32°
Sal and Jacqueline Yehudiel of Fort Lee, who tied the knot in August, will be opening Humble Toast on Queen Anne Road Oct. 22.
"We want to be a great restaurant that happens to be kosher," Sal Yehudiel said.
"We want everyone who enjoys good food to come here and be our guest."
Yehudiel, born in Israel and raised in Fair Lawn, is a trained chef who has years of experience. He worked his way up to to becoming an executive chef at Downtown Disneyland in Anaheim, California.
As his career progressed, though, Yehudiel got further and further away from his Jewish upbringing.
In 2015, Yehudiel returned to his roots in New Jersey -- and Judaism.
"My soul missed it," the chef said. "When I got back in to the kosher world I wanted to start observing Shabbat [the Jewish sabbath] again."
As soon as that happened, he was offered a job working at Madison Square Garden. Yehudiel would oversee the 22 VIP suites. It was truly an incredible offer.
But it would require Yehudiel to work on Shabbat.
"I was forced to make a decision," he said. "Do I take the money, or continue following my heart and keep the sabbath?"
Needless to say, Yehudiel declined the offer and began working as a restaurant consultant, flipping and rebuilding area eateries.
It wasn't long, though, before the opportunity to open a place of his own came around.
He was walking down Queen Anne Road earlier this year when he noticed the storefront that would become Humble Toast was available.
"The location is fantastic and there is good potential with room for growth in Teaneck's kosher market," he said. "It's been the same old thing for a while and we are looking to elevate that."
The menu is draws from Yehudiel's years of experience and is chock full of juicy burgers and mountainous deli favorites. All meats are cured and ground in-house, with breads imported from a bakery in Brooklyn.
This will be Jacqueline's first restaurant experience. But Yehudel said, he can't do it without her: "She's the backbone."
Humble Toast, 1383 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck. Opens Oct. 22.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Garfield-Lodi and receive free news updates.
