🥙 Halal City Port Jefferson: Two Brothers Bring the City's Flavor Home

🚗 Nassau's New Blue Envelope Program Helps Neurodivergent Drivers

🕳️ Sinkhole Shuts Down Route 111 in Smithtown

🏆 Brandon Bussi Brings the Stanley Cup Home to Long Island

f you've ever stood on a corner in the city at midnight waiting on a foil tray of chicken and rice, you know the specific thing you're chasing. And you know how rarely you find it once you're back on the Island. Halal City in Port Jefferson is Ray and his brother trying to close that gap, and they're serious enough about it that they buy from a distributor as renowned as the ones supplying the busiest carts in the city.

Both brothers were born and raised in Queens and moved out to Long Island around the pandemic. Food was never far from their minds, because their dad ran a restaurant back in the eighties and the pizza shop was where they grew up. Port Jeff is theirs, and it's family in the literal sense. They're in there through the week, checking on the food, hanging around, making sure the crew is trained and certified and that people are walking out happy. Their nieces and nephews eat there, their brothers and sisters eat there, and Ray, who just had his second baby two weeks ago, is still running around making sure it's right. Every review that comes in online gets a response from one of them. Ray is blunt about why they don't chase a bigger audience: what good is getting likes in Ohio? They want Port Jeff, Mount Sinai, and Coram.

The thing people order without looking is the combo over rice, lamb and chicken with the white sauce and the hot sauce, and it tastes the way it does because they don't cut corners on where it comes from. The chicken tenders and wings are the other half of the story, and those are entirely in house. There's an employee whose whole job is coming in early to cut and season and marinate, soaking in buttermilk or salt water and garlic. Nothing comes out of a freezer and into a fryer. You order three tenders, they drop them fresh and then batter them in whatever you want, garlic parm, honey BBQ, lemon pepper. The popcorn chicken gets the same treatment.

Here's the part worth acting on. There's a halal spot on every corner and just about all of them run a buy one get one, because you don't survive otherwise. What almost nobody does is eat an extra discount on top of it. At $18.99 on the delivery apps you get buy one get one free plus another $5 off, which puts two full platters in your hands for well under what one usually costs. Ray is candid that this one is at the mercy of the platforms and won't last forever.

Toward the end of August they sit down with their managers and the online platforms to build something specifically for Stony Brook and Suffolk County students, most likely a QR code deal timed to the start of the school year.

You can order at halalcity786.com or on Uber Eats and DoorDash, or just walk in.

Join us in welcoming Halal City Port Jefferson to the neighborhood spotlight, two brothers who grew up in their father's restaurant and built the one thing they missed most about the city.

Nassau County lawmakers have unanimously approved the Blue Envelope Program, a new initiative designed to make traffic stops less stressful and safer for neurodivergent drivers and passengers. The measure, introduced by Alternate Deputy Presiding Officer Michael Giangregorio and Legislator Patrick Mullaney with bipartisan support, will hand out free blue envelopes and blue seat belt sleeves through the Nassau County Police Department.

The envelope holds a driver's license, registration, insurance card and other documents while quietly signaling to a responding officer that the driver or a passenger may communicate or respond differently than expected during the stop. It also comes with simple instructions for both sides, driver and officer, to help the interaction go smoothly.

The bill cleared committee review this summer and moved to a full legislature vote. If it holds, the program is set to roll out by March 1, giving families across Nassau one more tool to make an already nerve wracking moment a little easier.

👉 Read more: Herald Community Newspapers

A stretch of southbound State Route 111 near Maple Avenue in Smithtown has been closed until further notice after a water main break opened up a sinkhole in the roadway. The New York State Department of Transportation says crews are working alongside the Suffolk County Water Authority and the Town of Smithtown to make repairs and get the road back open as fast as they can.

Southbound Maple Avenue is also closed at Broadway while the work continues. Drivers heading south on Route 111 are being detoured onto eastbound Cross Street to southbound Plaisted Avenue and then west on Route 347 to get back to 111. Southbound Maple Avenue traffic is being sent onto eastbound Broadway instead.

Northbound Route 111 remains open, but expect delays if you're driving through the area this week. NYSDOT says it will keep the public updated as repairs progress, so check 511NY before you head out if you're routing through Smithtown.

👉 Read more: LongIsland.com

Sound Beach's own Brandon Bussi is bringing hockey's biggest trophy home. The Carolina Hurricanes goalie, who went undrafted after three seasons at Western Michigan and spent years grinding through the minors before finally making his NHL debut in October, ended up starting the final three games of the Stanley Cup Final against the Vegas Golden Knights and closed it out with a 3-0 shutout in Game 6.

Now he is the first Suffolk County native to win the Cup, and he is taking it on a hometown tour. On Wednesday, August 19, Bussi and the Stanley Cup will be at The Rinx in Hauppauge from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m., the same rink where he first learned to play. From there, the celebration heads to Bracco's Clam & Oyster Bar on the Nautical Mile in Freeport from 6 to 9 p.m., where he'll honor Syosset's Rob Scuderi, the first Long Islander ever to hoist the Cup.

No reservations are needed at either stop. Bussi posted the news himself: come out, bring the energy, and help him celebrate with the whole Long Island community.

👉 Read more: Greater Long Island

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