Beyti (Lodi)
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Beyti is a Turkish-American restaurant on Passaic Street in Lodi, Bergen County, New Jersey. Founded in 1979, it's one of the state's longest-running Turkish restaurants, built around the Beyti kebab — seasoned ground lamb or beef wrapped in lavash bread, grilled, then served with tomato sauce and yogurt. The restaurant operates as a family-owned business and pulls diners from Bergen County and across the New York metropolitan area.
History
Beyti Kroqi started the restaurant in 1979. He was a Turkish immigrant who brought his family's culinary traditions with him. Before settling in Lodi, Kroqi had run a smaller food establishment. The Lodi location offered commercial activity and sat close enough to the densely populated communities of northeastern New Jersey to make it practical. Word-of-mouth drove early growth, particularly among the region's Turkish-American community, but also among neighbors encountering Turkish food for the first time and coming back.
Both the restaurant and its signature dish share the name of their namesake. The Beyti kebab originates in Istanbul and takes its name from Beyti Güler, the celebrated Turkish restaurateur whose Istanbul restaurant made the preparation famous in the mid-twentieth century. Kroqi brought his version to Lodi, where it became the kitchen's signature and the centerpiece of everything the place stood for.
Decades passed. The Kroqi family kept running things day-to-day, sticking largely to the original menu even as the dining scene around them changed dramatically. Fast-casual chains arrived. Competing ethnic cuisines expanded across Bergen County. Beyti stayed the course, and customers stayed loyal because they valued the consistency. The restaurant made it through multiple recessions and the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced temporary closures or reduced capacity across New Jersey's restaurant industry starting in March 2020 under state executive orders.[1]
Beyti's story is part of something bigger. Bergen County drew a notable Turkish-American population during the second half of the twentieth century, and places like this one served as both a culinary and social anchor for that community.[2]
Cuisine
The Beyti kebab is what defines this place. It's made from ground lamb or beef seasoned with garlic, parsley, and spices, shaped around a flat skewer, grilled over an open flame, then wrapped tightly in lavash, a thin unleavened flatbread. The roll gets sliced into rounds and plated with tomato-based sauce and strained yogurt. Getting it right requires particular technique: the meat has to hold its shape on the skewer without drying out. Done well, you get a lightly charred exterior with a moist interior.
Beyond that centerpiece, the menu includes other Turkish grilled meats. Shish kebab, adana kebab, lamb chops. Cold and warm appetizers too: hummus, ezme (a finely chopped tomato and pepper relish), sigara böreği (fried cheese-filled pastry rolls), lentil soup. Bread comes to the table fresh from the kitchen. The menu's not large by some Turkish restaurant standards, but it doesn't try to be. The focus stays on a core set of dishes executed reliably.
Portions are generous here. Dining format tends toward the unhurried. Large groups and extended family meals are common. They serve Turkish tea, and baklava and other traditional desserts round out the offerings.
Geography
Lodi is a borough of roughly 25,000 residents in the southeastern corner of Bergen County.[3] Hackensack sits to the east, Garfield to the north. The commercial corridor along Main Street and Passaic Street hosts a range of small businesses, restaurants, and shops. Terrain is flat here, consistent with its position at the edge of the New Jersey Meadowlands, the low-lying wetland and industrial zone stretching across parts of Bergen and Hudson counties along the Hackensack River.
Route 46 runs through the southern portion of the borough and provides access. The Garden State Parkway is nearby with convenient interchanges. New Jersey Transit operates several bus routes serving the area, connecting Lodi to Hackensack, Paterson, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. That accessibility made Lodi practical for a restaurant drawing customers from across the region.
Bergen County ranks among the most densely populated counties in the United States and has a diverse population including substantial immigrant communities from South Asia, Latin America, Korea, and Turkey.[4] That demographic reality has shaped the county's restaurant field, and Beyti operates within a broader context of ethnic cuisine establishments serving both immigrant communities and the general public.
Culture
The dining room reflects decades of operation as a neighborhood restaurant. Turkish design elements and artwork appear throughout, though the overall atmosphere is practical rather than decorative. The emphasis stays on the food and the table, not the surroundings. This place has long served as a venue for family celebrations, large group dinners, and community gatherings, fitting the Turkish cultural tradition of hospitality and extended-table dining.
A generation of New Jersey diners now knows the Beyti kebab. For many, it's the first Turkish dish they ever tried. Local food writers have covered the restaurant, and online dining communities reference it as a reliable destination for the style of cooking it represents.
Turkish cuisine occupies a distinct place in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking broadly. It shares elements with Greek, Lebanese, and Persian food traditions while maintaining its own character, particularly through its use of charcoal-grilled meats, yogurt-based sauces, and bread as a central meal component. Beyti's menu introduces that tradition to diners arriving with little prior knowledge, and the restaurant's longevity suggests it's done so effectively.
Economy
The restaurant employs kitchen staff, servers, and support workers drawn from Lodi and surrounding Bergen County communities. As a small independent business, it contributes to the local economy through payroll, purchases from local and regional food suppliers, and the secondary spending of out-of-town diners who visit Lodi specifically to eat there.
Small independent restaurants face consistent pressure in New Jersey's competitive dining market. Labor costs, food costs, and commercial rents have all risen over recent decades. Bergen County's cost structure ranks among the state's higher ones. That Beyti has sustained operations since 1979, surviving recessions, changing consumer habits, and pandemic disruptions, speaks to its economic stability within the borough.[5]
Outside visitors from New York City and elsewhere in the metropolitan area add spending to the local commercial district beyond what a purely neighborhood-serving business would generate.
Nearby Attractions
Several destinations lie within a short drive of Lodi. The Hackensack RiverWalk runs along the Hackensack River and provides walking and cycling paths through the Meadowlands corridor. Bergen County operates Saddle River County Park, a property covering several hundred acres across multiple municipalities with trails, picnic areas, and athletic fields. The Van Riper-Hopper House in Wayne, a historic property managed by Passaic County, is within a short drive and provides context for the region's colonial-era history.
MetLife Stadium sits approximately five miles southeast in East Rutherford, home to the New York Giants and New York Jets.[6] American Dream, the large retail and entertainment complex adjacent to the stadium, opened in phases between 2019 and 2020 and draws significant visitor traffic to the Meadowlands area. Just across Lodi's eastern border sits Hackensack's downtown, with its own concentration of restaurants and shops.
Getting There
Route 46 connects Beyti to the broader highway network including Interstate 80 to the north and the Garden State Parkway to the south. You can park on the street or in lots near the restaurant on Passaic Street.
New Jersey Transit bus service connects Lodi to Hackensack, Paterson, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, making the restaurant reachable from New York City without a car.[7] Riders from Manhattan can take a bus to Hackensack or directly through Lodi depending on the route. Travel time from Midtown Manhattan by bus typically runs between 45 minutes and one hour depending on traffic.
See Also
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