By JOHN T. WARD

Two years after losing her teaching job in a budget squeeze, a Rumson woman has reinvented herself as a squeezer of fresh fruits, wheat grass and other healthy ingredients.

Dalmedo opened Freshicas organic juice bar Friday in a corner of Fairwinds Deli in Fair Haven, where she’s blending the juice of apples, beets, kale, lemons and more into all-natural drinks that taste better than they sound.

“It’s amazing how good some things can be when you mix them together,” she told redbankgreen as curious Fairwinds customers made their way to her counter. There, behind an ice cream freezer,  Dalmedo was giving out samples of drinks with names like “Sweet Craving” (apple, cinnamon and celery) and “Emerald Garden” (apple, spinach, lemon, cucumber, celery and kale).

Freshicas was born of Dalmedo’s frustration after she lost her job as a fifth-grade teacher in Rumson due to budget cuts two years ago, and her inability to land a new job. So she decided to turn her interest in healthy living into business, her first.

After a number of unsuccessful attempts to find an existing store in which she might find her footing, Dalmedo pitched the idea to Fairwinds owner Warren Abrahamson, who eagerly made space for her cutting boards, blenders and eyecatching terrarium filled with wheat grass, she said.

Now, she’s hoping Fairwinds, known for its sandwiches, will start offering more salads to attract more health-conscious moms, like herself, and others, she said.

Freshicas is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursdays through Sundays.

By JOHN T. WARD

In a contentious exchange that appeared to foreshadow a lawsuit to come, a lawyer for a Red Bank convenience store challenged the rationale for a new local law that banned all-night businesses Wednesday night.

Squaring off against three lawyers sitting on the council dais, store attorney Philip San Filippo said a revision to a noise ordinance passed by the governing body just moments later was overly broad in scope and designed solely to torpedo his client’s plans, now pending at the borough planning board, to convert the store to a 24-hour 7-Eleven.

The law, cast as an amendment to a noise ordinance, was “absolutely” designed with his client’s plans in mind, San Filippo told reporters afterward.

“It absolutely was not,” insisted Councilman Mike DuPont, even as he touted the hastily enacted law as a “creative” response to a problem.

Welsh Farms owner Dina Enterprises is scheduled to return to the planning board on May 21 for what is expected to be a vote on its proposal, which calls for a small expansion and changes in signage.

The plan, however, has met fierce opposition by neighbors. They say allowing the store, which now closes at 10 p.m., to operate all night raises security and quality-of-life issues.

At the council’s April 26 session, Mayor Pasquale Menna, who is an attorney and a member of the planning board, introduced the noise ordinance amendment. The item was not on the agenda, and no written copies were available. Afterward, asked why the council was acting in such a rush, Menna told redbankgreen: “Get it done now.”

The law doesn’t affect existing businesses, only those within 100 feet of a residential zone that are not already open after 11 p.m. Restaurants and bars are also exempted.

Now, though, even if Dina Enterprises is successful at the planning board, the Welsh Farms would be barred from opening all night. San Filippo said he would consult with his client about the possibility of filing suit against the council.

That prospect was already in DuPont’s mind when the public comment portion of the meeting opened and San Filippo began asking questions about police department data cited at the April 26 introduction. That data purported to show a pattern of disturbances requiring police intervention at convenience stores late at night.

DuPont, a lawyer whose office is next door to SanFilippo’s on Broad Street, repeatedly cut off San Filippo.

“Your asking questions which I find to be alluding to or insinuating that the statistical date didn’t support the vote,” he said. “It’s kind of disappointing. It was a creative way to protect our neighborhoods from all-night establishments that had never been there before.”

San Filippo, though, argued that the kinds of disturbances cited in the data are already against the law, whereas the amendment seeks to curtail land use without going through the process of vetting the change against the town’s Master Plan and land-use bodies.

“If you’re really concerned with noise associated with businesses located in proximity to residences, then let’s deal with the activity that generates the noise,” he said.

Menna and borough Attorney Dan O’Hern defended the change as supported by court precedent. O’Hern also said the change reflected “common sense. If you put a 24-hour operation within 100 feet of residences, that’s going to interfere with the peace, quiet and solitude of the residents nearby.”

Here’s the ordinance: 2012-8001

Works by Kathy Polenberg, above, and other local artists are showcased as part of the rejuvenated Red Bank Art Walk event on Friday.  

