A taco restaurant plans to open in the long-vacant building now getting a facelift at the corner of Broad and East Front streets. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

A taco restaurant and a men’s clothing shop may be opening within doors of each other in downtown Red Bank.

Read all about them and more in this dead-of-summer edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.

Oran Apparel plans to open at 19 East Front Street. Below, the former Hansel ‘n Griddle will reopen as Paradiddle Griddle, signs say. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

• The former Heritage Liquors building, at southeast the corner of Broad and East Front streets, is the subject of an application to the planning board.

Daniel Reizis of Belmar has proposed creating a two-story taco restaurant called Taylor Taco Shop in the space, with a small lounge area for video gaming on the second floor among the dining tables, according to plans on file with the borough.

Reizis, who did not respond to a request for information from redbankgreen, needs board approval to convert retail space to food use. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for August 19.

Heritage Liquors moved out five years ago, eight months after Eric Eremita, a building contractor featured on HGTV ‘Love It or List It,” acquired the building for $700,000. It’s been vacant ever since.

Through an LLC, Howell resident Athans Bozinos bought the building last October for $880,000, according to Monmouth County records. In recent weeks, he’s been giving a thorough makeover, replacing all the windows and swapping the sand-colored stucco with red brickface.

• Just across Broad Street and a few doors west, a Hoboken-based men’s clothing store plans to open at 19 West Front.

Called Oran Apparel , the shop carries brands such as Scotch and Soda, Sol Angeles, and Stone and Rose, owner Oran Luft tells Churn. But it also designs and manufactures its own clothing line consisting of jeans, chinos, t-shirts, and athleisure clothing “for modern men,” he said.

The shop, located alongside the now-closed-to-vehicular-traffic Emanuel Court,  should be open by September 1, Luft said.

The space was last occupied by the short-lived Feminique Boutique.

• Not quite directly across the street from Oran, Hansel ‘n Griddle restaurant, at 38 West Front Street, has closed after four and a half years.

Signs in the window say it will be replaced by Paradiddle Griddle, which already has a presence on Facebook and several food-ordering websites, though the ordering systems are not yet activated. The Hansel ‘N Griddle webpage now just says “Paradiddle Griddle” without any explanation.

Churn was unable to reach anyone associated with the new operation for comment.

• Pacini’s Pizzeria closed and vacated 177 Broad Street last month.

Located between a diner and a dry cleaning shop in a building next door to the Red Bank post office, Pacini’s had been in business for almost a decade.