“Upscale” 26 West on the Navesink opened Monday night in a building previously occupied by a string of nightclubs and Mexican restaurants. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank got a new, upscale seafood restaurant Monday, even as its owners were a few blocks away, at borough hall, getting approval for an expansion.
But not the approval they originally sought.
Socializing on the rooftop at Teak with a cool Yellow Fever #2 cocktail. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Starting this week and for the rest of the summer, PieHole is giving its What’s For Lunch feature a rest. Instead, we’ll mingling and chilling out on the Greater Red Bank Green, visiting outdoor happy hours and ice cream stands, starting with today’s first stop: the rooftop at Teak on Monmouth Street in Red Bank.
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Vegetarian French onion soup with complimentary pimento cheese and crackers at the bar of Russell and Bette’s. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Skipping lunch in lieu of a date for early happy hour at Rumson’s charming new Russell and Bette’s on West River Road proves to be smart thinking, as PieHole finds a superabundance of dining choices here.
Pansy-filled window boxes and white stucco give the outside of the restaurant a cheerful veneer. Inside, we find an engaging old-world mood, with dark wood paneling and brick interior walls. Vintage stained glass chandeliers add color, while the bar to the right of the entrance is original to its predecessor, What’s Your Beef.
A rendering shows the proposed roof deck on the former 10th Ave. Burrito Company building, as seen from Union Street. (Rendering by Michael Unger. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After two planning board hearings, a proposal to convert the former 10th Ave. Burrito Company space in Red Bank to an upscale seafood restaurant remained undecided Monday night.
Still at issue: the impact of a planned roof deck on residences in the condo building next door.
Tortelloni and house-made sausage from Buona Sera’s lunch menu. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
On a warmer-than-expected spring day, the flung-open doors of Buona Sera Italian Ristorante in Red Bank offer a welcoming sight.
At night the restaurant, at the corner of Maple Avenue and Monmouth Street, can be crowded with party-goers and dates trying to impress, but lunchtime is a different, quieter scene.
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A rendering of the remodeled former 10th Ave. Burrito Company building. An open-air deck proposed in January would now be enclosed under a revised plan. (Rendering by Cahill Studio. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The proposed conversion of the former 10th Ave. Burrito Company in Red Bank to an upscale seafood restaurant will have to wait at least two more weeks to move ahead.
Grilled chicken pesto panini, served with a side salad. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Keeping track of how many years it’s been in Red Bank is easy at Pazzo MMX. Architecturally defined by its red brick facade and bound between an office building and a parking garage on West Front Street, the start date is in the name, which translates from Italian to “crazy 2010.”
PieHole stopped in at lunchtime this week to find a bustling dining room and the aroma of garlic wafting from the open kitchen, where you can keep an eye on every dish delivered.
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A makeover into a seafood restaurant with a roof deck is proposed for the site of Caliente Cantina, a short-lived restaurant at 26 West Front Street. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Yet another Red Bank restaurant and bar is hoping to join the rooftop dining trend, and this one has a widescreen view of the Navesink River.
The plan to convert 26 West Front Street to a seafood restaurant follows the recent closing at that address of Caliente Cantina, itself a successor to the short-lived 10th Ave. Burrito.
Duck confit tater tots from Red Rock Tap + Grill. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Soul-satisfying soups, beefy burgers, crusty pizzas…
From a year’s worth of lunches good, bad and inedible, PieHole‘s What’s For Lunch? feature picks the Top 10 of 2016.
Click to restaurant names to see complete individual reviews.
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The champagne corks are poppin’ as Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes continue a Count Basie New Year’s Eve tradition this Saturday night.
Here at the tail end of a year that many people are all too anxious to put in the rear view mirror, there’s still sufficient cause to keep the party percolating right up to the last ball-drop. And in the bars, restaurants and performance spaces of the Greater Red Bank Green, revelers have a choice of options that range from an intimate table at a favorite bistro to a big event that’s become the toast of all New Year’s Eve Extravaganzas in the state of New Jersey.
Here’s a sampling from Red Bank, Fair Haven, Rumson and Sea Bright nightspots.
Three months after it closed, ending a 319-year run, the Lincroft Inn in Middletown changed hands earlier this month, and a local restaurateur is planning something new there, redbankgreen has learned.
Personal-size pizzas from the oven at Urban Coalhouse in the Galleria. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
PieHole stopped in for lunch last week at Urban Coalhouse Pizza and Bar, the former Tommy’s Coal-Fired Pizza in the Galleria of Red Bank, one of four restaurants that owners Andrew Cameron, Chris and Matt Lombardi and Mike Centaro have up and running around New Jersey.
We were happy to find few if any changes to what we enjoyed about Tommy’s, including the fact that the menu still centers around an enormous, coal-fired, 900-degree oven used to producing the signature pizzas and wings.
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Just in time for Thanksgiving Eve revelry in downtown Red Bank, a new second-story and deck at Teak, on Monmouth Street, passed its final inspections and opened for business Wednesday night. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
A plate of baby back ribs from Salt Creek Grille’s happy hour menu. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Timing is everything, especially when it comes to grabbing a good meal. Sometimes, the afternoon just gets away from us and before we know it, lunch is an unfulfilled yearning. What to do?
Salt Creek Grille, the craftsman-style restaurant at the foot of the Oceanic Bridge in Rumson, shows a 5 p.m. opening on its website. But happy hour is served from 4 p.m. to 6:30, and it’s a terrific bargain.
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PieHole catches Jen Rubino pre-bite at Jamian’s Food and Drink. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Jamian’s Food and Drink gets testy on Tuesday nights as brainiacs and know-it-alls vie for points at a trivia contest that fills the Red Bank bar to capacity.
