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There’s a new kid on the block coming to Roosevelt Field.
Wahlburgers is set to make its Long Island return at the Garden City mall’s “Dining District,” according to a listing on the restaurant chain’s website and a Roosevelt Field representative.
Wahlburgers — co-owned by celebrity siblings Mark Wahlberg [star of “Ted” and “Transformers”], Donnie Wahlberg [“Blue Bloods” and boy band New Kids on the Block] and older brother, chef Paul — is joining a roster of chains such as Chick-fil-A, The Little Beet and Naya Middle Eastern Counter and Grill at the second-floor food court.
No opening date has been listed for the Wahlburgers, whose previous Long Island location in Port Jefferson Station closed in January 2020. A spokesperson for the company did not respond to an email inquiry from Greater Long Island.
The Roosevelt Field branch will mark a return to New York for the chain, which has restaurants in more than 20 states and previously had franchise locations in Coney Island, Brooklyn and on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Paul Wahlberg opened the first Wahlburgers in 2011 in Hingham, Mass.
But it was the 2014 debut of an A&E reality show on the family business that led the burgers, sandwiches and salads restaurant to open its first franchise that same year, in Toronto.
“Wahlburgers” co-starred Alma Wahlberg and three of her nine children as they pushed to grow the restaurant chain from a single branch in the family’s home state of Massachusetts. Its 10-season run ended in 2019.
The menu features nine starter dishes, four entree salads, seven different burgers, pork, chicken and fish sandwiches — and “Mom’s Favorites,” which include chili and bacon, mac ‘n cheese.
A highlight of Wahlburgers’ previous stint on Long Island came at the end of 2018, when an in-store appearance by Donnie Wahlberg had hundreds of fans waiting in the rain outside the Port Jefferson Station branch. The visit came ahead of a New Kids on the Block New Year’s Eve performance in Times Square.
Wahlberg told News 12 at the time how Long Island had helped launch the New Kids on the Block, when the five-member band opened for teen pop star Tiffany at the Westbury Music Fair in the 1980s.
“Long Island is such a great place, has been so good to me, to New Kids, to my family,” Wahlberg said.
Photo: Donnie Whalberg at one of the family’s Whalburgers location in August. (Credit: Facebook)
