The space most recently home to two incarnations of NovelTeas will open as a seafood restaurant in May, the owners say. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Longtime West Side property owners Mary and Roy Jennings have decided they want to be in the restaurant business.

They’re moving ahead with a plan to create a seafood restaurant at 78 Bridge Avenue, opposite the Red Bank train station, by early May.

The Holmdel couple had originally hoped to find someone to rent the building and operate a restaurant there, they told Churn back in December, when they filed change-of-use plans with the borough.

But they’ve now decided they’re up to the challenge of running a Wednesday-through-Sunday seafood-only eatery that they expect will be heavier on take-out business than sit-down.

The still-nameless restaurant “is going to be very, very relaxed and casual,” with seasonal outdoor dining on a rear deck that’s to be constructed, Mary Jennings tells redbankgreen.

The borough planning board unanimously approved allowing the couple to build a commercial kitchen where there’s now a residence-sized one, and to tear up about 1,000 square feet of asphalt in a side yard for a garden to supply the restaurant.

The building has been home in recent years to an ironware store, a teahouse and a teahouse-plus –the last two under different owners using the name NovelTeas.