Wayne Magazine May 2019 | Page 47

ORDER UP Just a sampling of what you can find on the menu of Fri Guyz. wanted that business to be a restaurant. “Going back to when I was 12, I wanted to open a restaurant,” he says. He attended William Paterson University for a few years studying history, but dropped out in favor of Bergen Community College’s culi- nary program. “I decided, You know what, I need to take a shot at that dream I had,” he says. It was the right choice. Vita loved learning the culinary techniques he was mesmerized by when watch- ing the Food Network as a kid. He got an associate’s degree in culinary arts from Bergen Community College in 2010. In July, 2013, he began scouting for locations to open a restaurant that specialized in crazy fry creations and wings. An unabashed lover of fried foods, Vita wanted to create a fast- casual chicken and fries joint, which he believed there was a market for in Wayne. He also got advice to add a variety of cheese steaks to the menu, since Wayne residents had no other local cheese steak joints to fulfill their cravings. Vita wound up looking at a space in the Preakness Shopping Center that used to be home to a restaurant he wasn’t too fond of. “The last time I went into that building the food was terrible,” he laughs. “I thought, I’m never coming here ever again. Now I’m here every day.” The day after Thanksgiving, 2013, he opened his place. Vita planned to peel, prepare and hand-cut the pota- toes for his fries, but after spending the night before with all of his friends, painstakingly slicing potatoes, he decided otherwise. The eight large sacks of potatoes they had cut up only lasted him a few hours. He now orders his fries from a distributor. When an order of fries gets placed, the un-fried potato sticks get dunked in canola oil to crisp up. “Frying is pretty easy,” says Vita. It’s post-deep- fryer where the magic happens, when he and his team lay on the season- ings, cheeses and toppings to create the desired dish. “I don’t want to say I was ahead of the fry trend, but fries have definitely become more popular,” says Vita. And thanks to Instagram, crazy fry creations are a lot more visible. To get new ideas for Fri Guyz, Vita likes to scroll through Instagram to see what other chefs are doing. He gets his inspiration from visit- ing other restaurants, too; one recent fry dish that he made was topped with carne asada, based on a similar dish he ate while in Las Vegas. To see what Vita has thought up on any given week, stop on by. And while you’re there, be sure to chat with Vita as he whips up your meal. “I want to know my customer,” Vita says. “I say, ‘I’m going to make your day a whole lot better.’” ■ WAYNE MAGAZINE MAY 2019 45