• By Mabel Pais

In the quaint neighborhood of Paulus Hook at 87 Sussex Street, a memorable culinary experience awaits, offering fine dining in Jersey City.

87 Sussex, the restaurant, is a true landmark of style featuring thoughtfully prepared menus inspired by global flavors and authentic ingredients, creating dishes of elevated American fare. Explore an expansive list of signature cocktails and uniquely decadent wines sourced from prestigious vineyards in France, Italy, New Zealand, and California. Expect the elegant side of fine dining in a relaxed yet refined ambiance with impeccable service.

Like the décor, the menu is unforgettable once experienced. Chef Brian Walter, an honorary James Beard Foundation Member, is the Executive Chef at 87 Sussex. He creatively infuses unity between world flavors that will make it a memorable and unique dining adventure where guests will expand their palate.

The restaurant 87 Sussex is at 87 Sussex Street, Jersey City, New Jersey.

87Sussex.com

@87sussex

551.256.7864

DIPAL PATEL, 43, serial business entrepreneur, and co-owner of 87 Sussex, recently spoke to the team at The Indian Panorama newspaper.

TIP: Tell us about yourself. Were you born in India?

DP: I was born here in Bergen County, not too far from Jersey City. And my  father came in the early 70s, did his education here.  And then my mom came  later on, and then I was born here.

TIP: From where are your parents originally? Gujarat?

DP: Gujarat, as you can tell with the Patel last name, Gujarat, Ahmedabad;  really right in the city of Ahmedabad, that’s where their ancestry is. What was the city, and now what was less of a city at that time, and it’s certainly part of the bigger city at this time right now. 

TIP: Sure, Ahmedabad has changed quite a bit. So, where did you go to school?

DP: My undergrad was at Rutgers.  And then I did my graduate work at Harvard  Business School.

TIP: So, how did you get into business?  The restaurant business?

DP: The core of our business at HEXA (my company) is real estate. We have done a lot of real estate development with regards to residential, industrial, commercial, hospitality. Also, I was very much involved with the Mandir that was built in Robbinsville, New Jersey.  I was responsible for the real estate there as well, finding it and getting  it approved. So I have sort of a very diverse real estate background.

I’ve done a lot of different  things. And even our restaurants in Jersey City with  87 Sussex and Sátis, which are right next door to each other. You know, we started off thinking about them as operational businesses within real estate. We own both real estate, actually, three condos there in Paulus Hook.

So real estate is at the core of what we do. And in this particular case, we have  two fantastic businesses within those real estate, that being Sátis and 87 Sussex.

So, you know, and we have hospitality experience. We own and manage some hotels –  real estate.

But this was the first time that we got into the restaurant business. And  it’s  not  for the faint of heart for sure, as you may have heard, but it is something that my  partner and I are very passionate about.

TIP: Describe your team and business culture.

DP: And we’re very, very fortunate to have a fantastic team. When we first bought  Sátis, we still had most of the employees from that acquisition two years ago.

And we really bought (into) the culture of a team and a business. And that’s why  someone like me who has zero experience with the restaurant could even  contemplate going into that business.

So we consider ourselves very fortunate. We built the 87 Sussex physically;  we  built it as well. But the business as a restaurant, again, we have a fantastic team  there with a great chef, a lot of great managers. And so we’re just extending the  culture from next door to the new restaurant, new menu, new look, new feel.

But, you know, many of the courses business practices that my partner, Robert (Bobby) Hugen, who has had a very successful time in the pharmaceutical world had employed and many of the things that we employ in our business right now you know are the same things that we bring to the restaurant industry: that is taking care of your people, good product quality, good service. And, if you do those  things right, you can be successful in any business.

New Jersey, it’s considered very much a melting pot of….. if New Jersey, as a state, is a melting pot, Jersey City is really a microcosm.  Microcosm of that….. maybe one of the  biggest microcosms of that melting pot.

So  even  our  menu  and  our  culture  there  is  that  we  are,  you  know,  there’s  a  Sanskrit  saying,  “Vasudeva  Kurtumbakam,”  that  whole  world  is  one  family, my family….. which  we  believe  as  Americans,  we  believe  the  same  thing.

And that’s what we believe in our company. That’s what we believe in our  restaurant. We should be able to come together as one family, as one species,  enjoy and celebrate different cultures and heritages.

TIP: You speak about you watching your parents working hard.

DP: Absolutely. Absolutely.

TIP: Did your philosophy of hard work come naturally to you?

DP: Well, no, it didn’t come naturally.

