Review: Anthony Zappola Has Gone Back to the Basics With Tony’s Burger Shop, and That’s Enough for the Chef Right Now

Tony’s Burger Shop Earlier this year, Tony Zappola shut down the Rice Shop, an Asian-fusion concept that he launched in Vegas. The Van Aken District restaurant was facing the same challenges as its competition, namely rising food costs, higher wages, decreased sales and a shallow talent pool. So the chef opted to simplify. In place of a chef-driven concept that was “difficult to source, difficult to staff, and very niche,” Zappola grabbed some low-hanging fruit. Tony’s Burger Shop, which took the place of the Rice Shop, is straightforward, familiar and appealing. The shop is largely in the capable hands of Eddy Keating, who Zappola has been mentoring since the Ohio City Galley days. The concise menu features single and double smash burgers, a few specialty burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, fried chicken tenders, fries and onion rings. Credit: Photo by Doug Trattner

A decade ago, Anthony Zappola was executive chef of Tom Colicchio’s Heritage Steak, the “Top Chef” judge’s high-roller steakhouse in Las Vegas. Today, the local chef runs a trio of Cleveland restaurants that specialize in sandwiches, burgers, and Italian-American staples. If you think that Zappola is bemoaning his current culinary standing, you’d be mistaken.

“I have nothing to prove anymore – and that’s a good feeling to have,” he says.

At 45, Zappola possesses the competence, confidence and acumen of a much older chef. He’s a lifer who worked in New York City alongside celebrated chefs like Jonathan Waxman, Anita Lo, David Chang, Bobby Flay and Michael Symon. Although he attended culinary school in place of a traditional university, Zappola’s real education took place in pressure-cooker restaurant kitchens.

“I remember working in New York in the early 2000s – I was broke, living with roommates in flex apartments,” he recalls. “But there was this general knowledge that the skills I was learning were so much more than the money they were paying me.”

Zappola absorbed that knowledge like a sponge while working back-to-back-to-back 12-hour shifts. When he wasn’t preparing food, he was eating it, discussing it, studying it. His passion and commitment paid off in 2003 in the form of an offer from Colicchio to work at Craft, which had just won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in America.

Between then and now, Zappola rode the wave of American culinary excellence from its gutsy beginnings, through its zenith, and back down to where it sits today, which is a smoldering dumpster fire. Cash-strapped diners have largely replaced meals at full-service restaurants for those from fast-casual chains, laying waste to scores of independent operators. The ones who did survive did so barely.

“Sales were tough in 2024 – everybody felt it,” says Zappola. “I talk to purveyors, I talk to friends; we were all struggling to get through the last year.”

Earlier this month, Zappola shut down the Rice Shop, an Asian-fusion concept that he launched in Vegas after leaving the Colicchio empire. The Van Aken District restaurant was facing the same challenges as its competition, namely rising food costs, higher wages, decreased sales and a shallow talent pool. So the chef opted to simplify. In place of a chef-driven concept that was “difficult to source, difficult to staff, and very niche,” Zappola grabbed some low-hanging fruit.

Tony’s Burger Shop, which took the place of the Rice Shop, is straightforward, familiar and appealing. The shop is largely in the capable hands of Eddy Keating, who Zappola has been mentoring since the Ohio City Galley days. The concise menu features single and double smash burgers, a few specialty burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, fried chicken tenders, fries and onion rings. Everything is made with the same passion and dedication that has gotten the chef this far.

“I’m at a point in my life where I’m content knowing that I work really hard to give people really good food at a really good deal and with good customer service,” he states. “I take pride in that.”

Burgers and chicken tenders might not win you a James Beard Award, but if they wind up being the difference between survival and financial ruin, Zappola will happily accept that fate. In addition to Tony’s Burger Shop, the chef runs the seven-year-old Lox, Stock and Brisket, also at Van Aken, and the relatively new Tripi in Ohio City.

“To keep all the doors open in 2024 – to have enough money to change to this [burger] concept – that was a greater feat than making money in 2022 and 2023,” says the chef. “Those numbers don’t represent the work that I did, the ability that I have, or the knowledge that I gained from going through it.”

The funny thing is, the chef gets more personal and professional satisfaction from handing over a $10 smash burger to a wide-eyed teen than he did firing $200 tomahawks for tech bros.

“I know it’s corny to say, but I think in 20 years, kids will say, ‘Remember when we were little and rode our bikes up to Van Aken to get Tony’s burgers and Mitchell’s ice cream?’”

Zappola says that he’s interested to see what will happen in the restaurant industry over the next two, five, and 10 years. He’s optimistic that things will stabilize and improve in the near future. And when they do, he will liberate his inner chef.

“After a year and a half, Tripi has just hit its stride,” he explains. “And now we’re going to take it to the next level. I feel the same thing here. We’re doing burgers, chicken tenders, grilled cheese. This is not all I can do. There is so much more.”

Tony’s Burger Shop
3403 Tuttle Road, Shaker Heights
tonysburgershop.com

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