Jen Rubino, a 43-year-old borough resident and Italian teacher, has been showing up with her team from the beginning of the weekly showdown two years ago. Is it the camaraderie, the challenge — or maybe a craving for her favorite pizza that brings her out every week?
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Jamian’s Food and Drink on Monmouth Street in Red Bank will host a season-six premiere party Saturday for “Comic Book Men,” the AMC cable show set in film director Kevin Smith‘s Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, on Broad Street.
The free-admission party begins at 8:30 p.m. and, weather permitting, will include a screenings of classic episodes on the back patio. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
A Lobster Corn Dog, served on a stick at B2 Bistro and Bar. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
PieHole doesn’t always plan in advance, so on more than one occasion, our desire for a bite and a drink at B2 Bistro and Bar on Shrewsbury Avenue didn’t work out.
The question of whether we had a reservation surprised us on one evening. We told the hostess that we were there for a cocktail and quick bite, but our lack of a reservation meant that even the empty high-top tables were not offered to us. Her blank stare told us we were expected to move on.
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The open-face steak sandwich at Harry’s is served on slices of garlic bread. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Dowdy decor was just one of the telling factors in the demise of Harry’s Lobster House in Sea Bright, and when it closed last January, and many thought that was the end of the institution that began 83 years earlier. And it was, sort of.
In its current, soft-opening phase, the restaurant now called simply “Harry’s” has been “reinvented” under new ownership, general manager Chris Christiano tells PieHole. But there are aspects here that haven’t changed at all.
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Bon Jovi’s new touring guitarist Matt O’Ree, above, plays a special ticketed-event tribute to Eric Clapton at Jamian’s this Saturday, even as JBJ and the boys perform a preview of their new album, just up Monmouth Street at Basie’s place. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
For fans of the homegrown institution that is Bon Jovi, the first night of October brings an event that seems gifted from the gods of classic rock: an exclusive preview concert, going on at Red Bank’s own Count Basie Theatre, an “intimate” affair in which JBJ and his core bandmates (David Bryan, Tico Torres, Hugh McDonald) perform the entirety of their new album This House Is Not For Sale — their 14th studio opus, and a release that’s slated to drop on October 21.
Ahi tuna salad served in a stainless steel pan at Red Rock Tap + Grill. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Step into the new Red Rock Tap + Grill in Red Bank and the effect is instant: this isn’t the Brannigan’s we all knew and, ahem, shared a fondness for.
The single-story Wharf Avenue bar has been replaced by a rustic-contemporary structure offering stellar views of downtown Red Bank and the Navesink River from its multiple open-air decks. But PieHole was equally blown away by the menu. Could the food possibly be as tasty as the architectural eyecandy here?
The Lincroft Inn, a watering hole for travelers for more than three centuries, served its final meal Monday. No reason for the closing was given on the Facebook page of the Newman Springs Road establishment, where chef and owner Terry Daverio announced the end, and where dozens of patrons are sharing memories.
Known as the Leedsville Hotel in the 1800s, the inn was in continuous operation since 1697, according to a 1953 article in the Red Bank Register. It’s been owned and operated by the Daverio family since 1927. Terry Daverio could not be reached for immediate comment. (Photo above by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge).
Jimmy John’s has opened in the long-vacant former Wayne’s Market space on West Front Street. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A few quick bites of Red Bank restaurant news for this edition of Retail Churn:
• A sub shop, co-owned by a member of Gaslight Anthem, has opened.
• Two restaurants in town have changed their names.
• Actually, three, if you count the former Brannigan’s. In case you missed it, the Wharf Avenue mainstay has a new moniker to go with a dramatically new look.
Eighteen months after he bought it, Paul Marcotte completed his transformation of longtime Red Bank dive bar Brannigan’s into Red Rock Tap + Grill with a low-key opening Friday night.
The Ribeye Brothers are the red meat on the grill as a Labor Day Weekend tradition gets fired up once more at the Dublin House. (Photo by Danny Sanchez)
It should be said up front that the Ribeye Brothers specialize in tales of rejection, recidivism and raw ruin. Their CDs are sales-pitched as “the latest self-deprecating offering from the band who hates themselves more than you do,” and carry titles like “Swagger Turns to Stagger,” “Come In Last,” “Far Side of a Bad Thing” and “Disappointment Punch.” Even their well-curated covers by ’60s signifiers like the 13th Floor Elevators and Syd Barrett’s original the Pink Floyd skew along the lines of “boy loses girl, gets bitter as all Angostura.”
But a Ribeyes summertime show is a guaranteed and garage-tested good time, even if it’s also, as redbankgreen has said before, “the most raucously pounding pity party (with free admission, yet) you’ll ever encounter on the fringes of a public parking lot.” And when the Red Bank-based quintet makes a long-overdue return to the Dublin House Pub) this Sunday, it will represent both the rekindling of a hallowed holiday-weekend tradition and a reacquainting that’s packed with new tunes and some potentially pleasant surprises.
Attentive diners can keep a watchful eye on the burgers as they’re grilled at the end of the bar. (Photos by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
In the shadow of Rumson’s 75-year-old Navesink-River-spanning Oceanic Bridge, Barnacle Bill’s is packed on a Friday afternoon.
“You know it used to be on the pier?” an octogenarian customer who’s been coming to the Rumson perennial asks PieHole.
We do, and locals know also that the waterfront restaurant is the place to go when you’re craving a burger — and that it’s open for lunch from Friday through Sunday only.