Late Night Munchies Spawned The Humble Burgeritto

By John Voket

Joseph Rebecco, Jr, is becoming famous for packing a lot of great stuff into a small package. His patented Burgeritto packs lean Angus ground beef, cheese, romaine lettuce, crumbled bacon, diced tomato, and tomato mayo into a soft, warm flour tortilla.

Similarly, his new Burgerittoville restaurant, located across from the Teen Center in the old Newtown Railroad depot, packs a lot of movie and sports memorabilia, café-style seating, and a huge plasma TV into a deceivingly small but well-appointed space.

All those visual features keep diners’ minds off the short wait for their orders, especially on those occasions when they are lining up out the door. And if good food is not enough to lure them in, visitors apparently also appreciate the friendly atmosphere, which is no coincidence.

Mr Rebecco insists that everyone who comes to work at Burgerittoville brings along a good attitude and friendly demeanor if they plan to wrap their hands around even a single one of his juicy, one-of-a-kind wraps.

In fact, he believes the welcoming greetings customers get when they come through the door is one of the most important ingredients of his entire business recipe. Regardless of whether they are stopping in for a Burgeritto, one of the eight other ‘…ritto’ variations from steak to chicken to bacon and eggs, his shrimp or chicken salads, hot wings, quesadillas, chili dogs, or a monster milk shake, float, or malt, customer service is among Mr Rebecco’s top priorities.

“No matter where you go, if you’re a customer, people tend to come back if they encounter a personable staff,” Mr Rebecco said during a recent stop at his shop. “I’m a real stickler about making sure we say ‘hello,’ ‘good-bye,’ you know. Making a little chit-chat makes people feel good and I think somehow it even makes the food taste even better.”

The story of the Burgeritto began like a good mystery. As Mr Rebecco tells it, he pulled into his other business —Fairfield’s Skybox Café — one dark and stormy night.

Famished from his trip through a driving snowstorm, he set about grilling a run-of-the-mill burger in the café’s kitchen. But when he went looking for a bun, all he could come up with were flour tortillas.

Worried that the tasty burger would be rendered too bland wrapped up in that floppy tortilla, he busily set about chopping up some tomatoes and bacon strips. Adding the Romaine and a dollop of tomato mayo, Mr Rebecco took his first bite — and from that moment on it was history. The burgeritto was born.

In the ensuing months he began testing his new creation on Skybox patrons, who all uniformly loved the taste of the tortilla-wrapped cheeseburger. While regulars at his café each developed their own pet names for the new burger wrap, Mr Rebecco knew to best protect his interest in the new food invention, he had to come up with an official title.

Soon after, he settled on burgeritto. It did not take long for the restaurateur, who first learned to improvise as a teenager in his grandmother’s kitchen, to decide his new burgeritto deserved a home of its own. And after some scouting, another relative pointed out the soon-to-be vacant location on Church Hill Road.

One trip to the patent office and a few application forms later, Mr Rebecco was the proud owner of the now trademarked burgeritto, as well as the name for his new enterprise, Burgerittoville. With the product and the modest location to manufacture it in place, he then set out to create the atmosphere, tapping his lifelong love of movie and sports and his vast collection of memorabilia to use as décor.

“I started collecting this stuff years ago,” Mr Rebecco said. “So I tried to pick out some of the most interesting items to get customers talking, or getting them to strike up a conversation with me or my staff.”

The business owner also knew from experience that keeping the customers engaged during their wait for a freshly prepared burgeritto would make the short lag time disappear.

“Having all the stuff on the walls, and the big screen TV to look at, beats keeping people waiting a minute or two in silence,” he said. “In those situations 30 seconds can seem like ten minutes, and sometimes when people think they’ve been kept waiting too long, they won’t come back no matter how good the food is.”

Mr Rebecco believes he has a good thing going here in Newtown. The convenient location near schools, businesses, and the interstate makes Burgerittoville the perfect little spot to grab a break and a good meal, and if his customers are on the go, the portability factor of his neatly wrapped mainstay makes a perfect traveling companion.

If you want to avoid the possibility of incurring a heavy dry cleaning bill, however, he strongly suggests customers take a few minutes to have a seat if they are ordering up one of Burgerittoville’s other unique offerings: the Pittsburgher.

“It’s fresh baked Italian bread with a burger, fries, and coleslaw all in the sandwich,” Mr Rebecco explained. “I just think it’s too good and too messy to bring along for the ride. You really need to sit and concentrate on how good this thing really is, so take a break if you’re ordering one of these.”

As much as the newest chef on the block loves his customers, no matter where they come from, he said it did not take long to form a quick affinity for Newtown as well. Mr Rebecco said from his first glimpse at the location, through the entire process of locating here and getting Burgerittoville’s doors open, the many Newtown officials he encountered seemed to make the process an easy one.

“I’ve opened food service businesses, and worked with others who have done it in a lot of towns here in Connecticut,” Mr Rebecco said. “But all the town officers, from the fire marshal to the health inspector to the planning department, all seemed to make it easier on me than anywhere else I’ve ever been, and I learned a thing or two from them. They all did their job, but they all seemed to be genuinely interested in helping me establish this new business here in Newtown.”

So what does the future hold for Burgerittoville? Mr Rebecco insists that before he entertains the though of selling out to a franchise distributor, he wants to open a few restaurants of his own first.

“Sure I have thoughts of franchising Burgerittoville some day, I own the trademarks,” he said. “But I’d like to get a few more locations up and running first, work out all the kinks so anyone else who opens one in the future can hit the ground running with a proven formula for overall success. Maybe it looks easy, but here’s a lot more to this than just coming up with a great recipe!”