Off The Tracks Cafe opened yesterday in Atco New Jersey offering a casual menu featuring hot sandwiches, stuffed baked potatoes, wraps and salads, burgers, hot dogs, wings and more… as well as a breakfast menu including their coffee bar, breakfast sandwiches and in-house baked goods!
The cafe seems focused on a high-quality, scratch made experience. Would you believe that not only is the marinara made in-house from a family recipe, but so is the mozzarella cheese! How many casual cafes do you know make their own mozzarella?!
That’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dive’s” level of restaurant dedication!
Many will immediately make a connection with the location when I say it is directly next to the popular Brotherton Brewing Company. It’s a smart location choice for Off The Tracks Cafe owner Gabriella, as her amazing sandwiches and more will likely find their way onto many brewery customer tables!
A delicious rib eye cheesesteak with Cooper sharp and fried onions, or my choice of a Drunken Cutlet sandwich featuring house-made vodka sauce and mozzarella… will pair very well with Brotherton Brewing’s equally delicious craft beers. (Gabriella you may need to work with your neighbors on a pairing menu!)
Off The Tracks Cafe is opened by a young Atco woman Gabriella, who with family and friends developed a beautiful cafe which offers second floor indoor seating options, as well as outdoor seating in front of the building and off to the side.
And of course there are plenty more tables next door at the brewery!
It really is a beautiful transformation of the space into the Off The Tracks Cafe, which on the 1st floor offers the front customer order/pickup area as well as the coffee bar.
The design has a retro early 1900s “Steam Locomotive Era” vibe to it with white subway tiles covering the rear wall and a white counter… but with significant contrasting black accents and ceiling as well as white hanging globe lights. Absolutely it’s modern and new, but you’ll feel transported to a much simpler time of the early 1900s.
Upstairs is a dining cafe area that is always impeccably updated and styled, carrying the train theme through signage and old photographs.
Locals will remember the building up until 2021 was home to the Waterford Township library… and if you’ve really been in the area a long time you would know that the space was originally the Waterford Municipal Building! Knowing that… makes the Cafe transformation even more impressive.
I stopped in mid-afternoon yesterday which was opening day, and found myself in a packed café with many customers waiting to order and also sitting outside enjoying the beautiful weather.
Local Facebook groups have really been helping promote Off The Track Cafe including “What’s Up Waterford Township” where almost 800 locals reacted to the news of the opening, and 166 comments! Even the brewery was welcoming the new cafe at their Facebook page,
So needless to say I really didn’t get a chance to talk directly with Gabriella but I did chat briefly with her mother Angela.
Angela tells me that Gabriella just this year graduated from Rutgers Business School and is already moving towards her Masters at LaSalle. Growing up around successful entrepreneurs lead Gabriella into realizing that her true interests lie in the business world.
She’s clearly thought this out completely and is doing everything right by getting an amazing education… but then it’s another level of incredible that she’s wasting no time and has already opened what really is a significant cafe and restaurant operation.
Supporting her in this effort are Mom and Dad (Angela and Joe) as well as family friends Jose and Kathleen (plus an amazing staff), but it was obvious from my 45-minute visit that it’s Gabriella who was keeping the Off The Tracks Cafe… firmly on the tracks.
I had a chance to chat with a couple of the locals there who were incredibly excited for the new cafe. Upstairs there were two local students who saw me taking a photo of this space and simply volunteered how happy everyone was that the cafe had opened “our bus drops us off right up the corner, we may be here every day!”
For my late lunch visit I ordered the Drunken Cutlet sandwich which is a freshly made chicken cutlet with house-made fresh mozzarella cheese, topped with their house-made vodka sauce!
This really was a delicious sandwich and when you look at the photos… trust me when I tell you it tasted as good as it looks.
A perfectly cooked chicken cutlet on a fresh seeded roll. The vodka sauce and mozzarella cheese meshed perfectly together creating a slightly messy but delicious bite.
I also ordered a Lemon doughnut which I am told is also made in the cafe kitchen. It was a delicious airy doughnut with perfect lemon flavor and it’s… sweet but not too sweet.
I really crushed that sandwich, and I hope to be back again soon to film a video!
Links and Location
Off The Tracks Cafe
2204 Atco Avenue
Atco Waterford Works, NJ
856-809-2718
Tues-Sunday : 7am – 8pm
Closed Monday
