“Our libation offerings include an eclectic mix of bottled American craft beers and two rotating drafts on tap, an affordable list of wines by the bottle and glass (all about 8 bucks,) and a ‘Concoctions’ menu featuring two homemade Bloody Mary’s, one of which called the ‘Wasabi Mary’ boasts freshly ground ginger, soy sauce and wasabi root infused vodka,” Dowling writes on Facebook.

Park & Sixth opened at 364 Grove Street in Jersey City in late 2010 as the second outpost of the popular Hoboken sandwich shop. Since then, Dowling has closed down the Hoboken location and shifted the establishment’s focus from being what Dowling calls “essentially a deli” to a full-service restaurant. The liquor license is a crucial ingredient to completing that transition.

Park & Sixth will also debut a small plates menu on Friday, March 2. The “sharing plates” menu will replace the restuarant’s regular menu every Friday and Saturday night, with the focus being on “elevated comfort food,” according to Dowling. Combined with the booze factor, the small plates menu could well make Park & Sixth a hot early-evening weekend destination.

Here’s a peek at the small plates menu:

Soup
Roasted Tomato, Chipotle, Aged Cheddar Crouton 7

Muzz
House Mozzarella, Tomato, Basil, Balsamic Glaze, Basil Oil 7

Garbage Salad
Zucchini, Rabe, Portobello, Roasted Peppers, Red Onion, Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette 7

Sprouts
Brussel Sprout Hash, Garlic, Hot Cherry Peppers, Bacon, Parmigiana 8

Taters
Dirty Smashed Potatoes, Roasted Garlic, Butter, Cream Cheese, Lipitor 7

Rabe
Broccoli Rabe, Sliced Garlic, Red pepper Flake, Lemon Zest, Olive Oil 7

A Party In You Mouth
Philly Cheese Steak Spring Rolls, Sambal Glaze 8

Rigatoni
Brisket Ragu, Parmigiana Reggiano, Basil 12

Mac-n-cheese
5 Deli Cheeses, Andouille Sausage, Saffron, Piquillo Peppers, Truffled Panko 9

Meatloaf
Bourbon Mushroom Gravy, Dirty Smashed Potatoes 12

Mini Meatballs
19 ingredients, homemade tomato sauce, basil 10

Short Ribs
Soy Vermouth Braised Short Ribs, Star Anise, Potato Blue Cheese Smashed Potatoes 15

Steak
Asian Marinated Skirt, Spicy Gringo Chimichurri, Oil Poached Fingerling Potatoes 15

Fish
Crispy Skin Salmon, Wilted Bok Choy, Braised Pistachios, Soy Ginger Chicken Broth 12

Day Boat Scallops, White Bean & Sage Puree, Bean Broth 12

Chicken
Rosemary Chicken Breast, Roasted Tomato, Garlic, Broccoli Rabe, Parm, Tomato Oil 10

Photo: Laryssa Wirstiuk

“I am looking forward to becoming part of the Downtown community,” says Politis, a third-generation restauranteur whose family has owned and operated restaurants in Hudson County since 1934. “Tradition, quality, service and value are the trademarks of our restaurants — valet parking too.”

The new restaurant, which is slated to open in the first few months of 2012, is the result of lobbying done by Eric and Paul Silverman, the developers of Hamilton Square.

“Eric and I met George in 2007 and have been trying since then to get him to open in Hamilton Square,” Paul Silverman says. “Our persistence has paid off and we are already hungry thinking about his delicious food and great service.”

Politis says the menu won’t be quite as traditional Italian as the Guttenberg location, but it will definitely be similar.

“I will be taking a portion of what I do now with the food and incorporating smaller, lighter and more contemporary ingredients,” he says.

THE DETAILS

GP’s Hamilton Park | 236 Pavonia Avenue | 201.861.6588 | Opening Winter 2012

The story is much the same locally, with food trucks having become some of the most popular dining options in Downtown Jersey City — not only for the lunchtime work crowd, but now for the after-work dinner crowd as well.