It looked for a while as if it might never regain its footing — but after sitting out the past couple of years, the Red Bank Art Walk makes its return this Friday, hot on the heels of the borough’s selection (by Smithsonian Magazine) as one of the top three Best Small Towns in the USA for culture and quality of life.

A three-hour, self-guided tour through the downtown Green and points west, the Art Walk is both rejuvenated and reconfigured in its 2012 incarnation, with a new cast of participants joined by several “non-traditional spaces” where Art Happens, from restaurants and retail stores to at least one transformed place of worship.

Going on between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, this first in a projected new series of events is being spearheaded by a relatively recent arrival to town — Gallery U and Boutique, the rather Unique and Unorthodox artspace that opened its doors at 80 Broad Street last year.

Jon Fried and Deena Shoshkes of  legendary NJ band The Cucumbers make a rare Red Bank appearance at Gallery U on May 11, during the Red Bank Art Walk.  

A companion to an existing Gallery U in Montclair, the Red Bank space is managed by Robert Langdon and operated by Livingston-based Universal Institute Medical Rehab Therapy Center, a facility specializing in the treatment of patients with brain and spinal cord injuries. UI established the two galleries as part of their vocational training program for adults with traumatic brain injuries, and quickly generated buzz that centered around the success of the program’s therapeutic aspects, as well as the high quality of the art featured in such well-received group shows as Awakenings — a recent exhibit that incorporated pieces created by the Institute’s disabled clients.

That show was curated by Ben Danzi of Rumson, and featured contributions from Eileen Kennedy of Red Bank, as well as Long Branch-based Kathy Polenberg — herself a former head injury patient, and a seemingly tireless creator of indoor/outdoor art, theatrical scenery, residential flourishes and other amazing stuff in evidence throughout the greater Green and beyond. The artist known as “Polekat” returns to Gallery U for Promenade, an event that boasts a live musical performance (and super-rare Red Bank appearance) by Deena Shoshkes and Jon Fried, co-founders of The Cucumbers — a reborn combo familiar to fans of the 1980s Hoboken scene, as well as listeners of the late and lamented WHTG-FM.

Also featured in Promenade are works by Alexandra Alger, Lisa Budd, Jill Caporlingua, Bill Cohen, Lauren Curtis, John Darvey, Karissa Harvey, Kathleen Heron, Jonathan Hernandez, Robert Langdon, Marci Shrewsbury Lopez, Adena Macri, Onix Mora, Marilyn Rose, Kristian Sacca, Randy Schaeffer, and Erik von Ploennes.

Elsewhere on the Art Walk, Bolivia-born “action painter” David Banegas offers live demonstrations of his specialty at his Banegas Fine Art Gallery (43 Broad Street), while Gallery 135 inside Monmouth Street’s Red Bank Community Church presents a first look at one of Red Bank’s best kept secrets: a newly rebranded exhibit space curated by associate pastor and contemporary artist Reverend Gerda Liebmann. Up at  McKay Imaging Gallery , an exhibit of “New and Unknown” works by Red Bank legend Evelyn Leavens is open for public perusal (see redbankgreen‘s feature on that ongoing installation, LEAVENS GETS LINEAR).

Also on the tour will be such long-established borough spaces as The Art Alliance of Monmouth County and Beacon Fine Arts Gallery on Monmouth Street, as well as Chetkin Gallery on Wharf Avenue. They’ll be joined for the Art Walk by such art-friendly restaurants as Front Street Trattoria, No Joe’s Cafe, Good Karma Cafe, and Jon Bon Jovi’s nonprofit JBJ Soul Kitchen. In fact, all participants in the Red Bank Art Walk are encouraged to contribute non-perishable food items to donation boxes set up at various venues on the Walk, with a collective donation being made to Foodbank of Monmouth & Ocean following the event.

Strolling art aficionados can pick up free street maps of Red Bank along the route, highlighting Art Walk locations, and, as an additional mark of distinction, each venue will also be displaying red balloons outside their doors.

They called it a flash mob. That would be stretching the concept.

Still, the vinyasa flow sequence performed by about 30 members of Evenflow Yoga at the Red Bank International Flavour Festival Sunday seemed a fitting tribute to the emergence of the sun after a day of rain.

The yoga enthusiasts wore pink as part of the Pink Bank celebration going on in Red Bank and neighboring towns this week.

Dark clouds broke and thousands of hungry people poured into the Red Bank International Flavour Festival Sunday.

redbankgreen‘s Stacie Fanelli and John T. Ward were there, cameras in hand. Were you?