I think I learned, I saw that in my parents, you know, and that is every first  generation, second generation child here, my father and my mother worked very, very hard.  You know, the tremendous sacrifices that they made for my brother and me. And, you know, we grew up in that environment. And many of my friends and, you know, many Indian Americans, as you both probably know as well, the people around you, that’s a part of our culture. It’s a part of what we see, whether it’s  in India or here, that hard work, but it’s not.

I wouldn’t say that it’s natural. I  think it’s something we learn, we see from our elders. We see the value in that, we see the value creation from that. And so then it becomes somewhat natural that it makes sense to work hard, to be focused on the things that are important.

TIP: Tell us about your immediate family.

DP: I’m married. My wife is a civil engineer. I have two children: a son of 16 years and a daughter of 12.

TIP: How do you balance working hard in the business with family responsibilities?

Even with the balancing of working hard, our families are very important to us,  right? So making sure that our kids extend that culture to the next generation, spending time with them and making sure that that is a focus of their lives. So we  learn that, we see that.

And the other thing I’d say is that you talked about the philosophy or culture of a  business.

My company’s name is HEXA and is derived from the shape of the  hexagon. And so there’s some sort of scientific and some non-scientific aspects of  hexagons, which really have intrigued me for a long time. The angles of a hexagon and how  (the word is “tessellate”), they come together, is the most efficient way for the  actual shape to “tessellate” or come together with other  hexagons. So, you  find  that hexagons are a natural example. The honeycomb is one of the most famous  ways, but there are many molecular structures.

TIP: How did you learn the restaurant business? Was 87 Sussex already existing?

DP: 87 Sussex was not existing. 87 Sussex was John’s Pizzeria. And we bought the real estate. That entire 87 Sussex address we bought.  And then we converted  that space into 87 Sussex. And given our real estate and construction expertise  already, we built it in-house.

But what I was referring to is Sátis, which is right next door to 87 Sussex, on  the corner of Washington Avenue and Sussex, that we bought as an operational business and real estate. That was about two years ago. And, so we learned in some ways, the restaurant  business there.  We have the staff that is exceptional  at  that restaurant as well.

And the culture of a restaurant, as we learned it, we are now applying it to the ’87 Sussex. And again, we have a fantastic chef there, Chef Brian Walter, who has put the product together and essentially your menu is your product.

TIP:  Yeah, it’s  very  good. Was Chef Brian Walter hired by you? Was he already there at Sátis?

DP: No, no, he was hired by us. He was hired by us, yes.

TIP: How is Sátis’s menu different from 87 Sussex…. because they’re next door to each other?

DP: Yeah. No, very different. And that’s a very good question. And something that I  often tell our team from a business perspective, you have to have a different dining experience, right?

You can’t have two restaurants right next to each other that have the same  experience because you cannibalize your business on one side with the other one.

So it’s a very different menu, a very different look and feel. I’m not sure if  you’ve been to Sátis, but if you go from one to the next, you will feel like you’re in  two different worlds in some ways and that distinction is important for us as a  business because the people who choose to go to a restaurant need to have a  different experience. They can’t be going to the same place as an extension of it. So the look, the feel, the menu, the people, everything is going to be different,  different than Satis. Yeah.

 TIP: Are you a vegetarian? Are you thinking of increasing the vegetarian menu offers?

DP: The other thing I wanted to mention which might be relevant to you is (that) I  am a vegetarian, was born and raised a vegetarian and we are actually launching a  vegetarian part of the menu there because there are many vegetarians like me and  I always felt like there were never really great gourmet options for vegetarian  food and it’s not necessarily that it’s Indian food. It is, again, classic new  American fare, but there will be a very plant-based vegetarian, even some vegan-friendly options there, which are sort of special to me, particularly on the menu.

TIP: Yeah, you had a classic tagine, I think. You have a tagine dish right now,  which is vegetarian.

DP: Yeah, Yeah,  so  that  was  the…  the  initial  menu.  We’re  now  expanding  the  menu and the new menu will have the vegetarian, so it’ll be a whole separate  section.

And I believe in the next, if it hasn’t happened this week already, next week, we  have our grand opening. So before that, for sure, the spring menu will be up and including the vegetarian menu, there will be a brunch menu. Also that Brian may have mentioned that’s has come out.   So  we  have  a  lot  of  different  options.

TIP: Is the upstairs of the restaurant for special occasions?

DP: We have a private event menu. So we have (the) upstairs space (that) has a lot of opportunity for birthdays and baby showers and weddings and corporate events and things like that, that we can do in-house in this space with great food. So a lot of different new offerings will be coming out shortly.

Suprotim Bose contributed to this article.

(Mabel Pais writes on Business, Cuisine, Spirituality, Health & Wellness, Social Issues, The Arts and Entertainment and Education)