New Cafe Serves Croque Madame & Pitchers Of Brooklyn Lager

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A new cafe with classic Brooklyn and French fare being cooked up by a Bed-Stuy local with West African roots had its grand opening on Friday.

Zaca Cafe — where you'll find Croque Madame with cafe au lait being served in the morning and fried chicken with a Brooklyn Lager at night — has opened its doors at 426 Marcus Garvey Boulevard.

The all-purpose restaurant is the brainchild of Chef Inoussa Campaore, who moved to Brooklyn from Burkina Faso in 2007, started working as a dishwasher at Choice Market and eventually became the Clinton Hill eatery’s executive chef, Zaca Cafe's owner wrote in his bio.

"I arrived wide eyed, having found a home in Bedford–Stuyvesant and eager to seek out all the new opportunities America had to offer," Campaore wrote.

"Having fallen in love with the culinary arts and the new direction I found myself headed, I invested long hours; late nights and earlier mornings absorbing all that I could about the industry."

Two years after becoming an official citizen, Campaore is now opening his own restaurant (“Blending French and American flavors with a New York attitude”) in the Brooklyn neighborhood that’s been his home for the past decade.

The food menu is quite extensive as the restaurant is serving up breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The breakfast menu includes traditional American fare — such as $8 waffles and about $5 oatmeal — and dishes like the $5.50 quiche du jour that are classically French. You can also get a bagel and a schmear because this is Brooklyn we’re talking about.

The lunch and dinner menu includes sandwiches, salads and paninis that cost about $10, larger plates — think fried chicken with French fries or grilled hanger steak with chimichurri sauce — that will run you a couple bucks more.

The weeknight happy hour deal means you might spend less on a glass of Stella Artois ($3 between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.) than you would for a Zaca smoothie. It’s also possible to order in bulk — a whole rotisserie chicken goes for $17, a pitcher of beer costs $18 and a carafe of sangria costs $28.

“We began with a simple mission to provide yummy, high quality, reasonably priced food,” wrote Campaore on his restaurant’s website. “We got you!”

For more information about Zaca, check out the website, Facebook page or take a walk over to the new eatery on Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Macon Street.

Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Sept. 2017