Bluehour Restaurant pushes to elevate late-night eats from inside gas station walls

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Inside an unassuming gas station on Myrtle Avenue is a late-night spot that is striving to smash burgers, and expectations about the kind of food you might expect from the space. Bluehour Restaurant co-owners Mohamed Ghiasi and Ali Zaman say after years of owning Afghani restaurants run by both them and their family, including Little Flower Cafe and Sami's Kebab House, the duo said they were excited to have a smaller space to experiment with classic late-night bites, with a higher level of quality. " We thought it would be something different. It would be something that like a late-night hub in a gas station, like we to us, that was that seemed appealing," Ghiasi said. "We're making our porcini stock ourselves, we're breading the chicken ourselves, we're making the rice fresh everyday, so nothing is frozen," Zaman said. The menu has Italian parm sandwich, right next to chopped cheese, smash burgers and even Hawaiian loco moco, a dish consisting of a seasoned burger patty with mushroom sauce served over rice with an egg, something Zaman said he is particularly proud of. "It's a sleeper hit for us, but the way it turned out I'm so proud of it, and when people order it they love it," he said. He told News12 the mushroom sauce is made in house and takes hours of whisking to get to the consistency they like, but he believes is worth it for the flavor they get. Zaman believes that the ingredients and quality is what will win over customers, who may have second thoughts on gas-station eats. "It speaks for itself, we are going to the halal market for the meats, local on the produce and you can tell," he said, adding " we will have the late night crowd the halal crowd, we'll take who ever we can." For Zaman, the customers are coming in, and he hopes as word of mouth spreads, a second location could be down the line. "Everyone [in Bushwick] has welcomed us with with open arms, and we see it building day by day, day by day," he said. "