RED BANK: PANDEMIC-IDLED PUB SOLD
Closed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Walt Street Pub in Red Bank has new owners.
Or, at least, the building does.
What’s Going On Here? Read on…
RED BANK: RESTAURANT SCENE IN CHURN
After months of idleness, gut-job renovations are underway at the Melting Pot in the Galleria on Bridge Avenue. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank restaurant is preparing to reopen after a long hiatus and change in ownership.
Meantime, another eatery has shut its doors after only six months in business, and a bicycle retailer has pedaled off into the online ether.
Details are below in this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.
SHREWSBURY: TAPAS AND WINE BAR COMING
Shrewsbury is set to get a tapas and wine bar in coming months, redbankgreen has confirmed.
Terra Momo Restaurant Group, which operates several restaurants in and around Princeton, has leased 2,000 square feet in a new Metrovation-owned building on Broad Street, opposite the Grove shopping center, principal Chris Cole confirmed Wednesday.
SHREWSBURY: METROVATION BUSY HERE, TOO
Country Curtains opened last month after relocating to a new space across Broad Street from its former home in the Grove shopping center. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
There’s lots of Retail Churn activity to report concerning three Metrovation-owned properties in Shrewsbury.
The development firm, which built Red Bank’s 91-residence West Side Lofts apartment-and-stores project and is about to transform the long-vacant Anderson Building at the borough train station into a second Sickles Market store and office building — as reported Thursday by redbankgreen — has also been involved in a flurry of leasing deals one town over.
RED BANK: McLOONE GRABS DOWNTOWN SPOT
Tim McLoone, below, plans to open a yet-to-be-named burger restaurant in the former Murphy Style Grille on Broad Street, above. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
By his own admission, and as his wife gently reminds him, Tim McCloone did not give it a lot of thought six weeks ago when he embarked on a plan to open a restaurant in downtown Red Bank.
Among other locations, he’s already got eateries on the boardwalks in Long Branch and Asbury Park; recently took over CJ Montana’s in Tinton Falls, rebranding it as CJ McLoone’s; and is readying new places in Hoboken and Hillsborough.
Oh, and last week, he landed approvals to rebuild McLoone’s Rum Runner, his flagship Sea Bright restaurant, which was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.
So where does his plan to open a restaurant in the Broad Street space long held by Murphy Style Grille fit in strategically?
“I’m not thinking strategically, or I would not do this,” McLoone told redbankgreen with a laugh Tuesday, one day after he signed a lease for the space. “I’m devoid of strategy.”
RECEIVER STUBS OUT ASHES CIGAR CLUB
A passerby peers into Ashes Cigar Club Monday night. (Click to enlarge)
The court-appointed receiver in a complex series of lawsuits over Ashes Cigar Club has shut down the Red Bank restaurant and nightclub and has no plans to reopen it, he tells redbankgreen.
It could take months to find a buyer, says attorney Bunce Atkinson, who stubbed out the last hope of rekindling the business on July 7, when he directed that it be closed for good. Information about the reasons for the shutdown were unavailable until this morning.
Meanwhile, two groups of investors who claim to have had stakes in the bar’s liquor license have been squeezed out, and the state is looking to impose fines over identities having been hidden from regulators, Atkinson says.
“There’s going to have to be a fine paid” to the state Alcoholic Beverage Control agency, he says. “It’ll come out of the sale of the assets.” The former owners won’t see another dime from their investment, he says.