David Viana famously opened a restaurant in a Central Jersey strip mall and turned it into a Garden State dining destination.
Unfortunately, the “Top Chef” star’s efforts to open an adjoining gourmet sandwich shop were less successful.
Abramzon & David’s Delicatesse, a sandwich shop that opened this past May in the same Old Bridge complex as Viana’s exalted Heirloom Kitchen, closed its doors this past weekend.
Despite serving a small but strong menu of delicious sandwiches like a chopped Italian sub, Thai tuna melt and Chicago beef sandwich, ownership says the shop was doomed by its location.
The Thai tuna melt from Abramzon and David’s in Old Bridge.Jeremy Schneider | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
“Unfortunately, we think that a strip mall in a sleepy town didn’t afford us the foot traffic and audience we needed to find lasting success,” Heirloom Kitchen co-owner Neilly Robinson told NJ Advance Media in an email. “Sometimes you can make so many great decisions and one mistake, like location, can be enough to upend success.”
Abramzon & David’s was named for Viana and Heirloom Kitchen’s chef de cuisine Zachary Abramzon, and the sandwiched served there truly showcased the ingenuity that has made the sister restaurant so successful — a true blend of creativity and classic Jersey.
The “Chicago Beef” sandwich from Abramzon & David’s Delicatesse in Old Bridge, an offshoot of Heirloom Kitchen.Jeremy Schneider | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
The closure comes five months after the deli opened. It also comes around eight months after Viana and his team rebranded Heirloom at the St. Laurent, Viana’s acclaimed restaurant Asbury Park restaurant, as Italian restaurant Judy & Harry’s — to mixed reviews.
“The hospitality industry is a tough business and can be inhospitable sometimes. It’s unfortunate that high quality, reasonably priced food, and graciousness wasn’t enough to make a lasting business,” Robinson said of Abramzon & David’s. “Closing is gut-wrenching. It means saying goodbye to great people we admire and care about, people we consider friends and family. Unfortunately, although well intentioned, our time together was unsustainable.”
The storefront that housed Abramzon & David’s will next become what Robinson calls “a food lab and incubator space for food exploration and fun pop-up opportunities.” For example, the restaurant could post a video detailing the making of one of their hit sandwiches, and eventually host a pop-up event in the space to teach people how to make the sandwich.
“That’s just one of the many, many, different ideas we have for space,” Robinson said.
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Dining and Cooking