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RED BANK: EATERY CONTENTS ON THE BLOCK

12 broad 091914 The oven, assuming it’s sold, will have to go out the way it went in: through the front window. Below, Anthony “Tito” Vega with the three-ton oven last year. (Photo above by John T. Ward, below by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

biagio 2Need some sturdy metal chairs for your kitchen? How about a service counter? Or a custom-built, 6,000-pound, tile-covered, wood-burning oven?

Well, who doesn’t, right?

Here’s your chance to get those items, and more, as the contents of the short-lived Biagio restaurant in Red Bank are going up for auction.

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CHURN: CIAO, BIAGIO, CESAR & WOULD-BE BBQ

rb 12 broad 032514Biagio Wood-Fired Pizza has departed 12 Broad Street after less than a year and a half in town. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Rcsm2_010508This edition of Retail Churn reports on the departures from downtown Red Bank of two businesses and the cold feet of one that never opened: a pizzeria, a jewelry store and a barbecue joint, respectively.

Gone, quite abruptly, is Biagio Wood-Fired Pizza. Going, once its home of 21 years is sold, is Cesar’s Creations Jewelry. And never seen was the highly-lauded Local Smoke BBQ, which bailed over the expected costs and delays of setting up downtown.

All three involve Broad Street addresses. We’ve also got news about new boutique coming to Monmouth Street.

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ZEBU OUT, WOOD-FIRED PIZZA IN

Zebu will close next week and a new restaurant will take over its space at 12 Broad Street. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Just five months after a high-profile relocation up Broad Street, Red Bank’s Zebu Forno plans to close next week to make way for a new wood-fired pizza restaurant.

Zebu owner Andrew Gennusa tells redbankgreen he’s partnered with borough resident Biagio Schiano, owner of Mossuto’s Market in Wall Township, to create a new pizzeria at 12 Broad that that they plan to franchise as Biagio Wood-Fired Pizza.

Meantime, Gennusa said he’s hopeful that Zebu itself will reopen elsewhere in town under new ownership, though no buyer has yet been found.

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COFFEE HOTSPOT ZEBU REOPENS AT NEW HOME

After five months of downtime, popular Red Bank coffee mainstay Zebu Forno reopened at a new address Thursday: 12 Broad Street  just a few doors down from the storefront it occupied for a decade at 20 Broad.

Mike Rovere of Red Bank, above,  was the was first customer in the door, grabbing a coffee and staking out the best table for people-watching as the flow of humanity resumed. (Click to enlarge)

BALLEW JEWELERS TO END 124-YEAR RUN

ballew-111610The ‘lollipop’ clock outside Ballew Jewelers has been a Broad Street fixture since 1902, when the store was known as Reussille Jewelers. (Click to enlarge)

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

Ballew Jewelers, a Red Bank staple since 1886, when it began as Reussille Jewelers, is pulling out of town, leaving a gaping hole, both symbolic and tangible, in a downtown struggling to tread water in a difficult economy.

News of the closing hit some of the nearby merchants like a sucker punch.

“It’s horrible. Horrible,” said Zebu Forno owner Andrew Gennusa. “For a business that’s more than a hundred years old to close here, it’s like a death.”

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ZEBU’S ON THE MOVE… OUT BACK

zebu-backZebu Forno is expanding into this space formerly occupied by Red Bank Red Hot. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi)

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

Freehold, Hoboken, Holmdel and Morristown have all been targets of expansion by Zebu Forno owner Andrew Gennusa.

The dour economy, however, stunted that growth. The baking racks and coffee urns of the latter three shops were boxed up and moved out in 2009, an admittedly painful year for Gennusa.

But he’s trying to “turn that negative into something positive,” he said, and is again ready to expand, this time to a much safer, and familiar, location: a 600-square-foot shoebox of a space that’s conveniently attached to his Red Bank store on the English Plaza side.

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