New restaurants in New Brunswick target Rutgers students

Back in the day, the Rutgers restaurant scene was known for its ‘grease trucks’ and ‘Fat Cats,’ a student staple which combined burgers and fries in a sandwich and offered the added bonus of being delivered.

“When I was a student here, you pretty much only had your choice of run-of-the-mill pizza, more pizza, and deli,” said Bruce Jones, who graduated from Rutgers in 2010 and now owns Mexican fusion eatery Papa Grande Grille on Easton Avenue. “But the restaurant scene on Easton has totally changed,” he said. “I would have loved to have had the options we have now.”

Indeed, from new Asian, Indian, Mexican, Ethiopian, and Hawaiian-themed restaurants to vegan, barbecue, tapas, and upscale sandwich outlets, New Brunswick has emerged as a mecca of creative cuisine and the Rutgers community has become the beneficiary of a menu packed with diversity, international flare, and fun to meet the needs of a modern student population.

A diverse dining destination

At Papa Grande Grille on Louis Street, which opened in February 2014, “we offer what we call ‘Jersey Mexican’ – a combination of great Jersey shore-type appetizers, burgers, quesadillas, tacos, and more that are fun and made fresh onsite,” Jones said. “We pair unique combinations of foods like our Chicken Chipotle Avocado, which features slow-cooked pulled chicken with avocado that you can have in a taco, burrito, burrito bowl, or quesadilla form.” To further target the student population, “everything is affordably priced in the $7 to $11 range, we offer take-out and delivery, and we’re open until 3 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, which most of the restaurants around here are too,” Jones said.

Once limited in its range of offerings, Jones said that Easton Avenue is now marked by a colorful palette of culinary choices “which include not one but two crepe places, a new dessert place called Cookie Rush, which serves cookies and milkshakes, Wings Over Rutgers, and a couple of sandwich places.”

Not to mention Criminals and Tacos, a new sit-down taco and burrito restaurant featuring a menu by chef Andrew Schiff that’s set to open in the coming weeks.

At the five-year-old Sushi Room on Easton Avenue, diners have enjoyed a menu including sushi, kobe sliders, dumplings, and Asian-themed tacos and empanadas since 2010, but a newly-opened lounge within the restaurant is offering additional opportunities for students to dine and unwind.

“We opened our bar/lounge section a year ago and offer a live deejay on Fridays, a jazz night on Wednesdays, and late night and happy hour specials and we’ve been packed,” said bartender Kevin Melvin. “About half of our customers are students and half are professionals from the area, but our sushi priced from $5 up caters to students and we see a lot of students coming in to celebrate special occasions; in fact, we recently served a group of underage students sparkling virgin mimosas when they came in to celebrate a birthday.”

A downtown transformation

It’s not just Rutgers’ Easton Avenue hub that’s experienced a culinary transformation, however – with such new ventures as, among others, The Dillinger Room and Inc. American Bar & Kitchen on George Street and Esquina Latina on Liberty Street, New Brunswick’s downtown/professional area is seeing a foodie revolution that’s luring students as well.

“We now have over 52 restaurants in the downtown area alone, which consists of a 15-block area that’s a gateway between the two Rutgers campuses,” said Pam Stefanek, executive director of New Brunswick City Market. “It’s been a very active time for new restaurants in New Brunswick and we’re definitely seeing a greater influx of student activity in the downtown area because they have more options to choose from that are healthy, fast-casual, and affordably-priced."

Among those is Chapati House on George Street, which opened this March.

“We consider ourselves ‘fine fast food,” said owner Chander Malik, who’s proud of a menu that includes a choice of chicken, vegetarian, and lamb dishes “all suitably priced at $7 to $9 for a well-portioned meal without compromising quality,” he said. “Students are our mainstay and they enjoy diversity and the opportunity to try different foods,”

Malik said of his restaurant’s range of entrée toppings – including marinated white radishes, ginger, beets, onions, salad, and crunchy cabbage slaw – which allow students to customize their meal. To further target students, “we’ve made our place inviting, artistic, and comfortable with good music, high ceilings, and free WIFI so that people can hang out, talk, eat, and relax, and our chapati, a bread made on the grill that’s stuffed with your choice of fillings like a roti, is easy to eat or take on the run and you can change it up every day for variation. Business has been good and we have a lot of students here – many walk from the Busch campus or take the bus from Cook or Douglass – and we’d love to see even more," he added.

“Students love the opportunity to customize their food,” said Muneesh Reddy, owner of Which Wich ‘Superior Sandwich’ shop on George Street, which opened this April and is part of a nationwide chain that was launched on the premise of customer choice. With an estimated 60 percent of the restaurant’s clientele during the school year comprised of students, “we try to give them variety, maintain quality, provide an enjoyable environment with bright lights and good music, offer competitively-priced combo meals and sandwiches that are wrapped and ready to go, and deliver to make it easy to access our food,” Reddy said.

At Veganized on Spring Street, which opened this April, owner/chef Ron Biton said he’s seeing a growing number of college students coming through their doors. Offering homemade vegan and organic veggie burgers, mac and cheese, and other ‘comfort foods,’ “about 25 percent of our current customers are college students and we’re getting more all the time because we offer delicious, healthy food with great service and ambiance at an accessible price point,” Biton said. “Young people are the ones who inspired this movement and the entire community has embraced us, which is a testament to how much demand there is for healthier options that incorporate high-quality ingredients and are made with care.”

At Shaka on Albany Street, the 18-month-old restaurant’s Hawaiian food with a Mexican twist – think burritos, tacos, and quesadillas with fruits like pineapple in the mix – has been luring an increasing number of students from the comforts of campus, as have the restaurant’s Sunday jazz nights and Friday night bingo/trivia contests.

“New Brunswick’s restaurant area is way better than it’s ever been and whatever you’re looking for, you’ll find it here,” said server Kenyana Boyd. “It’s a great way to get introduced to different cultures.”

New Brunswick City Market’s Stefanek agreed. “The student base attending Rutgers is very diverse and the new restaurants here are reflective of this,” she said. “There are now a lot of unique new spaces in the area for students to eat, study, and have fun in.”

And accessibility is greater than ever thanks to the dozens of New Brunswick restaurants which offer RU Express, a debit account that provides a convenient cash-free means of paying for meals by Rutgers students, faculty and staff.

“The level of cuisine has really stepped up in New Brunswick and there are a lot of great new restaurants here,” Jones said. “As New Brunswick continues to grow and attract more young professionals, the restaurant options have grown as well and are more willing to take chances because the community will support it.”