leveling off and, um, and it was okay, we were still doing great numbers and and we're, uh, we're pretty full most of the time, but we started getting, uh, you know, the, the, the inflation started to kind of creep in, uh, and our food costs were going haywire. So we were trying to figure out which and now forget it, like you know, it's even above and beyond. So we were, we were really up against, um, the wall when it came to how much raw product was costing.
Speaker 4:We were dealing with local farms like Nevo Farms in Mahwah Abma's, which is right up the road in Wyckoff, blooming Hill Farm, which is in Blooming Grove, new York, and those guys were great. They were really helping us kind of bring in stuff at a lot cheaper price. But it was also very fresh because it was right out of the ground. So that helped out. But then things again, inflation was a big part of it because people were starting to get a little skittish and nervous about coming out and spending money. So you know we went through a little bit of a lull.
Speaker 3:Also over the summer, we really noticed that a lot of people were tired of being home and there were a lot of people traveling Traveling down the shore and it did affect our business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess traditionally yeah, traditionally, I hear all the time oh, you know, wyckoff is dead. In the summer Everybody goes to the beach. I was like, how many people have a beach house other than Wyckoff? I mean, yeah, we all go on vacation, but most of us don't go for the entire summer. But then again, I always question how your restaurant is so packed at one in the afternoon on a Wednesday. So maybe those are the people that have the beach houses that you know go for the whole month of August. Well it's funny.
Speaker 4:We do have a term, like during the winter and the spring, you know, really it's busy on the weekends, like from Thursday to Sunday. We're pretty much packed. Monday, tuesday, wednesday a little slower, but then in the summer that all flips right From Monday to Thursday we're we're busy and then Fridays, saturdays and Sundays kind of dies down a little bit because people do go away and there are a lot of them that have second homes down there.
Speaker 2:So right, right. Well, listen, we could talk forever, man. I mean, it's already been over and a half an hour and I guess we have to. We have to close this out, so let's talk about where you're located. Do you take reservations?
Speaker 4:Yes, we're located at 315 Franklin Avenue in Wyckoff, new Jersey, 201-848-0198. And we do take reservations. At one time it was only for a certain amount in your party, but now we just take reservations because we don't like. We try not to make as many people sit down as quick as possible, so you can call anytime, with as big of a party or as little as two people, and you'll get in the books.
Speaker 2:So is that for lunch and dinner you take reservations or just dinner?
Speaker 4:Yeah, for lunch and dinner. We're open seven days a week lunch and dinner Monday through Saturday, and then brunch and dinner on Sundays.
Speaker 2:Okay, so not not breakfast. No, yeah, we do.
Speaker 4:We do like a small amount of breakfast, but we start, we open at 10 am during the week and there's a there's breakfast that kind of flows right into lunch.
Speaker 2:But lunch is a big brunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice, yep. Well, I mean, arthur, when this was, this is an amazing talk. I I have to come by again and and talk to you guys and I'm looking at your website and I'm very hungry. I don't know, the salmon looks great. I love that. You're. You know you always wonder about how fresh can this be? I mean, every restaurant in the world has salmon. I'm like where's this salmon coming from? But the fact that you get it every day and it's fresh, I mean that's going to. All my wife has to hear is that. I mean that's going to. All my wife has to hear is that. You know that. We know that it's fresh.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, well, we got to. We got to. We got to applaud our guests for that, because our customers keep everything in here. The inventory just moves so quick that we don't? We don't have any other choice but to buy fresh every day.
Speaker 2:So Nice, Nice. Well, maybe for another podcast episode we could talk about and this is for me, but I'm sure a lot of people are interested in just the logistics of where that fish came from, who caught it and how it got to my dinner plate or my lunch plate. I'd love to talk about that. I think it's fascinating, the way the seafood from sea to table, how that works, how it works so quickly, how it works so efficiently. I'd love to talk to you about that sometime. And in the meantime we're going to have to end it here. You guys bear with me. We're just going to have Chuck close this out and you and I'll be right back, you bet. Thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen. com. That's gnpbergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.