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| kosher restaurants February
12, 2006 10:04PM |
OKay, I'll post later about the harrowing near-death experience of driving from Connecticut to Washington DC through the biggest storm of the year, for now I have a post with happy news.
Mama's vegetarian has apparently discovered the secret of being a good kosher restaurant that stays open and (presumably) makes money outside of NY City. It was opened about a year ago by some Israelis and sold felafel. (And for those of you who know what mean when I say this, they were were selling true Israeli felafel, complete with pickles, french fries, and harif). They've expanded their menu slightly, but their main focus is still felafel.
When I was there on Thursday around 1PM the place was packed. They had expanded the number of people behind the counter from 2 to 6 just to keep up with the crush. Their service (the most common complaint about kosher restaurants) was fantastic. The total time from when you walked in the door to the time you got your food was about 5 minutes. I should also mention that the food has been consistently good. (And I mean seriously good - in fact they're kicking but in the Philly city best poll for vegetarian restaurants). They're located in the business district downtown (comparable to the area by farragut north in DC), and get a lot of walk in lunch business. They have a lunch counter and some small tables, and a lot of people took sandwiches to go. There was also only one other orthodox Jew in the place - a true sign that they're good enough to compete beyond the traditional niche market kosher restaurants usually aspire to. By offering good food at decent prices with fast service in a good location they're actually competitive with other non-kosher restaurants, and are doing fantastic business. It's not that difficult a business model to replicate either - it could definitely work in DC, or at least a half dozen other cities I know. Who knows - maybe it'll become a chain.
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Excellent! I was wondering where to go in philly when I'm there, and I'll be downtown...
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I am obviously hanging out with the wrong crowd :-)
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