The Good News

Norwalk:  you’ve been good boys and girls and you’ve been saying your prayers.  Now, it’s time to get your reward:  a Garden Catering of your own.  Yes, on 7/24 (this Tuesday) Garden Catering will be open at 314 Westport Avenue in Norwalk!  You know that you’ve been jealous and have often snuck into Old Greenwich, Greenwich, or Stamford just for your nuggets, fries, and cone fix.  Or, you might have even hit them up in Port Chester or Mamaroneck if you were nearby.  So, Norwalk, rejoice, your prayers to the nugget gods have been answered!

The Food 

The menu has been trimmed down a bit, just like the Fairfield location.  All your favorites are still on the menu, though.  You’ll be able to have breakfast all the live long day.  You’ll also have some of the greatest things on the earth…The World Famous Specials!  Remember that you can order the specials with either fries, cones, onion rings, mushrooms, zucchini, or with cones and fries.  We recommend cones and fries together!  Here’s a breakdown if you’re a noob or need a refresher course:

THE SPECIAL: 1/2 lb. of 100% white meat chicken nuggets and a portion of fries deep-fried to perfection.  It comes with a free soda or water.  $7

Junior Special –  This is the smaller version of The Special that comes with 1/4 lb. of chicken nuggets and your choice of side.  Remember your free soda or water.  $5

Big Boy Special - Add a 1/4 lb. of chicken to a Special and make it a Big Boy! Comes with an extra portion of Fries & FREE soda or Poland Spring Water.  OmNomivore approved.   9.00

The Boss Special -Don’t try this one alone! A full pound of our famous chicken nuggets with an extra portion of Fries & FREE soda 11.00

Homerun Special -Add chili and cheese to any of the Specials and make it a HOMERUN for only $1.00 more!

Yes, they have wraps too! Photo by Chris Ramirez

So, as you order, make sure that you ask for the seasoning and you get one of the 9 dipping sauces.  Then again, the actually real meat chicken nuggets and fries are usually just great enough by themselves.  There are also other options for you like wraps and salads, so there’s really something for everybody at their new store.

The Restaurant and Community Ties

Although there is limited seating at the Norwalk location, there is a nice counter where you can watch all the action on Westport Avenue.  Yup yup.  New to this location is a wall that will tell hungry eaters all aboutGarden Catering, its beliefs, and all the great things that they do for the community.  Already, Frank Carpenteri Jr. (who runs GC with his dad Frank Sr. and his sister Tina) and staff have gone around town, handing out gift certificates to lucky people and businesses.  Also, there are already some amazing things in the works for Norwalk.  Garden Catering plans to help out the local schools and The Carver Center.  That’s just how they roll.

A “Special” Surprise on the Way!

To celebrate their opening in Norwalk, Garden Catering is telling all their die hard fans to watch their Facebook page and their Twitter feed.  On Monday, a day before opening, they’ll be announcing a “Special” surprise.  ;)  Don’t ask us what it is…it’s super secret.  You’ll just need to wait and see. 

Last Thoughts

We love the great things that Garden Catering does for the community.  They also set up a great fundraiser for one of our Facebook friends, James Lacerenza and his cause:  Muscular Dystrophy.  Another thing we love?  Nugget Points!  Don’t forget to sign up so you can earn special rewards like a $10 gift certificate, a free Big Boy Special, a Garden Catering shirt, or even a Garden Catering tie.  We wish Garden Catering lots of luck in their new location, but they won’t need it.  With World Famous Specials like this, there is no need for luck.

Thanks to Frank Jr. for letting us make this awesome announcement! READ MORE…

The holiday season is here and you want to throw a party for your friends and family. Or those unexpected guests popped in. Yes, you’re happy to see them, but you have zero time to cook. Luckily for you, Norwalk, Fairfield and Stamford have great catering choices to save you time, spare you the stresses of preparing a huge meal, and to satisfy your (and your loved ones’) taste buds.

Garden Catering

With four Connecticut locations (Downtown Stamford, Fairfield, Hamilton Avenue in Greenwich, and Old Greenwich), Garden Catering has been the winner of Fairfield County’s “Best Of” Reader’s Poll for having the best catering seven years in a row (2004-2011). They cater all types of parties serving different types of food. If you want sandwiches, breakfast, Mexican, BBQ, Italian, buffets, appetizers, or vegetarian choices, look to Garden Catering. Do you have kids at your party? Kids love chicken nuggets and Garden Catering is famous for just that. Their homemade nuggets and fries will have the children begging for more.

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The buffalo chicken wrap at Garden Catering in Stamford, Conn is simple in its design, but bold in flavor. Starting with the foundation, the sandwich is wrapped in a large flour tortilla that maintains an elastic flexibility amongst heavy fillings and plenty of sauce. Perhaps the most important element of this wrap is the chicken. One of the signature dishes at Garden Catering is their chicken nuggets, which are made from large, tender chunks of breast meat and fried to golden perfection per order. Traditionally the nuggets are tossed in a bag with either fries or cones (tater-tot-sized morsels of fried mashed potatoes) and a sprinkle of Garden Catering’s “secret seasoning” (essentially a blend of salt and Cajun spices) — the combination is available in four sizes: the junior, the special, the big boy, and the boss.

To create the wrap, an order of nuggets is fried up and tossed in a bowl with hot sauce, to coat. The tangy chicken is then piled onto the warm tortilla, topped with bleu cheese dressing (or ranch, if you request it) and rolled up. It’s as simple as that, no other fixings are included. For an extra crunchy adventure, ask for a side of fries to be added into the wrap. For the traditionalists out there, this wrap is also available on a roll instead.