Two seemingly different Jersey City food trucks are riding this wave of success and popularity by partnering to open Kraverie at 24 Mercer Street, the former location of Cuban restaurant Ria’s Café.

Even the most unobservant residents of Downtown Jersey City have probably seen the bright yellow Lucinda Creperie truck parked in locations like Van Vorst Park, the Grove Street PATH Plaza and Harborside.

For many food truck owners, a restaurant is the ultimate goal. Natasha Usher – co-owner of Lucinda Creperie and Lucinda Burrito and Taco Truck with her husband Chris – always wanted to open a creperie.

“I wanted to do crepes, but we bought the taco and burrito truck first so that we could start right away,” she says. “The lady who sold us the truck showed us how to operate the truck and taught us the laws of operations. This gave us the experience we needed to do the crepe truck.”

Within five months, Lucinda Creperie was serving crepes to hungry residents and workers.

Around the same time, a neon green truck known as The Krave began serving Korean BBQ while parked in many of the same locations.

The Krave co-owner Charles Heo and his business partners — all graduates of New York University’s class of 2007 — saw potential in Jersey City.

“The city is still in its beginning stages of development, and we wanted to grow with it,” Heo says. “We could’ve worked in New York, but we chose Jersey City to bring new opportunities here.”

For Heo and his business partner Taejin In, partnering with the Ushers seemed like a natural progression. Both trucks park in the same commercial garage and share utilities.

“We had been looking for a location for a few months,” Heo says. “We were doing a street fair, and the parking lot owner on Montgomery Street stopped by our truck and told us about someone who was looking to sell a restaurant at Grove and Mercer Streets.”

A storefront location will give both The Krave and Lucinda the opportunity to offer customers more reliable and consistent service. In a food truck, they often have to deal with obstacles like parking availability, weather and mechanical problems.

“It hurts to know that someone is craving our food but that something happened to our truck,” says Usher. “Now, we’ll be able to serve lunch, dinner, and hopefully breakfast seven days a week.”

Heo agrees, and says he’s glad the store won’t be as dependent on mother nature as the truck is.

“Even the weather has affected our business,” he says. “One day is lost to rain. In the winter, there are blizzards. The snow covered our parking space so that we couldn’t even park.”

The Mercer Street location seems ideal for the two trucks, since it is close to where they currently operate.

“Telling people that we’re opening a storefront location just two blocks from where we park the truck means that our customers will come there,” Usher says. “If we go somewhere far like Journal Square then we will have to start from scratch.”

The fact that the Mercer Street space already had a kitchen was a major selling point, and Heo says the decor will be “cozy, New York City hip” rather than ultra-modern.

“The store will be able to seat 30-40 people, and there will be outdoor seating,” he says. “We’re also going to do brunch on weekends.”

There will be table service, as well as a bar.

“We can’t sell liquor, but there will be bar seating,” Heo adds.

The Kraverie will feature a menu with favorite items from both trucks, including some dishes – like a crepe with Korean BBQ meat – that fuse the two very different cuisines. It will also serve special new items that aren’t currently available at either truck.

“What I want to do with Kraverie is have a completely new menu but still rotate things at the truck,” Heo says.

Operating both the trucks and the restaurant will mean that all the business partners will be clocking a grueling 70-80 hours per week.

“We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” Usher says of the workload. “I work with my husband all the time so learning how to delegate tasks and let other people help you run your business is going to be a challenge.”

As everyone has worked on renovating the space, Usher and Heo have been spreading word of the new restaurant to current customers.The Krave announced the new spot on Twitter last month, and word quickly spread among Jersey City foodies.

“It’s already spread so fast that people were asking me about it without me having told them,” Usher says. “I’m amazed how quickly it spread. Most of our regular customers already know about it.”

Heo and Usher expect to open the doors of The Kraverie in early November.