To enlarge the photo display, start it, then click the embiggen symbol in the lower right corner. To get back to redbankgreen, hit your escape key.

As the headline suggests, the weekend that awaits is jammed with the potential for good times.

We’ve got the fifth Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale, this one making a migration from fall to spring.

We’ve got one of the inaugural events of this year’s weeklong Paint the Town Pink festivities to raise awareness about breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

And capping it all off, rain or shine, is the first-ever Red Bank International Flavour Fest, an outdoor celebration of the wide variety of cuisines available year-round at Red Bank restaurants.

And Mother Nature appears to be in a mood to cooperate.

Details, as they used to say when that was still a two-syllable word, are just below.

SATURDAY: Red Bank Townwide Yard Sale
Location: all over town. Maps available at the Red Bank Public Library and at many of the participating homes.
Time: Officially, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., but sellers can set their own hours.

From an email update from Beth Hanratty, president of the Friends of the Red Bank Public Library, which has hosted the event since 2010:

lots of records, books and air conditioners

SATURDAY: Pink Hat Tea Party
Pilgrim Baptist Church
172 Shrewsbury Avenue
Doors open 10:30 a.m., Event 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Don’t miss this important Paint the Town Pink event, presented by Riverview Medical Center. Gather all the special women in your life to join us for an educational and entertaining Pink Hat Tea, with a hat and apparel fashion show courtesy Geneva’s Boutique of Neptune, a speacial presentation from Adi Smolinsky, M.D., a Riverview Medical Center OB/GYN, education about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of the importance of annual mammography, and more! Refreshments will be provided by Jameson’s Ultimate Southern Cooking Restaurant in Neptune. Don’t forget to wear your pink hat!

*Pink Sale Event. Deck your pink all year long with our exclusive Paint the Town Pink gear and goodies for sale at this signature event.

This event is FREE but registration is required. RSVP: 1-800-DOCTORS

SUNDAY: Paint Everything Pink Community Day
Riverview Medical Center parking lot
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Pink your town, pink your house, pink your family. Everything is pink at our family-centered, free Community Day! Featuring many of the same pink “zones” families have come to expect as well as exciting new ones, this year’s event will feature:

Kids’ Fun & Games: Rides, arts and crafts, face painting – all the things your kids have come to love! And don’t miss photos with Dr. Bernard from the Pawsitive Action Team at
K. Hovnanian Children’s Hospital.

Pink it Yourself Man Cave: In line with this year’s theme of Men in Pink, our “man cave” will offer the men in your life an area just for them. Activities will include DYI demonstrations from the Home Depot, interactive games, and of course our exclusive Real Men Wear Pink t-shirts.

Rockin’ Country Thunder 106.3: Bring out the country in you! With live music from a local country artist, this local-favorite station will have you dancin’ in your boots. Your kids will love our pony rides and everyone can enjoy some good old fashioned root beer!

And that’s not all! Enjoy some snack-food favorites and other sweet treats, and beverages from a number of local pink partners, and don’t forget to stop by our educational tables to pick-up important information about Paint the Town Pink’s mission of raising awareness of the importance of annual mammography.

Special Pink Cotton Candy and Snow Cones presented by Arrow Limousine.

SUNDAY: Red Bank International Flavour Festival
White Street Parking Lot
12 p.m. to 7 p.m., rain or shine

Here’s the National Weather Service forecast:

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind between 10 and 13 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 68. Northeast wind around 9 mph.

By JOHN T. WARD

You’ll be able to get a bourbon with that porterhouse when Char Steakhouse opens in Red Bank later this year.

And among those who may want to raise a beverage in celebration is landlord Jack Anderson, whose hedge bet on a liquor license has paid off.

“I’d be screwed without it,” he tells redbankgreen.

Anderson won approval from the borough council last week to sell a liquor license he purchased two years ago to his new tenant, which is renovating space at the former location of Ashes Cigar Bar to a rumored tune of $2 million.

Records show Char paid Anderson the same amount he paid to acquire the license from the now-defunct Little Kraut/Red Bank Beer Garden: $385,000.

After legal fees, the license purchase was a money loser, Anderson said. But overall, it was an important element in bringing in the Raritan-based Char as a 30-year tenant, he said.

Anderson bought the Little Kraut license amid rising uncertainty over the legal outlook for Ashes, which had frequent run-ins with local officials over code violations and was a recurring problem for police. The place was widely rumored also to have been the scene of heavy drug use.

