Burgers are back at New Haven restaurant
NEW HAVEN — For 37 years, 51 Broadway was an address where locals and Yale students alike could count on getting a hamburger or salad all day long — and after a five-year detour as a fresh Mexican restaurant, what once was the Educated Burgher is back as a burger joint.
The Broadway Kitchen, located next door to Blue Jay Cleaners in the Broadway shopping district, specializes in several varieties of burgers — including hamburgers, patty melts, veggie burgers and chicken burgers — as well as fresh salads, grain bowls, falafel, hummus and pita sandwiches.
It’s Meryem Hanzal’s baby, with guidance from her brother-in-law Ahmed “Moe” Gad, who is wellknown in local restaurant circles as the owner of Pacifico and Villa Lulu, both on College Street. It’s the first run in the restaurant business for Hanzal, a mother of two children, aged 7 and 12, who lives in Trumbull.
“It’s going pretty good” so far, said Hamzal, who looks forward to when Yale University students return from break next week. “I think it’s the right time.”
The Broadway Kitchen, which eventually will employ 10 people, opened Dec. 10. Salsa Fresca, the former tenant, closed Aug. 28 after five years in business, according to Gad, who suggested the location and the concept to Hanzal.
“She was trying to find a concept” and “there was a history of a successful burger restaurant” in that location, he said Thursday. “There was also a need for a healthy concept.”
The Middle Eastern influence on the menu isn’t just a coincidence. Hanzal is a native of Morocco and Gad hails originally from Egypt.
But there are other influences, as well.
“We use a good quality meat from New York City,” said Gad, who lives in Greenwich.
Almost any protein on the menu, including chicken, falafel, braised lamb, lamb meatballs, beef meatballs, eggplant meatballs, feta cheese or seasoned shrimp, can be ordered as a sandwich, pita, salad or rice bowl, using saffron basmati rice, brown rice or black lentils, he said.
For salads, they used a mix of romaine lettuce, mesclun greens, baby kale and spinach, Gad said.
Add-ons include tzatziki, eggplant and roasted peppers and several varieties of hummus, including roasted red pepper and spicy red beet.
As for Hanzal’s recommendations: “Try everything!” she said, although she likes the grilled chicken, falafel and hummus.
For a refresher, they have several mixed-on-site varieties of lemonade, including hibiscus lemonade and rosewater lemonade, as well as iced tea, with additional flavors to come when the warm weather returns.
Edgar and Denise Santaella, who both work at Yale, tried Broadway Kitchen for the first time Thursday and both were pretty happy with what they got.
“So far, so good,” said Edgar Santaella. “It’s fresh!”