Jessy Krol, saving a few bucks the DIY way, readies her new dress shop on Monmouth Street last week. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two Red Bank storefronts vacated this summer are getting new tenants.
That’s good news for the landlord who owns both. But now he’s got to fill a third space across the street as well.
Dom Pellegrino’s AlphaGraphics print shop has completed its move to White Street from the City Centre strip mall. (Click to enlarge)
Moving in are Emilia and Rue Royale Couture, both dress shops. Out is Willy’s, a cheesesteak place.
Emilia is taking over 28 Monmouth, vacated in early August by Cocoon, an accessories retailer.
Rue Royale plans to move into the space two doors east at 24 Monmouth, formerly held by Polish tableware dealer Adams Imports and before that, by Four Chicks and a Rooster, a housewares store that opened in 2007 and lasted less than two years, and before that, for half a century, fabric store Town Trimmings.
Willy’s arrived in early 2007 at 21 Monmouth and slipped out quietly about three weeks ago, neighbors say. The landlord for all three addresses is John Zito of Colts Neck, who couldn’t be located for comment.
We were unable to get Rue Royale owner Lynn Skorenko on the phone in recent days. But redbankgreen came upon Jessy Krol while she was sanding some woodwork in the space where she plans to open Emilia by December 1. (“I held my first two-by-four at the age of five,” says the daughter of a man who knows his way around a toolbox.)
The 35-year-old interior designer from Point Pleasant has never owned a retail store or worked in the clothing business, for that matter. But she’s been surreptitiously schooling herself over the last four months at a job in a department store she declined to name, for obvious reasons.
Krol, who named the business after her late, paternal grandmother, a seamstress, says she aims to fill a void: “elegant, cute” dresses for real women, as opposed to only the fashion-model thin and the under-20 set.
“Mother-of-the-bride” dresses, she calls one part of her planned offerings.
Krol says she thinks she can connect with women because she understands that “buying a dress for a special occasion is a very emotional experience,” whether it’s for a wedding, a funeral or something in between.
“Any woman can tell you what they wore on the first date with the man they married,” she says.
In other Churnings:
Nina’s Waffles and Cones opens at 15 White Street on Wednesday. The shop specializes in Belgium waffles, which are made with dough rather than a traditional batter, and pearl sugar that caramelizes “so the waffle is amazingly sweet and dense like nothing you’ve ever tasted,” says owner Louis Zania. Michael Loff is the manager.
AlphaGraphics has completed it’s move 68 White Street, former home of Cigars Plus. The print shop and copy center was formerly in the City Centre strip mall a block west, under the same landlord, John Bowers. Shop owner Dom Pellegrino tells us he’s got the same square footage but lower rent, and praised Bowers for accommodating his need to cut overhead.
As previously reported, the City Centre vacancy is expected to be filled by a frozen yogurt shop.
