by Alexa Duplisea
With its warm brick oven and its references to Hudson’s history, a new restaurant has grabbed the community’s attention. The Rail Trail is a new attraction that satisfies all the senses.
Walking into this restaurant a customer immediately notices the enormous brick oven with its flaming inside and warm air flowing through the restaurant. Sitting and waiting for a table leaves time to enjoy watching steamy flatbreads being taken out of the oven preparing customers’ stomachs for a large meal.
The Rail Trail opened at the end of December, and everyone seems to love it. People walk in dressed in sweats or jeans and a simple jacket or sweatshirt. It is a new place without a fancy dress code; customers can relax at the bar or the booths. That is just the way it is there.
This is a family restaurant. It is a place where people can go in for a bite of their famous brick oven flatbreads or something else delicious from their menu. All around the restaurant one might hear the words of very happy customers. “The food here is tremendous, and it is served so quick.” “We are definitely coming back here for dinner again.” “I have just decided that is my new favorite restaurant in Hudson.” Although small, their menu includes different appetizers, soups/salads, entrees, desserts, and their main focus, flatbreads.
Even the people who work there enjoy it! Matt Holden, who works there when he isn’t away at college, said, “At first, I was nervous to get a job there because it was so new, and I hadn’t heard of anyone going there. I didn’t know how hard the job would be or what the boss was like, but when I did get hired and I started to work there I found out. It was actually pretty great.”
Matt Holden spent each day taking care of new customers.“Every day was packed, and I felt like I was always running around cleaning tables and serving food. One thing I especially enjoyed was when people would be getting up to leave, and they told me that they loved this restaurant and were so excited to come back again.”
Many people seem to like it because the flatbread is a great meal size for two or more people; it’s made right in front of the tables in a huge brick oven, and customers can choose whatever they want to top their creations with! They have many different toppings: sliced roma tomatoes, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, zucchini, roasted banana peppers, creamed spinach, butternut squash, pineapple, pepperoni, sausage, chicken, shaved steak, chorizo, and bacon. For sauces they offer crushed tomato, buffalo, BBQ, roasted garlic, and creamed spinach. The diner can even choose the cheese, such as three-cheese blend, crumbly blue, ricotta, provolone, and feta. They also offer gluten free crust!
The Rail Trail Co. does not make Italian pizza. “Instead of like an Italian yeast that’s 2,3, 500 years old, ours is an American dough,” co-owner Karim El-Gamal says. The yeast they use has been prepared for many years, and then they use it to make dough for their flatbreads. They buy their yeast from San Francisco, and they grow it right here to make sure its taste was to perfection. They wanted American dough to emphasize that they serve American flatbread and not Italian pizza. They say that all their ingredients are sourced locally, and they prepare them right at the restaurant.
If someone does not feel like designing a flatbread, the customer has some choices, such as Buffalo Chicken or Spinach Rockefeller. Karim El-Gamal, co-owner of The Rail Trail, says, “We know we aren’t Italian. We weren’t trying to make Italian style pizza. That’s why we don’t call it pizza. Pizza is an Italian dish. We do flatbreads. ” That’s where the brick oven comes in. El-Gamal thinks that the only way to get tasty flatbreads is from a real oven, and that’s what they wanted to give their customers.
Besides the different kinds of hot cheesy flatbreads, people have recommended their Rail Trail burger, which many say is “cooked to perfection.” They offer lunch, dinner, kids’ meals and Sunday brunch options for flatbreads, salads, sandwiches, appetizers and entrees.
Besides the unique menu the design and architecture of the restaurant is a story of its own. When Michael Kasseris and Karim El-Gamal decided to build their restaurant in Hudson, they made sure they did their research. They wanted the design of the restaurant to show the history of Hudson. Walking inside the restaurant takes you back to the beginning of Hudson and its history. The Rail Trail displays objects that connect to the city’s history, such as wheels from mills and tools that may have been used in different mills around Hudson. These highlight Hudson’s history with shoe and grease mills. Also, the lights hanging from the tables are to make it seem like a railroad station.
The owners of the restaurant built the entire restaurant by themselves with the small help from Kasseris’s uncle. “It was a lot of hard work. Everything you see here, all the screws, nails, and sawing, that was us.”
The Rail Trail has seemed to attract the taste buds of all Hudson citizens and people from surrounding towns. As the menu says, to them nothing seems better than “Fresh food. Cold drinks. [and] Warm friends.”