So, what about the J Café at the Mayerson Jewish Community Center on Ridge Road? “We’re back open, and we have the full menu,” says David Hiudt, director of operations, adding that fresh-to-order foods bring a much-appreciated dimension to JCC members and non-members alike.
Prior to expanding the offering to include freshly made pizzas, sandwiches, salads, and more, patrons were limited to grab-and-go pre-made items in the coolers at the J Café. But now? “We’ve been open with the full menu since about mid-June. We are baking our fresh-to-order options, and the full menu is now back. You’re not just grabbing something out of the cooler. We’re making you that fresh pizza, that fresh tuna melt,” he said.
Turns out, “that fresh pizza” is the star of the show since the kosher kitchen at the J Café returned to the fresh-to-order menu. “Being a dairy kitchen, we offer pizzas, and everything is kosher, all our dairy products, so, being able to offer it (pizza) to the Jewish community is definitely the highlight of what we are doing here,” said Sean Gneuhs, general manager of food services. While there are other kosher eateries in the Greater Cincinnati area, pizza is one menu item that is hard to come by, based on Dining Out’s unofficial survey.
And the pizza that is being offered at the J Café is better than the ones offered there in the past for a simple reason, according to Hiudt: “Our new pizza ovens make a difference…they cook the pizzas really well, nice crispy crust, and we can make them four at a time if we need to.” He’s correct about the ovens making a difference. A good pizza oven not only bakes the pizza topside, but also the oven’s special bedrock surface drives intense heat through the crust to the toppings. That is why the crust from a pizza oven achieves that special crispiness that most home ovens cannot replicate. But a pizza oven is designed to do that job.
We tried the veggie pizza shown in the photo, and it’s excellent. Our pizza featured a tasty array of veggies that included mushrooms, green bell pepper, banana peppers with a little kick to them, and chunks of tomato that could have been part of the marinara sauce, but provided that tangy, tomato taste. The crust was just as described, crispy and deliciously flavored from the combination of cheese, pizza sauce, and the veggies mentioned above. Scrumptious!
According to Gneuhs, the sauce base for your pizza can be the richly flavored marinara, a red sauce, or a cheesy Alfredo, a white sauce. For now, all pizza orders are build-your-own, allowing you to select the veggies you want, the cheese combinations, the base sauce, and so on. At some point in the near future, the J Café will have some standard pizzas much like other pizza shops feature. But the build-your-own option will remain since that approach has proven very popular with those ordering pizzas.
“Most people who order pizza (and other items from the menu) eat them here at the café. We’ve seen that around lunchtime, the café is buzzing — lots of people — seniors, people using the facilities here, and just those (stopping by) who want lunch,” Hiudt said, indicating that breakfast also draws a crowd.
Salads are right behind pizza in popularity, and leading the parade may be the Greek salad, which we tried along with the pizza. This Greek is loaded with good stuff, and the classic dressing made with olive oil is just right. Crunchy romaine lettuce is the bed of the salad, which features black olives, pickled onions, garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas), tomatoes, red peppers, and a generous crumble of feta cheese, with home-style croutons to top the salad. It’s delicious and a great complement to our pizza.
“We have a lot of salads on the menu — the Greek, a salmon salad, egg salad, tuna salad. It’s kind of a smorgasbord of options: we offer the salads, sandwiches of egg salad and tuna salad. We have the Impossible™ burger (a veggie substitute, and a really good one, according to my taste buds), and the Impossible™ burrito. We have bagels and lox for breakfast (diners-out), and the bagels are Marx bagels,” said Gneuhs, adding that for now, the J Café is open for breakfast and lunch into the afternoon, but are staffing up for service later in the day. Hours are: 9 am to 3 pm, Monday through Friday.
“We want to see the J Café be a central hub for people to be able to come, eat, drink, socialize — come and get a coffee with a friend and enjoy the environment here at the J,” said Hiudt.
See you at the J Cafe!