Read more…

While most of the good people of Greenwich are home sound asleep in their beds, Frank “Hotsy” Bertino is just beginning his day. He gets into work at Garden Catering in Old Greenwich at 2 a.m., greeting the bread man and firing up the Fryolators, then setting to work peeling and dicing the potatoes and cooking up the bacon, sausages and his signature chili.

At 4 a.m. he flips on the neon “Open” sign and welcomes his first customers — police officers, firemen and limo drivers, those who serve and protect the community. Some days as he opens the doors, a group of hungry teenagers and young men has already gathered along Sound Beach Avenue, the revelers and stragglers winding down their nights, fiending for their crack-of-dawn “Hotsies,” Mr. Bertino’s name sake sandwich.

As the sun rises and the real breakfast run begins, he welcomes the commuters who breeze through the shop on their way to catch the train across the street. The customers are predictable and steady, like the man himself, a mainstay at Garden Catering who has managed the early morning shift for more than 20 years.

This past Monday, July 11, Mr. Bertino stuck to the routine, coming into work and greeting and serving his loyal patrons. “What’ll you have?” he asked customers in his gravelly voice, taking orders and pouring the coffee. It was a day like any other day, except for a few minor changes: The balloons that decked the entrance of the store and a change in the price of the Hotsies. The bacon, egg, cheese, chili and home fry sandwiches were being sold for $0.90 each — to honor Mr. Bertino on his 90th birthday.

Mike Paoletta, who manages Garden Catering’s Old Greenwich location, said there is “no one better than Hotsy.”

“The biggest thing I’ve learned from this man is consistency and to take care of the customer,” Mr. Paoletta said. “That’s all that he does.” Read More

While he may be moving a bit slower these days, Frank “Hotsy” Bertino’s mind is working faster than ever. With more than 60 years in the food business, Bertino has absorbed the minutiae of life at the Old Greenwich location of Garden Catering, so it’s like second nature to him.

Bertino, 89, knows every regular customer at the deli, from their name to the way they like their coffee. On any given morning, he looks at the next customer in line and begins preparing their coffee — half and half or skim milk with Splenda — before they can even bother to order.

“The coffee is on the counter, waiting for us,” said Jeff Bischoff, of Old Greenwich. Bertino has things ready for Bischoff and his wife, Katrina, every morning.

Bertino turns 90 on Monday, and Garden Catering and its customers will honor his decades-long dedication to dining with a special discount on his eponymous breakfast sandwich — the Hotsy. Bacon, egg, cheese and potatoes, topped with Bertino’s chili, the sandwich is a regular breakfast item at the Old Greenwich location. Usually sold for $4, the Hotsy will be sold for 90 cents Monday in honor of his birthday.

“Hotsy is amazing,” manager Mike Paoletta, who has been working with Bertino for 14 years, said Friday morning as the usual weekday-morning bustle filled the eatery. “When you work with someone so long, it’s not even like working. We always joke around.”

An early riser, Bischoff usually stops by for coffee every morning at 5:15. But early mornings do not faze Bertino.

In charge of the early shift at Garden Catering, Bertino regularly rises in the wee hours of the morning to begin work at 2 a.m. He completes the prep work for the day and opens at 4 a.m. to serve other early risers.

“Been doing it over 60 years, so it’s easy,” said Bertino of his early day.

Bertino has worked and run a number of eateries in the area, including the restaurant formerly known as Hotsy’s Sandtrap, at Greenwich’s public Griffith Harris Golf Course. Bertino fought in World War II prior to his restaurant days.

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GREENWICH, Conn. — Frank (Hotsy) Bertino has stood behind the counter at Garden Catering in Old Greenwich for the past 20 years, and Monday morning was no exception. Customers filed in and out ordering 90-cent “Hotsy” sandwiches—a bacon, egg and cheese with homefries and chili—in honor of Hotsy’s 90th birthday.

“People love ’em,” Bertino said of the sandwich bearing his name. “[Working] keeps me young. I’ve been doing this for 67 years. When you see people every day for years, you know what they want.”

Monday through Friday at 2 a.m., while most residents are sleeping, Bertino sets up shop at Garden Catering. “He preps the coffee, slices the rolls, gets eggs ready,” said Frank Carpenteri Jr. of Garden Catering. “The great thing about Hotsy is he knows his customers so well, that if he has a guy who gets a ham sandwich every morning at 5 a.m., he’ll have that ham sliced and ready to put on the sandwich.”

Nicknamed when he was a quick-tempered youth, “Hotsy” has kept the moniker for the last seven decades. Given that his most famous dish is a spicy chili, the name is still appropriate.

“Hotsy’s a local food legend. He’s been in town for decades and everyone knows him. He’s just overall an awesome person. He’s one of the hardest-working guys I’ve ever met. He just does it, not because we ever ask him to, that’s just what he does,” said Carpenteri. Read More

Garden Catering, located at 2074 Black Rock Turnpike, is nearing the anniversary of its second successful year in business. Garden Catering was originally named Garden Poultry, located in Old Greenwich. Owned by two partners, Garden Poultry, the flagship store, was very successful in the ‘70’s and 80’s, until one partner separated and formed Garden Catering on Sound Beach Ave. in Old Greenwich. Read More… 

Photo by Kendra Bollinger From left, Matt Hurta, manager and Frank Carpenteri Senior, owner.

Your staff was professional yet an absolute pleasure to be around.  We enjoyed the food for the rest of the weekend and I got so many people asking who catered as the food was so good!

I enjoyed working with you and have already recommended you to pretty much anyone who will listen!

Thanks again!

All the best!

All the best–