Lindenhurst's Bozena Participates in LI Restaurant Week

During the fall Long Island eateries took part in Restaurant Week, a week during which patrons are offered a $24.95 price fixe menu at a smattering of local joints.

Now, by the demand of restaurant chefs, Long Island will be able to enjoy Restaurant Week as they kick off an inaugural spring promotions week.

Running through this weekend, eateries all around Long Island – including Lindenhurst’s – will have the price fixe menu available for diners. The $24.95 menu will offer a choice of three appetizers, three main courses and three desserts.

“Everyone loves a deal,” said Steve Haweeli, president of WordHampton Public Relations, which organizes Restaurant Week. “With Restaurant Week, people go out two or three times and it doesn’t hurt the pocketbook as much as it would regularly.”

Haweeli told Patch that Restaurant Week – which has a website listing all of the participating restaurants like – is instrumental to community commerce because it allows people to try a new, local place they’ve been meaning to try, or head out on the town to an eatery that’s usually reserved for special occasions.

It’s in that spirit of trying something new that Bozena Restaurant – which serves Polish, German and European specialties – has opened up the selection for the prixe fixe menu.

“We didn’t make it just three. We did a variety,” said Sylwester Chochoreli, manager of the restaurant located at 485 West Montauk Highway, a few blocks west of E.W. Bower elementary school.

“Customers can pick an appetizer or soup, then they can pick any main course from our menu. Then they get dessert – cheese blintz, apple strudel or cheesecake – plus coffee or tea,” Chochoreli explained. “We think it’s better that way, letting the customer decide. It lets them try something different.”

And for a few dollars more, he said, customers can order steak.

Some of the most popular dishes ordered – all made by Chef Jozef Szafraniec – include the Polish platter and the Bavarian hamhocks. Among the most popular appetizers ordered include pierogies and Hungarian potato pancakes.

The strategy of offering a varied menu for Restaurant Week’s fixed price seems to be working, and, as a result, Chochoreli, Szafraniec and owner Bozena Cortes are pleased to be taking part in their first Restaurant Week.

“This is the first time we are participating. It’s been good so far. We’ve had about five or six couples – all new customers – come in since Sunday,” Chochoreli said.

These new faces add to the strong mix of customers with German, Polish, European and Italian family backgrounds. And many of those customers have not only been coming to Bozena for European specialties that remind them of home for the past nine years, but many of them followed owner Cortes from her first location in nearby Copiague.

“We used to have a place [there] called B and B Polish Restaurant,” explained Chochoreli. “We were there 10 years, and then my boss bought this place.”

Cortes needed a bigger place to accommodate larger events.

“We do a lot of weddings, communions, birthday parties and christenings, so we definitely needed more space,” said Chochoreli, who noted that this year will mark Cortes’ 20th year in business.

He also shared that the restaurant is undergoing some renovations.

When Lindenhurst Patch spoke with Chochoreli about Restaurant Week, he pointed out that the walls are receiving some new molding and a paint technique that mimics the look of marble.

Those are just a few of the renovations, he said, that should be completed by May, just in time for Mother’s Day.