Now Serving the North Fork: Zach Erdem Launches Zerdem Restaurant, ZEY Hotel & More

On Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend, the refurbished 75 Main, with new wooden floors, a travertine bar, $200,000 coffered ceilings and fresh palm tree wallpaper, was spilling over with diners reveling in the unofficial start of summer, and joyously contrasting it to last year’s washout.

At his usual seat up front, owner Zach Erdem was entertaining a table full of guests including WABC Radio and Gristedes Foods chief John Catsimatidis.

“Now it feels like we are in Mykonos here,” he beamed.

With tables still full inside and out, Erdem strolled up the block to his other Southampton restaurant, Blu Mar, which sits below Harpoon House, the nine-room hotel he owns. Both places have also been renovated and, though dinner was winding down, his club behind Blu Mar, called “Main Room,” was just kicking into high gear, and guests were dancing to the tunes of a DJ.

Erdem has also become the star of a Max streaming reality show, Serving the Hamptons, which will be shooting another six episodes, starting in July.

One would think that with all this action and so many enterprises, heading into the busiest time of year, he might not have time to focus on anything else. But Erdem has a remarkable entrepreneurial drive, and a month ago he decided to expand to the North Fork, opening a Mediterranean restaurant, ZErdem, and a hotel, ZEY, along with a restaurant and lounge, Café 75.

The landlord who owned the buildings called him and said, “I know you will say, ‘no,’ but I just want you to see these properties.”

“I never thought I would be interested, but when I saw them, I couldn’t believe how beautiful they were, right on Main Street in Greenport, the way my restaurants are on Main Street in Southampton, but the rent was about a quarter of what it is there,” says Erdem.

The first chef he hired was a woman with a great reputation, but she told him she needed nine months to open a restaurant, and he wanted to turn it around for a Memorial Day premiere.

“I work 22 hours a day; I don’t work a soft shift like lazy people,” says Erdem, who has no financial backers. “I’m not a rich kid and I don’t want to hear that a chef can’t open a restaurant. I opened a hotel and two restaurants in one month.”

Erdem, who had been a shepherd in Turkey, came to the U.S. in 2002 when he was just 21, and began working at 75 Main as a dishwasher, then moved to Nello Summertime to become a bartender and later a manager. Nine years after arriving, he purchased 75 Main and moved on to purchase Nello and the hotel above it in 2016.

The second restaurant was a revenge purchase. “They said they wanted to make me the best maître d’ and I didn’t even know what that was, but I worked so hard and one day they fired me,” he remembers. “I said then I would one day buy the place and get rid of them, and I did!”

Erdem’s days of expansion are far from over. Next May, he is planning on opening a new restaurant in Long Beach, along with a luxury cigar bar and an adjoining grab-and-go shop. “There are 440 condo units above the space, so there will be tons of customers, and there are 20,000 people on that boardwalk,” he enthuses. “It’s only 45 minutes from the city and everyone loves it there.”

For now, he is nonstop on the East End, and after his Saturday night, he will be on the go bright and early Sunday. “I have to get up at 6 a.m. tomorrow to make sure everyone is on time for work, because at brunch we are doing 700 covers,” he says. “It’s OK; I’m not sleeping anyway because I’m so excited summer is here.”

ZErdem can be found at 314 Main Street, Greenport. The ZEY Hotel is located at 439 Main Street, Greenport. Visit zeyhotel.com for more info and a look at the rooms