It’s a diner at first glimpse, but a closer look reveals something more at Nick’s on Broadway.
A fillet of Atlantic salmon sizzles on the grill. Cast-iron skillets on the stove hold mounds of herb-encrusted Red Bliss potatoes and yams – home fries for discerning taste buds.
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“Salmon’s just about ready,” says owner Derek Wagner, eyeing the pink fish as he flips some golden-brown home fries with a flick of his wrist. A few moments later a cook places the grilled salmon on a bed of greens sprinkled with white nuggets of feta cheese and diced tomatoes. The salad is assembled in front of four men sitting at the counter.
Wagner keeps moving. He puts on a pair of latex gloves, drawing a ribbing from a man sitting at the counter who asks him if he’s a doctor.
“Yeah, I’m about to perform surgery,” the chef quips, wrapping scallops with strips of bacon, and piercing each with a toothpick.
Melding the diner experience with gourmet cooking has proven successful for Nick’s on Broadway and the 28-year-old Wagner.
Wagner entered Providence’s burgeoning restaurant scene as a line cook at Agora Restaurant & Bar – The Westin Providence’s premier dining venue – in 1996, while studying culinary arts and marketing at Johnson & Wales University. He rose to the rank of sous-chef at Agora before finishing college, and then became executive chef shortly after graduation in 1999.
Wagner was unaware at the time of the demands of managing a kitchen staff, designing menus, coordinating wine dinners and procuring fresh ingredients, would eventually lead him to Nick’s, the greasy spoon where he ate meals late at night during college.
Seeking a reprieve from the breakneck pace of running the kitchen at Agora, Wagner took time off to travel in 2001.
“When I had left The Westin, I was frayed – I don’t want to say burnt out – but I was definitely frayed. I kind of decided that I didn’t want to work for a large corporation after that,” he said. “I took a couple of months off, went to California, something you don’t get to do when you’re running a restaurant.”
When he returned to Providence, Wagner said he went to Nick’s one night and found Nick Samartino – the original owner who had operated the diner for decades – looking a bit “worse for wear.”
“For the first time since I had known him, (Samartino) said: ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore. I think I’m going to sell the place,’” Wagner recalled. “The next thing I knew, I was a restaurant owner.”
Wagner and two partners (who he has since bought out) spent six months renovating Nick’s. They cleaned, outfitted the kitchen with new appliances, and redecorated. Primarily for financial reasons, they stopped short of removing the blue-and-white tile floor. Instead, electric blue has become the 18-seat restaurant’s accent color, seen on the countertops and a customized lighting fixture on the ceiling.
Nick’s menu, before an artery-clogging roster of mostly fried foods, now features dishes made with local produce and fresh meats. Wagner gets his maple syrup from a small farm in New Hampshire, daily shipments of bread from a Cape Cod bakery, and Italian coffee beans from an importer in New York City. The two eggs, home fries and toast special is perhaps the only trace of the former menu.
“We have your traditional fare, but it’s made fresh by hand,” Wagner said. “We do buttermilk hot cakes, French toast and omelets, but we also do gourmet breakfast sandwiches, grilled seafood and meats.”
Nick’s opens for breakfast and lunch every day and dinner on Friday nights, leaving most of Wagner’s evenings available to sing and play guitar in his alternative rock band (called After), teach small cooking classes, and cater dinner parties.
Nick’s is also expanding to a new location at 500 Broadway (the original location of Leon’s on the West Side), in an historic building currently undergoing renovations. Wagner purchased the building last year and has yet to decide whether to stay at his current location once the new and larger Nick’s on Broadway opens.
In the meantime, however, Wagner works hard perfecting his current product.
“In any business, integrity of your product is the most important thing,” he said. “You have to start with a good product. It doesn’t matter what you do, if don’t have a good product, there’s only so far you can take it.”
