Anthony Joseph's to Reopen as The Local With New Menu and Casual Vibe

Anthony Joseph's in Rocky Point dimmed the lights , but the restaurant is set to reopen shortly with an entirely new name, menu and vibe.

Former owner Anthony Galano left partner Scott Andriani, who with his mostly retained staff and new managing partner brainstormed to come up with The Local.

"We're trying to keep our focus on local stuff but also not so much in that vein of seasonal that everyone does, we’re trying to stick with a Long Island feel," Andriani said. "It’s going to be a relatively small menu so we can stick with fresher ingredients and change it up every month and a half, two months."

The menu will feature items such as a house blend burger with shortribs on a biscuit, roasted corn, squash soups and other items based around seasonality and comfort food that aim to give patrons that Long Island feel.

While Anthony Joseph's featured an upscale Italian menu and catered to the over-40 crowd, The Local's casual feel, high-end comfort food and micro-brew bar should appeal to a different crowd.

"We’re going real casual, sticking with local artists for our artwork, similar to Toast downport," the chef, manager and man-of-many-hats Andriani said. "We’ll have live music but not live bar music. It’ll be three-piece bands, acoustic musicians, stuff like that."

Andriani said the change was a collaborative effort of everyone involved picking eachothers brains and speaking with others in the business, and The Local was born. He hopes the restaurant will open within the next week, but will wait if need be.

"We’ve had some delays, signage and things like that," he said. "We don’t want to open for the sake of opening, we’ve got to open right."