At first glance, the first stretch of New Jersey Route 4 — which begins just off the George Washington Bridge coming from Manhattan — looks like any other highway in the tri-state area. As one might expect on a busy road through Englewood, New Jersey, there’s a concentration of gas stations, motels and parking lots.
But there’s one business on this busy highway that offers something that other commuting and road tripping pit stops simply do not: Hot, kosher cholent, the slow-cooked traditional Ashkenazi stew.
Welcome to Snaxit — yes, its name is a portmanteau of the words “snack” and “exit” — a gas station convenience store that in many respects looks like all others. But upon closer inspection, visitors might notice a steady stream of Hasidic customers and a sign that says “24/6,” meaning the business is open 24 hours a day, six days a week and is closed on Shabbat. Located directly off Route 4, Snaxit is a fully kosher convenience store that’s an ideal pit stop for observant Jewish drivers — or anyone with a hankering for Ashkenazi cuisine.
For the driver looking for a quick munch, Snaxit’s shelves are lined with packaged kosher food like Doritos (written in Hebrew script) and dried fruit. For the driver in need of a pick-me-up, kosher energy drinks called Koyach sit atop the counter. And for the driver who wants a hot, hearty and decidedly Jewish meal? They can head to the convenience store-style case and grab a cholent, kugel or perhaps a knish if they’re in the mood.
“I try to make sure that everything is like 110% and everything is fresh,” Reuven Breuer, who’s been the manager of Snaxit for more than two years, told the New York Jewish Week.
All of Snaxit’s hot food is cooked daily in their kitchen in Monsey, a Rockland County hamlet that’s home to a sizable haredi Orthodox community. There, the dishes are packaged and then transported via car to the convenience store, an approximately 30-minute drive away.
Breuer said he knows of other gas stations in Monsey and nearby Monroe, New York, which is adjacent to the Satmar Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, that serve restaurant-style kosher food. (Unlike Snaxit, Breuer said, those places serve from on-site kosher kitchens.)
According to Breuer, however, “In an area that’s not so Yiddish, that’s just for travelers, I think we are the only one.”
Snaxit first opened in 2018 as a run-of-the-mill convenience store, Breuer said. Then, another owner took it over and made it kosher, with the idea that travelers who are heading between New York City and Jewish communities upstate and in New Jersey who need a kosher option should have somewhere to stop along the way.
“A lot of Hasidic, a lot of Jewish [people are] coming from Williamsburg, Borough Park [in Brooklyn] to upstate, or going [from] upstate to work in Borough Park,” said Zohar, a Snaxit employee who’s originally from Israel, who declined to share his last name. “They need a place. They deserve a place everywhere.”
In Breuer’s two-plus years at the store, Snaxit’s menu of hot food items has expanded to include kishke and a wide variety of kugels, from potato to Yerushalmi noodle kugel.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Snaxit attracts a heavily Orthodox Jewish clientele. In fact, a minyan often gathers inside the store to say mincha, the afternoon prayer service. Breuer said this is especially common during the winter when the sun sets earlier and commuters pull over, knowing they won’t have enough time to make it home. (Orthodox media outlets have written about occurrences of prominent rabbis pulling into Snaxit for a “spontaneous minyan” due to weather conditions and heavy traffic.) According to Zohar, who works the counter, the store often fills up with as many as 30 men praying.
Like any pit stop off the highway, the more traffic there is on Route 4, the more traffic that comes into Snaxit. The store gets palpably busier when there’s “a simcha in the city or upstate,” Breuer said.
But the absolute busiest time of year is the summer, Breuer said. “A lot of people are going to the mountains, the Catskills — those weekends are crazy busy,” he said.
Route 4, of course, is traveled by many non-Jews, which means non-Jews — many of whom have probably never heard of dishes like cholent — often pop into Snaxit when filling up at the Delta gas station outside. (The two businesses share a lot but are unaffiliated with each other.) But Breuer said he likes introducing them to the store’s Jewish cuisine.
“Usually when I see a truck [driver], or someone that comes into the store that’s looking for something, I’ll give him a cholent to try,” Breuer said.
Then, after their first cholent experience, Breuer added with a chuckle, “Usually he’s a repeated customer. [They’ll] come back for that.”
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