Rosenberg’s After Dark Will Feature the Best of Joshua Pollack’s Restaurants

Exciting news for bagel, pizza, and hoagie lovers: Joshua Pollack is merging his three popular East Coast-centric spots—Rosenberg’s Bagels & Delicatessen, Famous Original J’s Pizza, and Lou’s Italian Specialties —into one provocatively named restaurant, Rosenberg’s After Dark.

After Dark will debut inside Stanley Marketplace, where mild-mannered-by-day Rosenberg’s Bagels will magically morph into a cocktail-slinging hangout by night. It’s the culmination of all of Pollack’s passion projects, wrapped into one crowd-pleasing restaurant and bar that will straddle the line between fast casual and full service.

“If you think about the pizzerias in New York and New Jersey, they have pizza as their mainstay, but they have a couple hoagies, a couple salads, a couple fried items. That’s really your neighborhood pizzeria,” Pollack says. “I was like, ‘Wow, this isn’t really a Rosenberg’s; this isn’t really a Famous J’s; this isn’t a Lou’s—this is something completely different.’ These are things that complement what Rosenberg’s does.”

Here’s how After Dark will work: The morning and early afternoon offerings at Rosenberg’s will remain the same, so you’ll still be able to get your Jersey Boy breakfast sandwich and Reuben for lunch but have the option to pair them with a bloody Mary, thanks to the new liquor license. The restaurant won’t close, but there will be a limited happy hour crossover menu between 3 and 5 p.m. Each night, it’ll sell that same New York-style pizza by the slice (as well as whole 20-inch pies) that you can currently only grab at the Famous Original J’s window in Five Points, along with four subs off the Lou’s Specialty Italian menu in Curtis Park. Fried mozzarella sticks, ice cream, and pastries will be on the roster, too.

“At 5 p.m., we’ll go full force with pizza, Italian food, and desserts,” Pollack says. “The bar will stay open all day.”

About that bar: Seventeen taps will pour a selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, including a handful of rotating beers, a trio of wines, three batch cocktails, CBD iced coffee, kombucha, and a few sodas, shrubs, and seltzer waters for egg creams. “We’ll have lots of fun offerings and a ton of local products. I’m excited, it’s my first bar ever,” Pollack says.

He’s especially stoked about the bloody Mary menu, which will feature a couple one-of-a-kind options. The gravlax bloody (yes, really) will have a lemon and dill rim, fish sauce, and a mini bagel and gravlax accoutrement. There will also be a smoky pastrami bloody, complete with peppery rim and Rosenberg’s pastrami.

The current iteration of Rosenberg’s Bagels inside Stanley will remain open during the transition into Rosenberg’s After Dark, which is scheduled to open in March.

Stanley Marketplace, 2501 Dallas St., Aurora