jjStacks Gets New Life in Newtown: Epic Burgers +

“It wasn’t a decision made lightly with how the last two worked out,” says Joe Attonito, who’s talking about giving restaurant ownership another go after his Ridgefield sports bar, Tiger’s Den, had to close in 2018, and when he decided to shutter jjStacks in Brookfield at the end of 2023.

While Tiger’s Den never got a second run, jjStacks never went away. Attonito operated it as a food truck while simultaneously running the brick-and-mortar and when it closed, the Stacks Mobile, its signature chicken wings, burgers, and hefty hot dogs included, kept the brand alive.

The “decision” Attonito speaks of is the return of jjStacks, this time in Newtown, and so far, he’s been welcomed with open arms.

“We just didn’t get the support we needed in Brookfield,” he says. “I started the food truck as a supplementary income, but when we closed Brookfield, it became mine and Jaime’s full-time job. I always knew, even when I was in Brookfield, that I wanted to open something in Newtown because people from Newtown always came to Brookfield to support us. Being a member of the community here, my kids go to school here, I coach three different sports here, I knew that if I did this right, the town would show up and support us, and they have. I’ve even seen lots of familiar faces from Brookfield since we opened.”

But it was a long road to get open.

Attonito’s first idea for a jjStacks resurrection was a larger sports bar in Newtown’s Fairfield Hills neighborhood that he said would have been a multimillion-dollar project given the shape the buildings are in.

An opportunity came up in a strip mall on S Main Street, so Attonito, and his girlfriend and co-owner, Jaime Lynn Shore, signed a lease for the space next door to where Mexicali Rose was. The only problem is that would have been too small a space for what Attonito and Shore had in mind.

“So, we signed that lease, and there’s gonna be a Greek restaurant going in here, and they signed this lease (where we are now),” Attonito explains. “They didn’t need a space this big, so we ended up swapping leases. We wanted to have a bar, the bigger kitchen, a dining room, and a patio to be able to do a little bit more.”

And that little bit more took a little bit more time, too.

Originally set to open before the 2026 Super Bowl, getting jjStacks open was a serious case of the hiccups.

“It was the worst winter ever,” Attonito says. “Everything that could have went wrong, went wrong. We had to dig a trench from the back of the kitchen all the way into the parking lot to tie into the grease trap and that was during that stretch where it was 28 degrees and below, so that was challenging. We also had a gas pressure issue. We kept our heads down. During that time, we had lots of reach outs from locals who were excited for us to open and that kept me going throughout construction. I knew we’d be an instant hit when we opened because of that.”

Roughly four months after it was supposed to debut, jjStacks, let’s call it version 3.0, is live.

For those who’ve been loyal customers, you will remember the catalysts of jjStacks’ menu, like all 100+ flavors of house blend rubs or homemade sauces that you can choose to coat their crispy wings in, plus, their stacked (pun intended) burgers, chicken sandwiches, cheesesteaks, dogs, and hand cut fries.

But with a bigger space, and more of an elevated one than the previous locations, there are plenty of menu additions.

French onion soup, six salads, a full appetizers section, and a few favorites from the past all made the cut in Newtown.

“We didn’t have many appetizers in Brookfield and not on the truck,” Attonito says. “It’s all fresh, there’s no microwave or anything like that, and our freezer is small and only for ice cream. The mozzarella sticks are handmade. We do baked jalapeño poppers. There’s our twist on a potato skin where we bake it, scoop out the potato to turn it into garlic mashed potatoes, stuff it back into the skin, melt the cheese on top, and top it with bacon bits that we cook with garlic and rosemary. It’s like a big, loaded mashed potato skin. We added two other chicken sandwiches, the Nashville hot and hot honey, and we brought back the PBALT (a pork belly BLT with avocado and cherry pepper aioli). And we have both veggie options and seafood now. People have raved early on about the salmon wrap, that’s fresh, never frozen.”

Attonito, who’s all about supporting local businesses, also makes sure he sticks to that with the ingredients used at jjStacks. Their ground beef, a brisket, chuck, and short rib blend, comes from Ace Endico, a family owned distributor out of Brewster, NY; Omaha Beef supplies the bacon and Bell & Evans Chicken; the ice cream is via The Big Dipper Ice Cream Parlour in Prospect; cheesecake is made by Daubie’s Cheesecakes in New Milford; and pickles come from small batch pickling guy, Mo Piklz out of New Haven.

By the time you read this, jjStacks will have a cocktail program in place as well as more draft lines, cans, and a promise of an above average wine list compared to similar restaurants.

“We’re doing an espresso martini flight, probably a mezcal old fashioned, a fun margarita, a negroni with Barr Hill’s aged gin, and I think we have some fun things up on the shelf,” Attonito says. “The wine list isn’t cheap, basic wine. The beer list is New England-focused, but one line will be Miller Lite and the other, Guinness. We’ll always have a Tribus and always a NEBCO. We purposely brought in small vendors like Monsieur Touton, so we could come up with a well-developed list. We took our time as to not rush it out.”

One of the goals here, according to Attonito and Shore, is to be a neighborhood haunt where you can watch sports, but one where you can feel comfortable bringing your family to, hanging with your friends, or coming on a date, and one that won’t crush your wallet.

“I think of it like an elevated sports bar, like what I would like if I went out with Joe and he wanted to watch the game, but also somewhere I feel comfortable,” Shore says. “I want a nice salad, a glass of wine. It’s comfortable for the ladies and the families.”

Attonito adds to her thoughts, “I want to be a go-to for families. It’s at a price point where you could come in once or twice a week. It shouldn’t cost you $250 for two people to dine out where you’ll go once every four months. We’re not going to charge $20 for a cocktail or $18 for a wine. I don’t think we’re crazy high or crazy low, but we’re where we need to be.”

After all the hard work, more than doubling their budget just to open the doors, and being several months behind schedule doing so, Attonito recalls a Sunday night during his soft opening phase where he was overcome with a myriad of different emotions.

“We sold out of a lot of food around 7 p.m., but there were 10 tables waiting, seven of those we weren’t even going to be able to feed, so I had to come out and make an announcement,” he says. “It was overwhelming. I’m getting overwhelmed just talking about it. It’s been such a journey to get here. I never thought we’d be this busy right out of the gate. I had to tell people I couldn’t make them happy tonight. They gave me an ovation and that really got me. We took new orders and amended what we could, substituted what we could, and I got the rest of the people’s contact info so I could have them back and treat them to a meal next time. A couple times already I got emotional at tables because people are excited to have us here. It means a lot coming from two towns that never understood what I was trying to do, people saying, ‘we’re excited you’re open.’ I’ve never experienced this as an owner in the industry before, hearing how happy people are that we’re here. It’s very, very cool.”

71 S Main Street, Newtown
203.304.1436, jjstacks.com

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