Laying Fallow in Tenafly

[menton1]

No fewer than 3 restaurants are sitting closed for many months and growing weeds on their respective buildings:

America, a high-end, beautiful place that may have spent 7 figures on their interior design and fixtures;

Jerry's Osteria, discussed here recently,

Stancato, a pretty place that had pizza parlor red-sauce Italian food next to the Clinton Inn.

Is Tenafly a curse to a restaurateur?

On the positive side, Café Café, a little place on Highwood Ave that started life as a salad-sandwich bar, has now turned upscale (as have their prices) and the word is that it is quite good. Only 8 tables. Has anybody been to Café Café?

[ghostrider]

Is every town going to have a Café Café? There's one in Rutherford too.

I haven't been there either.

[Rachel Perlow]

The Cafe Cafe in Tenafly doesn't seem like it's part of a chain. It's a nice place to lunch with the ladies, and at dinner they have many fresh fish specials.

Another good option is Max's, very good Italian. Although for some reason they have very cheap flatware. But the food is really very good. I think the location is an issue as people don't generally just pass through Tenafly. You have to mean to be here.

But I do miss two of the three places you mention, Menton.

[Jason Perlow]

I think Tenafly, because of the demographic makeup of its residents, is more prone to takeout-type businesses succeeding than full blown restaurants. While I agree many restaurants in Tenafly fail, takeout type busineses do very well. On Washington Ave, which is the main drag for shopping in town, you have quite a few places (the Bagel Shop, the takeout sushi place, Tea Garden, the pizza place, the cheese shop, the bakery, the Jewish deli) that have managed to succeed. The Asian/Korean businesses are also doing well. Sapphire, the middle eastern restaurant, also seems to be doing OK, and I was convinced it was going to fail a year or so ago. We don't eat there that often because I think its overpriced compared to some of the better middle eastern places in the area. Even that horrid Tenafly Diner that they spent gazillions on remodeling seems to be doing well.

The takeout places probably don't have to pay as much rent as some of the larger commercial spaces, and they are more likely to suceed with Tenafly's wealthy busy lifestyle set. Tenafly is also a significantly smaller town than Englewood, which is densely packed with restaurants, and most of us are usually prone to going outside of town to eat anyway because there is physical a space limitation of how many places can be in Tenafly, just because of the way the town is laid out. The traffic patterns of Tenafly are also kind of weird.

[menton1]

I think the location is an issue as people don't generally just pass through Tenafly. You have to mean to be here.

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I don't know that I agree with this.... two towns away, in the middle of nowhere, is Andiamo in Haworth, a place that has been there over 15 years. (And the food is quite undistinguished!)

Just north of Upper Saddle River, in Airmont, is the Citrus Grille, again, the absolute middle of nowhere. This is actually quite a good restaurant with very creative food. It is there over 10 years. It has escaped talk on Egullet because it is 2 miles over the NY border, and in the NY forum nobody talks much about anything but Manhattan.

The Cafe Cafe in Tenafly doesn't seem like it's part of a chain. It's a nice place to lunch with the ladies, and at dinner they have many fresh fish specials

More details, please-- the prices seemed quite high for dinner for an 8-table former salad-sandwich place. Thanks. (Would it be OK for men to have lunch there? )

[Rachel Perlow]

Yes, men are fine. I've even seen men there at lunch time, although most of the seats are taken by women.

Plenty of restaurants survive the middle of nowhere, although I don't think Upper Saddle River is the middle of nowhere. I don't think Tenafly is the middle of nowhere either. I just said that people don't necessarily drive through Tenafly on their way to somewhere else, or they think it's out of the way to get there or something. As for Andiamo, which I've never been to, there are plenty of average Italian places that survive for no apparent reason, see La Famiglia in Bogota, which is always packed despite mediocre food. I think the rent does have a lot to do with is, perhaps the owners of Andiamo own the property outright and don't have as high a monthly nut.

Whatever the reasons, some places that shouldn't thrive do, while others you wish would go away are packing them in. The fact that we don't comprehend the reasons why, should speak more to us that we shouldn't go into the restaurant business.

[menton1]

Plenty of restaurants survive the middle of nowhere, although I don't think Upper Saddle River is the middle of nowhere. I don't think Tenafly is the middle of nowhere either. I just said that people don't necessarily drive through Tenafly on their way to somewhere else, or they think it's out of the way to get there or something.

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Citrus Grille, in Airmont, NY is on a dark road that goes nowhere, just a local outlet. And it's been there over 10 years. I actually highly recommend it to all the Northern NJ Eg-ers. I did talk about it in NY about a year ago, but nobody there is interested in Rockland. It's only about 2 miles over the NJ border, maybe we can now expound on it here in the NJ Forum. A VERY GOOD restaurant!!

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