Brunch Club to Renovate, Reopen as Dish Eatery

The Brunch Club Cafe, a down home Fair Lawn Avenue diner with a loyal senior customer base, will close Saturday for the next six-to-eight weeks to undergo several hundred thousand dollars worth of extensive interior renovations.

The unassuming breakfast and lunch spot is set to reopen in late spring or early summer with a sleeker name and a more contemporary look, but its new owners have no intention of ditching their prevailing patrons. 

"Although it will be different, I’m hoping to keep a lot of our customers because they’re very nice people," said Tatjanna Monfared, who with her son Alexander, bought the restaurant in late December. 

For the past three months they've stuck with the menu they inherited and run the restaurant under the Brunch Club banner. But the Monfareds have always had grander plans.

They envision Dish Eatery, as the remodeled restaurant will be called, as a more modern take on the Brunch Club's casual, comfort food concept, but with fresher, higher-quality fare. 

"I want to have that place in town where families go to that’s a nice place — where it’s nice enough to bring a guest, nice enough to have a nice evening as a couple, but it’s casual enough to go with your family or just with the girls," Tatjanna said. "I don’t think we have that really in Fair Lawn."

Alexander, who grew up in Fair Lawn and recently moved back home after an eight-year stint in New York City, said even though he used to drive past the Brunch Club every morning on his way to school, he never felt moved to dine there.

If he and his mother's plans to transform the spot are successful, however, the next generation of Fair Lawn youth might feel differently about Dish.

While Alexander believes the chief way to revitalize the restaurant is to improve the food, he said it can't hurt to get kids hooked on Dish at an early age by enticing them — and their parents — with gadgets.

Take for instance the new-age bowls he's considering purchasing for the restaurant as a fun perk for mothers who need help entertaining their restless kids during a meal out.

"Nowadays, I notice all the young kids, the mothers give them their iPhones and they’re just sitting there while eating," he said. "The bowls now they have incorporated an iPhone holder. So you can put the iPhone in it. Cool little things like that add to the restaurant." 

If there's one thing Alexander said he wants prospective diners to know about the new-look eatery though, it's that the quality of the cuisine will be much-improved.

"It’s not going to be anything frozen, anything that’s sitting for a while," he said. "You can still get the same old stuff, but with a better quality."

Tatjanna, who has worked thus far in only an outward-facing capacity since purchasing the restaurant, plans on putting her degree from the Institute of Culinary Education to good use once Dish reopens in a couple months with a larger, more professional kitchen. 

She said she wants to continue cooking the comfort food Brunch Club is known for, but swap out some of the more run-of-the-mill ingredients.

"I do a special pancake which is made with a lemon ricotta with a blueberry compote, so that might be a little different than what’s on most diner menus," Tatjanna said. "Or for a good mac and cheese, I might be using a few cheeses that aren’t in every mac and cheese."

With the fresher, more unique ingredients, will come slightly higher prices, Tatjanna acknowledges, but customers shouldn't expect too much of a bump. The menu will remain simple and affordable.

"It’s going to be chicken breasts, but it’ll just be done a little bit differently and I’ll keep all that in mind," she said. "So there will be some increase, but it’s not going to be where it’s fine dining cost.”

When it reopens, the restaurant's hours — 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the week, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday — will remain the same unless a greater demand for Dish's dinner offerings materializes, Tatjanna said. The restaurant also has plans to begin offering event catering.

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