Livingston kosher eatery opens
new dairy pizzeria next door

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Hoping to meet a demand for dairy dishes, a popular kosher meat restaurant in Livingston has opened a pizzeria next door.

The restaurant is a joint venture by Avi Azulay, owner of the eight-year-old glatt kosher meat restaurant Moshavi, and Jerry Johnson, who owned Rickey Dees Pizza from 1984 until it went out of business in 2001.

The new restaurant, also called Moshavi, occupies the space that was once the back of the original restaurant. The restaurants are separated by a glass door, but patrons must enter the pizzeria from the parking lot and the original restaurant from the front sidewalk on Livingston Ave. Kosher rules demand a strict separation of dairy and meat products, utensils, dishes, and cutlery. The new restaurant formally opened on Sunday, March 20.

“For eight years I’ve been serving all meat. I had a dream to do dairy as well,” said Azulay. He tracked down his friend, Johnson, who is not Jewish, and posed the idea.

“I said ‘Yeah, okay.’ Then we got serious,” said Johnson. “It was just time to do it again,” he said.

Rickey Dees was a non-kosher pizzeria, but Johnson insists there doesn’t have to be a difference in quality between kosher and non-kosher pizza. “It’s just a question of the type of cheese you use and knowing how to do it,” he said. “Here, you’re getting delicious Italian pizza in a Jewish restaurant.”

With an investment of $150,000 in the restaurant, Azulay looks forward to turning a profit “as soon as our customers support us.”

The menu focuses on gourmet pizza, from traditional Italian pizza to a version made with the Middle Eastern tomato salad known as matbucha. It also offers fresh salads, paninis, and wraps.

Although there are neither desserts nor delivery service now, Azulay plans to add both after Passover. “We’ll have ice cream, and cappuccino; right now, we’re focusing on gourmet pizza.” Signs in the small store also advertise dairy catering.

So far, customers include the glatt kosher crowd as well as non-Jewish fans of Rickey Dees.

Waiting for lunch on Monday, Rebecca Levy of West Orange and Sheryl Kaye of Short Hills expressed excitement at the opening. “We’re vegetarian,” said Kaye, who keeps kosher. “We like Moshavi and we like Jerusalem West [on nearby Mount Pleasant Avenue], but it’s just nice to have more options in the area.” When her husband noticed workers moving kitchen appliances into the back area a few weeks ago, she recalled, “he said, ‘Follow that pizza oven!’”

Another customer, who asked not to be named, offered what is considered high praise among kosher diners: “The pizza here tastes like treif [non-kosher] pizza.”

Johnson said he is enjoying himself. “I like it a little better [than running my previous shop]. I used to pump out hundreds of pizzas at a time. Now it’s more gourmet and a different style of cooking. And there are no Friday and Saturday nights. I love it!”

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.