Bucks County native Nick Liberato, star of Paramount Network’s Bar Rescue and, most recently, Netflix’s Restaurants on the Edge is opening a restaurant just outside of Bucks County across the Delaware River in the quaint village of Stockton, NJ.

Liberato, Michael Dalewitz, and Steve Lau have officially announced their partnership as 618 Hospitality and the launch of The Borscht Belt Delicatessen, a New York-style deli that has been declared as Liberato’s “love letter” to the Jewish Deli, which will be located within the Stockton Market at 19 Bridge Street. 

The Borscht Belt will feature indoor and outdoor seating accomodating 72 guests (post-Covid) and offer a robust dine-in, take-out, and catering menu six days per week. With full and part-time local staff, the opening is slated for April 2021.

The Borscht Belt Delicatessen concept is Liberato, Dalewitz, and Lau’s answer after a solid year of joint ethnographies and research throughout the Northeast, searching for a unique yet resilient restaurant business model within a current Covid-world.  

Combined with the appreciation of the American Jewish Deli and culture, and the lament of beloved NY delis slowly disappearing, the Borscht Belt plan was born.

“Restaurants are on the Edge everywhere, and determining a business model that not only works for us during this time but the community is of optimum importance. Top-priority is to serve-up safe and convenient NY-style, “old-school” delicatessen favorites with a savory and contemporary twist, satisfying a variety of food-connoisseurs while keeping every wallet size in mind,” said Liberato.

Key menu offerings will include various platters with fresh lox, meats, spreads, daily fresh bagels, and baked goods, pickles, Bubby Bell’s Matzo Ball soup, Borscht Beet salad, and piled-high pastrami sandwiches fresh from their custom-built pastrami machine made in New York.

Coffee will be poured fresh directly with an exclusive arrangement made with award-winning, Paper Plane Coffee, a 5th generation Colombian-family coffee company.  

The Borscht Belt will open each morning at 7 am with varying closing hours throughout the week and weekend.

“Living in New York for 27 years and considering New Hope my now full-time home for the past six, I was wanting to create an elevated deli experience at the market, then I met Mike and Nick and they were on the exact same track. Plus, they’re two of the biggest mensches you’ll ever want to meet, it was a match made in heaven, really. The Borscht Belt will be the perfect welcome-gift I was looking to offer fellow New Yorkers who are either here as fellow transplants or weekenders,” said Steve Lau, restaurateur and owner of the award-winning gastropub restaurant, The Salt House in New Hope, PA.

The restaurant’s name lends itself as a nostalgic salute to the most memorable days of the entertainment-loving, Jewish summering-community in the Catskills during the mid-20th century. Partner Mike Dalewitz whose family helped run the iconic landmark institutions, The Pines Hotel and The Red Apple Rest, speaks fondly of the era and states the most important ingredients of their concept is to celebrate what he believes the original Borscht Belt represented; community, family, large amounts of laughter and entertainment, and of course, mounds of mouth-watering NY-style Jewish cuisine.  

Within the restaurant’s design, the accents of bold, vintage colors, textures, and ambiance will all echo the era and its energy.  The group’s hope is when personally able and ready to “walk-in and sit-down in a Covid-free dining world,” clientele may not want to leave.  

Stay tuned for an exact opening date.