The Taste of Akko team is back, this time in Crown Heights

There was a real void left when Taste of Akko closed its Coney Island Avenue doors last year, the kind of closure that gets mentioned in group chats for months afterward, mostly because the falafel was actually good and the malabi even better. Now the same owners are bringing the concept back, rebranded as 2AKKO, and they’re skipping Flatbush entirely in favor of 857 East New York Avenue in Crown Heights.

The decision makes sense. Crown Heights has spent the last several years becoming the neighborhood that kosher diners actually plan trips around—Basil helped kick that off years back, and the pipeline of openings hasn’t really slowed since (although Basil has, unfortunately, closed since then). A Mediterranean spot slotting in there isn’t filling a gap so much as joining a crowd, which says something about how confident the owners are feeling about the reboot.

According to Yeah That’s Kosher, which first reported the move, 2AKKO is being described as a revamped version of the original—same flavors regulars remember, new address, presumably a few new tricks. No opening date yet, no word on kosher certification, though the original operated under Rabbi David Navarro’s supervision, so there’s reason to guess this one lands somewhere similar. The name itself is a nod to Akko, the old port city on Israel’s northern coast, which was always the whole point of the menu: hummus in more configurations than anyone needs, fresh salatim, bourekas, shakshuka and falafel.

What we’re most curious about is whether “revamped” means a bigger menu or just a bigger space. The Coney Island Avenue location was tiny: you’d order at the counter and hope a table opened up before your food did. Crown Heights real estate isn’t cheap, so if they’re expanding footprint, we’d bet on an expanded menu to match, maybe more of the cooked mains and less of the grab-and-go setup that defined the original.

Although no opening date has yet been announced, if the Flatbush loyalists start migrating to Crown Heights the way we suspect they will, 2AKKO won’t need much marketing to become the opening of the fall.