But Anderson said he was thinking primarily of using the Little Kraut license to lure another restaurant to the adjoining space he owns at 35 Broad, which was then occupied by he River’s Edge restaurant. Instead, he landed another booze-free tenant, Surf Taco.

Ultimately, though, the state Alcohol Beverage Control division suspended the Ashes license, which Anderson did not own, because undisclosed parties were found to have had interests in it.

A court-appointed receiver, Red Bank lawyer Bunce Atkinson, shut down the restaurant as a money-loser and, in November 2010, auctioned off the liquor license. It went to Eugene Devlin and Sean Dunne, owners of the Dublin House Pub on Monmouth Street, for $395,000.

Anderson says he could not have lasted long in a bidding war against the Dub owners and a third party who dropped out of the auction because of a miscommunication.

“Head to head, I couldn’t bid against them,” he said.

Now, he’s looking back on the Little Kraut license buy with relief as Char guts the building across Broad Street from his primary business, Jack’s Music Shoppe.

“The long shot was that I would need it there [at the Ashes space], but that proved to be exactly where I needed it,” he said.

Anderson said Char is shooting for an early September opening.

*****

In other Churnings:

• Ashley DuPre is aiming for a May 9 opening of her lingerie-and-swimwear store Femme By Ashley at 15 Broad Street.

• Ice Costume Jewelry has opened at 12 Monmouth Street, in the space last occupied by Soapmarket.

Like the past two autumn Oysterfests, Red Bank Flavour’s new International Flavour Fest on Sunday will bulge at the belt line of the White Street parking lot. (Click to enlarge)

It’s panning out to be a busy spring for Red Bank Flavour.

The promotional partnership of borough-based bistros, bars, boites, bakeries, breakfast nooks, banquet halls and better take-out vendors heralded the turn of the season with the return of the Dine Downtown campaign in March. Then in April, the culinary alliance presented a special Broadway in Red Bank showcase that reinforced the notion of the town as dinner-and-show destination.

On Sunday, the Flavour pack joins with Red Bank RiverCenter and a host of local and corporate sponsors for an event with a broader, even global, reach: the first annual Red Bank International Flavour Festival.

Dublin native Steve Reilly and Shore reggae masters Random Test help lend a global vibe to the Red Bank International Flavour Fest, this Sunday afternoon on White Street. 

Presented in the White Street municipal parking lot (scene of September’s Guinness Oysterfests) from noon to 7pm, the rain-or-shine shindig is pitched as “an international culinary experience” that also boasts “international beer and wine,” plus family-friendly activities and a full menu of live music on two stages.

Some 30 of Red Bank’s most proactive purveyors of fine foodstuffs will be offering attendees samples of their wares, as “culinary cultural attaches” for the likes of France (Bienvenue), Ireland (The Dublin House), China (Temple Gourmet), Thailand (Siam Garden), Mexico (SurfTaco), ever-eclectic America (Dish) and points well below sea level. There’s also the expansive international vision of Gary the Soupmeister and Readies, plus gourmet pizza (with other Italian favorites) and the kind of sweet-tooth diplomacy that recognizes no national borders. A full listing of participating vendors (with website links) can be found here.

In a further flavourful twist, the featured entertainment also carries with it an World vibe, with an International Stage showcasing reggae partystarters Random Test, Dublin-born rocker Steve Reilly, Latin/ Salsa showstoppers from The Funktion, and a round-the-world performance by the students of Red Bank’s Kathryn Barnett School of Dance. An All-American stage features local favorites Quincy Mumford and Kirk & The Jirks, as well as Bon Jovi-likes Runaway (take it here for a detailed music schedule and links).

Admission to the Red Bank International Flavour Festival is $5.00 for adults (kids 12 and under free), with proceeds benefitting Red Bank RiverCenter and the Red Bank Regional Buccaneer Athletic Foundation.

The Flavour keeps on lasting, all this spring and throughout the summer, as the grassroots alliance plots the return of the monthly Red Bank Food and Wine Walk promotions, the first of which pounds the pavements on Sunday, May 20 — and about which more to come in the paperless pages of redbankgreen.

By JOHN T. WARD

Without explaining the reason for its haste, the Red Bank Council introduced an ordinance change Thursday night to ban retail businesses from remaining open between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The law, an amendment to the town’s noise ordinance, would not apply to any business that now operates at those hours, said Mayor Pasquale Menna. Nor would it affect bars and restaurants.

