A new front bar serving oysters, grilled octopus and a lobster roll has quietly opened at 143 Newark Avenue in Downtown Jersey City, filling a ground-floor space that sat dark for much of 2026. Bembe Steak & Raw Bar is the latest concept to take over the address, and it's already serving seafood-and-steak plates with Latin- and Caribbean-inspired touches Thursday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m.
According to Jersey Digs, Bembe features two concepts under one roof: the front bar focused on seafood and steak, and a casual setup called Steaks Shakes + Harmony tucked into the back of the building. The soft-open menu so far includes oysters with salsa verde garlic butter, a coconut curry rice bowl, a pollo a la brasa chicken chimi sandwich, and a steak burger, with dishes customizable with jerk butter, chimichurri rojo, or sofrito bordelaise sauces. The front bar has also rolled out a full cocktail menu alongside the food bites, and diners can follow along on the restaurant's Instagram account, @bembesteakjc.
A Building That Keeps Changing Hands
The ground-floor space has seen rapid turnover in recent years. Bareburger Kitchen & Bar opened there in May 2023 but closed its main dining room less than a year later, in February 2024, shifting to pickup and delivery through the rear entrance, as Jersey Digs reported at the time. Better Days, a modern American bistro from owner Arto Ozgun and General Manager Gabriel Rieben, then took over the ground floor that same month, according to Hoboken Girl. Per the Jersey Digs report on Bembe's soft opening, Better Days closed after a relatively short run before Bembe moved into the same former space.
Beneath it all, the basement speakeasy 143 Social has stayed put since it first opened in May 2023. The lounge continues to operate in the basement of the property even as the ground floor has changed concepts multiple times.
Chef Darryl Harmon's Growing Newark Avenue Footprint
The chef behind Bembe is Darryl Harmon, who was executive chef at Philadelphia's Water Works Restaurant by age 25. Harmon has been expanding his local footprint well beyond this one address: he's a partner in Don't Tell Liv, an upscale speakeasy lounge that opened on January 31, 2025, on the second floor of 138 Newark Avenue. He's also a partner in Asbury Social, per the Jersey Digs report.
The Steaks Shakes + Harmony concept occupies Bembe's back room as part of the restaurant's two-concept setup.
What's Still to Come
Bembe's formal steakhouse dining room, aiming for an elevated vibe beyond the current soft-open bar service, has no announced launch date but is expected to open soon, per the Jersey Digs report. Until then, the front bar and Steaks Shakes + Harmony are carrying the rollout on their own limited weekend schedule.
The address sits along the Newark Avenue Pedestrian Plaza, a corridor the city transformed from a car-free pilot in 2015 into a permanent granite pedestrian mall through a $7 million streetscape overhaul completed in July 2022, according to Jersey Digs. That project, which added permanent granite pavers, improved accessibility, drainage and an outdoor concert stage, earned Jersey City the Municipal Project of the Year award from the New Jersey Society of Municipal Engineers in November 2022, the City of Jersey City noted. The plaza's evolution — including outdoor dining expansions during the pandemic in May 2020 — helped turn the strip into a major culinary and business destination, the kind of high-traffic setting where operators like Harmon frequently experiment with multi-concept, multi-tier formats.