Photo: Jennifer Weiss

THE DETAILS

The Kraverie | 24 Mercer Street | Opening soon

With Vespa now closed for good, it appears Gondevas and developers Eric and Paul Silverman are indeed working towards that goal.

From today’s Wall Street Journal, tucked inside a profile of the Hamilton Park neighborhood:

Mr. Gondevas said he plans to work with the Silvermans to transform a defunct Vespa store into a brick-oven pizzeria to open in the spring.

The location is at 247 10th Street.

Photo of Hamilton Inn by Steve Gold

But there’s good news: the week, created and organized by the New Jersey Restaurant Association, has added eight Jersey City restaurants to the rotation this year for a total of nine local spots offering special reduced prices from Sunday, September 18 through Sunday, September 25. All participating restaurants have agreed to offer a multi-course lunch for $19 or less and/or a multi-course dinner for $35 or less — tax, alcohol and gratuity excluded. The offer may be subject to additional restrictions, so call the restaurant in question for the full details.

Here are the Jersey City restaurants taking part:

• Liberty House: 76 Audrey Zapp Drive, 201-395-0300
• LITM (dinner only): 140 Newark Avenue, 201-536-5557
• Port-O Lounge (dinner only): 286 1st Street, 201-420-9550
• Puccini’s: 1064 West Side Avenue, 201-432-4111
• Satis (dinner only): 212 Washington Street, 201-435-5151
• Soul Flavors (dinner only): 354 Grove Street, 201-217-3004
• The Embankment (dinner only): 234 10th Street, 201-222-6115
• The Merchant: 279 Grove Street, 201-200-0202
• Vu Restaurant: 2 Exchange Place (in the Hyatt), 201-469-4650

Several of the participating restaurants — LITM, Puccini’s, Soul Flavors, The Embankment and The Merchant — are also making a donation to the Share Our Strength’s “Dine Out for No Kid Hungry” campaign, which supports programs to eliminate childhood hunger.

This year the week received a little extra love from the governor’s office, which has proclaimed it officially to be New Jersey Restaurant Association Statewide Restaurant Week starting Sunday.

For full statewide listings of participating restaurants, click here.

Meanwhile, the mall says it has signed on a handful of new retailers, including a more than 3,000-square-foot Adidas store that will open next to Armani Exchange and a 1,500-square-foot Things Remembered store near Sears. Both those stores are expected to open before the holiday season, as is a two-level, 20,000-square-foot H&M location.

And already open is a branch of Pandora Jewelry (on the second floor near the Disney Store), which offers hand-finished and modern jewelry.

“We are excited to bring fresh, new stores and eateries to Newport Centre to continue to expand on the great shopping environment we already offer,” the mall’s director of marketing and business development Jill Daniel says in a statement. “Shoppers will be sure to enjoy our newest arrivals that will also include the recently announced two-level, 20,000 square foot H&M store expected to open in time for the holiday season.”

Starting tomorrow, that’s all going to change as Satis opens for breakfast and/or lunch most weekdays from 9 am to 3 pm (the restaurant is closed Mondays).

“We hope to become a neighborhood gem for casual dining during the day as well, not just at night. By offering a daily brunch menu, we hope to have customers come in for cappuccino in the mornings as well as burgers in the afternoon,” Satis co-owner Mike Garcia tells JCI. “Our menu will be available for customers to order breakfast items like waffles and omelettes for lunch if they like … similar to a diner, but with a smaller and more refined menu that is typical to what we do here.” (To check out the full brunch menu, click here.)

Weekend brunch hours (11 am to 3:30 pm) remain unchanged, as do dinner hours (Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30 to 10 pm). However, Satis is debuting a new fall dinner menu and fall dessert menu next Tuesday, September 20. The seasonal dinner menu features new entrees like Seared Venison Loin, Boeuf Bourginon, Veal Milanese, Filet Mignon, Spaghetti Squash & “Meatballs” and Paella Negra. And next door in its gelateria, Satis is also bringing in Ciao Bella gelato on Tuesday, September 20.