Not a word was said, however, about its potential impact on the East Front Street Welsh Farms convenience store, which is in the midst of planning board hearings over cosmetic changes as it prepares to convert to a 7-Eleven and remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The measure was prompted, Menna said, by a neighborhood brouhaha over Best Liquors, a West Side packaged goods store that attracted so many complaints and legal run-ins that the council revoked its liquor license five years ago.

A recent review of police and code enforcement data by police Chief Steve McCarthy led to a recommendation that the town adopt a noise ordinance barring the operation of any business within 100 feet of a residential zone, excepting bars and restaurants, Menna said.

If any council members harbored any reservations about the amendment, they did not speak Thursday night. Councilman Mike DuPont called it “a very creative way to protect our neighborhoods. I think it’s a wonderful initiative.” Councilman Ed Zipprich said it offered “a good opportunity to protect the quality of life, to protect [neighbors] from a change, a dramatic change.”

“This is just a little bit of tweaking to that helps out our residents,” said Councilman Art Murphy.

The proposed change was not listed on the council’s agenda for the meeting, and no copies of its language, which Menna paraphrased, were available.

Afterward, Menna said there was no advance notice of the introduction because the language was still being drafted shortly before the meeting. Asked what the rush was, he replied, “Get it done now.”

Reminded that Best Liquors wasn’t open all night, Menna replied, “Yes, but it was open late.”

Pressed to address the impact on Welsh Farms, Menna said that if the store changes its hours to all-night before the law goes into effect, “they will be fine.”

He also acknowledged, as the store’s attorney maintains, that town officials did not limit the store’s hours of operation when they approved it as a convenience store and filling station in 1975.

The store has never operated all night, and now closes at 10 p.m.

A public hearing and vote on whether to adopt the amendment was scheduled for May 9. The planning board next meets on May 7, but it could not be immediately learned if the Welsh Farms hearings would resume that night.

Cases of new books await distribution at River Road Books, above. Soul Kitchen, below, will serve as a giver site. (Click to enlarge)

By DANIELLE TEPPER

Book fans know that when they fall in love with a story, their immediate reaction is to tell someone so they, too, can fall in love with it. Remember how you first heard about The Hunger Games or Fifty Shades of Grey? Word of mouth is the spark that starts the fire and, sometimes has the ability to ignite a full force blaze that’s pretty hard to ignore.

That’s this concept that inspired World Book Night, a campaign designed to introduce the joy of reading to those who can’t afford or are perhaps even a little intimidated to pick up a new novel.

Launched in the United Kingdom a year ago, World Book Night is now coming to the United States, with some 5,000 towns and cities expected to give away almost half a million free books. Among those bibliophilic volunteers are River Road Books in Fair Haven and Red Bank’s own pay-what-you-can JBJ Soul Kitchen. Here’s how it works: publishers of 30 specially-produced paperback titles have agreed to make up to 20 copies of each available to stores, individuals and organizations that wish to give them away. For free. All the books are to be handed out Monday night.

When she and her partners heard about the event, “we laughed about it at first,” said Laurie Potter of River Road Books. “We thought, ‘how are they going to accomplish this?’ But it’s been so well organized.”

And when Potter reached out to get Soul Kitchen involved, manager Ryan Timmons knew it would be right in tune with the overall community mission of the restaurant, he tells redbankgreen.

“We’ll hopefully be able to stock a couple of our cubbies and run it as a book exchange for our in-need guests,” he said, referring to a large, bookcase-like shelving structure that dominates one wall of the Monmouth Street restaurant. “I’m not looking to just take 300 books and give them out, I want 50 people to come in, take a book, return it and take another one,” he said.

“This restaurant gives us an opportunity to talk and meet people; that’s all it’s here for, ultimately. The goal is to put people together.”

Potter says the titles were carefully chosen to allow some variety, and include provocative books that the volunteers are passionate about and would be excited to give out. “Books that could really impact your life, that could maybe turn you into a reader,” she explained.

The list of page-turners includes H.D. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. All the authors have waived their royalties to help make it happen.

While River Road Books is the designated pick-up location for local distributors, anyone in the community had the opportunity to go online and register to become a giver. These givers will then be able to bring their books to nursing homes, prisons, VA hospitals, etc.

“They’re not meant for resale; they’re only for this occasion,” Potter said.