What’s for Dinner? Prepared Kosher Meals at Fairway
Image by Courtesy of Abigael’s/Fairway
Dinnertime may get a lot easier for kosher customers at Manhattan’s Fairway stores.
Just last week, the supermarket chain began offering “dinners to go” from Glatt Kosher New York City restaurant Abigael’s on Broadway.
The prepared meals — the kind you usually only find in specialty kosher markets and not in mainstream supermarkets — are available in the pre-packaged deli section of Fairway’s Upper West Side and Upper East Side locations.
A spokesperson for Fairway told us: “We reached out to Jeff Nathan of Abigael’s because we are big fans of his restaurant and asked him to make meals to go for our customers.”
The dishes — which include steak teriyaki, bbq short ribs, herb roasted salmon, Malaysian tilapia, Cajun tilapia, chicken rouladen and chicken piccata — are all prepared at Abigael’s and range from $8.99-$14.99 (a significant savings, considering most dishes at the restaurant are at least three times that price).
“The quality is the same as the food I’d cook in the restaurant, just instead of the dishes in, say a martini glass, I do it in a microwave container,” said Nathan, owner and chef at Abigael’s. “But it terms of taste and ingredients, it’s the same.”
Though Nathan has never sold pre-packaged meals to a supermarket before, his restaurant does prepare packaged meals for employees at Google, and to luxury suites at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
“It offers a chance to sample Abigael’s food without going to the restaurant,” said Nathan.
And for Nathan, diversifying his business is not always just about the money. “Trust me, you don’t make money selling these dishes for $8.99 or $12.99. But today you can’t just expect tushies to come into the restaurant without marketing. It’s not a one-dimensional business,” he said.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