THE DETAILS

Satis | 212 Washington Street | 201.435.5151 | www.satisbistro.com

As food truck vendors continue to wait for City Hall to revise Jersey City’s outdated ordinance governing how long they can stay in one spot and other crucial issues, many truck owners have piled up tickets for violating what they say is an obscure and selectively enforced law.

Morris, the owner of the Taste of India truck, is no exception. He says he’s received seven tickets for his truck, which parks at Exchange Place, the Grove Street Farmers Market, and Groove on Grove. What’s more, he believes his reputation suffered when a neighboring truck — the yellow Banana Leaf truck — was shut down for unsanitary food preparation in an unlicensed kitchen, even though Morris himself has always maintained a sanitary, commercially licensed kitchen.

Morris has persisted with the Taste of India despite these challenges, and now he is expanding his food business with the soft launch last week of Oriental Masala, a brick-and-mortar venture located just off of India Square’s main drag. The awning outside reads “OM”, a sacred Hindu syllable.

Morris started Taste of India in 2004, after 18 years in the limousine industry, where he chauffeured big names like Calvin Klein, Colin Powell, Anna Wintour, and Shirley MacLaine. He says the post-9/11 corporate cutbacks on chartering limos led him to leave the business and start the truck, which he says sprang from what he saw as a pressing need for a quick, home-cooked lunch alternative in Downtown Jersey City’s business district.

“I wanted to take the food to the people, not wait for the people to come for the food. They don’t want to carry different boxes from home. You’ve seen how the Indian community has grown and flourished Downtown, and I wanted to give them something they wouldn’t feel as a punch in their pockets,” says Morris. “Companies want their employees to be productive, and they give you half hour or 45 minutes to eat. And that’s why trucks are becoming more successful. The pressure of work is still there.”

Morris – who describes himself as Anglo-Indian-Chinese, “like a fruit salad” – was born and raised in Delhi, India, where his father’s side of family was involved in the restaurant industry, which he joined in 1972. He trained at the Taj Group of Hotels Resorts and Palaces, where he was taught that working in a service industry is the equivalent of serving in the armed forces. Says Morris,

“What I learned there is what I’m exercising now,” he says. “The rules are very stringent.”

Morris lived on Manila Avenue and 1st Street before moving to the Heights in 2004. With his children grown and his years in the limousine industry behind him, Morris had a chance to return to his roots in food.

“I know how to cook everything,” he says. “When my kids were growing up, every weekend I cooked for them. They used to love the cooking I did and even licked the plates.”

Before starting the Taste of India food truck, Morris dabbled in the restaurant industry by opening a short-lived restaurant venture in Queens. In 2006, he opened a Spanish restaurant called El Rincon (now closed) on Jersey City’s Zabriskie Street, and more recently, he was involved in the opening of a takeout restaurant called Kultural Kuisine on Kennedy Boulevard in Journal Square.

Morris has not yet advertised Oriental Masala – which seats about 10 customers and offers delivery service – because he wants to adjust the menu according to initial customer feedback.

“We’re off the main street because the rents are too high. The way we see it is that we’re not rich people so we’re starting from scratch,” says Morris. “We may not have the grandeur of an elegant restaurant, but we guarantee the food is delectable and something that every income group can enjoy.”

The food, which Morris describes as Indo-Chinese, borrows flavors from restaurants just one block south on Newark Avenue, between Tonnelle Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard, where the air is perpetually perfumed with curry. However, the food served at Oriental Masala is a unique interpretation of traditional North Indian cuisine.

“The Indian community loves this kind of food because traditional food is always cooked in the house,” Morris says. “This is a taste of something different.”

The menu was designed by Morris’ chef Nam, who he met while opening the Queens venture in 2003. Nam had experience working in the kitchen of New York City’s Chinese Mirch, the original flagship location of what is now a small Indo-Chinese restaurant franchise. At the time, Chinese Mirch was featured in The New York Times for a “$25 and under” restaurant review. He has also worked in the kitchens of Waldorf Astoria and Marriott franchises.

