Sports-themed restuarant coming to Cedarhurst

Two lifelong Five Towners, both coaches of the boys varsity Hawks basketball team at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway, plan to open a sports-themed kosher restaurant in Cedarhurst.

Joey Hoenig and Steve Kuritzky hope their Courtside Grill, which will cater to families who want to watch sports as they eat and drink, will be ready to open in time for the NBA playoffs this spring.

Kosher supervision of the restaurant, at 600 Central Ave., in space formerly occupied by the Basserie Halevi steakhouse, will be provided by the Vaad Hakashrush of the Five Towns and Far Rockaway.

“We closed on the property two weeks ago and are now into the construction phase,” Hoenig said. “We will change the décor and there will be a lot of renovations.” 

Plans are underway to replace the marble floor with a wood surface, and redesign the site with sports memorabilia and 30 television screens. The TVs will be tuned to sports and there could be live streaming of yeshiva high school games, Hoenig said.

A lunch and dinner menu will be served, and 15 beers will be available on tap and many more in bottles and cans, Kuritzky said.

The partners stressed that this is not a “sports bar.”

“It is a family restaurant with a bar,” Kuritzky said. “We we are targeting families.”

The space will be appropriate even for teenagers to stop by for lunch and watch ESPN for awhile before returning to school, the partners said. 

Gathering in a restaurant to watch sports and eat and have a drink is somewhat uncommon in Orthodox Jewish communities, such as the Five Towns. When Courtside Grill opens it would reportedly be only the third such kosher venue in the metropolitan area, the others being Prime Sushi @ The Promenade in Manhattan and the Teaneck Doghouse in New Jersey.

Both Hoenig and Kuritzky emphasized that the restaurant will be under the supervision of the vaad, ensuring its kosher standards.

“We received a lot of information in our dealings with the vaad,” Kuritzky said. “They were extremely cooperative and we could not be able to do this without them.”