The Rex Burgar & Lobster offers fast-casual surf-and-turf in Mineola

The Island Now

A real estate developer turned restaurateur is bringing fast-casual surf-and-turf to Mineola.

The Rex Burger & Lobster, Jonathan Otto’s new restaurant at 524 Jericho Turnpike, aims to combine high-end cuisine with fast-food service with a small menu of sandwiches Americans crave, Otto said.

“I felt that is a niche that no one has done before, so we are a step up from Shake Shack where Shake Shack is a step up from McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s,” Otto said.

The Rex has been open for about four weeks in a strip mall at the corner of Jericho Turnpike and Herricks Road that includes other high-volume restaurants, including Panera Bread, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Luigi’s Pizzeria.

The shopping center is the flagship property for MetroCapital Realty, the firm Otto founded and chairs. He owns about 20 such shopping centers, he said.

He was previously led Rock Bottom Stores, a chain of 38 drugstores he sold to Duane Reade for $30 million in 1998, according to a Bloomberg report from that year. 

Rock Bottom operated on Long Island and in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Otto’s retail background and love of food led him to open The Rex, which he plans to expand to a few other locations on Long Island, he said.

He picked the Mineola shopping center as the first location because it was already a “food hub” where any restaurant would likely succeed, he said.

“I’ve spent 15 years redeveloping this shopping center, so I wanted to leverage off of the food volume … that’s been built up in the shopping center,” Otto said.

Otto worked with executive chef Charlie Keller, also the executive chef at Luigi’s Pizzeria, to create The Rex’s simple menu of six items: a hamburger, chicken sandwich, Maine lobster roll, iceberg lettuce salad, fries and hand-spun milkshakes made with Haagen Dazs ice cream. It also has a bar serving beer and wine.

Burgers and chicken sandwiches are $8.95, lobster rolls are $19.95, fries are $3.95 and shakes are $5.95.

The high-end interior, modest prices and quick service are designed to appeal to a broad clientele, Otto said.

“The place looks very upscale inside, it’s very well decorated, but a very moderate, reasonably priced menu,” said Tony Lubrano, president of the Mineola Chamber of Commerce and himself a restaurateur. “In my view, that’s a pretty good way to succeed around here.”

Gregg Raffa of Garden City Park didn’t finish his “abundant” iceberg salad with chicken at The Rex on Monday, but he said it tasted “excellent.”

He liked the “convenient” setup of sitting down after placing his order and having the meal brought to him, he said.

“Let’s put it this way, I’ll be back,” Raffa said.

By Noah Manskar

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