“The chef is very artistic and intelligent,” says Morris. “He does things the right way. We are professionals.”

So far, popular menu items include American Chopsui, which includes vegetables and chicken tossed in sweet and sour sauce, and Drums of Heaven, Nam’s unique take on lollipop chicken.

Other signature dishes include chili chicken and eggplant in hot garlic sauce – the eggplant is cut into strips the size of steak fries, battered, and then deep fried so that it’s almost unrecognizable. Those who have never liked eggplant should try this dish and reconsider their stance on the purple nightshade plant, which is native to India. Every item on the menu costs less than $10.

Morris says he will also continue to operate the Taste of India food truck.

“We’re going to do it unless the city throws it away,” he says. “I have a following even in storms, rain, and snow. They come and eat. They feel content, they feel satisfied, and they feel full.”

THE DETAILS

Oriental Masala | 117 Tonnele Avenue | 201.332.1882

The Morrisons both hail from Jersey City public housing (Donald from Lafayette Gardens and Darlene from the Booker T. Washington development); they met in 1976 while attending PS 22, married in 1981 and then both worked for decades while raising three children.

But the couple’s foray into the restaurant industry isn’t unprecedented; in fact, Donald’s father owned Jersey City’s Silver Spoon Restaurant during the 1970s and 80s. D&D serves American classics as well as some soul food selections.

THE DETAILS

D&D Cafe and Grill, 197-199 Monticello Avenue, 201-985-3885.

In an effort to lure more restaurants — and eaters — to Downtown Jersey City, the City Council has passed into law this week a massive expansion of the Downtown Restaurant Overlay Zone, better known simply as “Restaurant Row.”

The zone currently applies to Grove Street from Newark Avenue to 1st Street, Newark Avenue from Grove Street to Jersey Avenue, Jersey Avenue between Newark Avenue and Columbus Drive, and Columbus Drive’s north side between Jersey Avenue and Grove Street.

Under the plan (see below), the Newark Avenue coverage area will expand by 4.5 long blocks, past Division Street to the west, while the Grove Street area will also expand by more than 4 blocks, down to York Street and east to Marin along some parts. The Jersey Avenue area will expand 1.5 blocks across Columbus Drive, stopping halfway between Wayne and Mercer Streets. The Columbus Drive area will expand to include the south side of the street east of Barrow Street, and there will be new slivers of the zone on Grand Street between Grove and Barrow Streets, as well as the east- and north-facing parts of the Grove Pointe development.

Mayor Healy touts the change, unanimously approved by the City Council Wednesday morning, as “one of several upcoming initiatives by my administration to make Jersey City more business-friendly.”

By being part of the Restaurant Row, establishments with liquor licenses are exempt from the law that normally forces them to be at least 520 feet apart. (That law can also be trumped by specific redevelopment plans if the wording of the plan allows — that’s why, for example, Bar Majestic and The Merchant on Grove Street are allowed to be so close together.)

There have been puritanical worries about the Restaurant Row designation since the middle of the last decade, when establishments like LITM led a successful fight to extend by three hours how late restaurants and bars there could serve alcohol, from 11 pm to 2 am (midnight to 3 am on weekends).

Ward E councilman Steven Fulop, who represents Downtown, says this latest change “is a great thing,” and that it doesn’t promote a no-holds-barred party zone, but rather a destination for food and drink.

“The ordinance is careful not to promote a bar culture, but rather [that of] a working restaurant and kitchen,” he says.

Meanwhile, the mayor says that the Restaurant Row expansion, coupled with the recent loosening of restrictions on sidewalk cafes, are all part of a broader plan to create a thriving commercial district Downtown.

“Not only will this improve the quality of life for our residents, but it will also be an additional marketing tool for Jersey City as a destination for commercial and residential development,” Healy says.