With her new spa on Broad Street, Alla Shapiro now has two salons in the Woodhouse Day Spa chain. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
In this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn, we’ve got news of a spa opening; a window-coverings business moving to a street-level storefront after a decade hidden away in a basement; and a women’s clothing shop slipping in between two other dress shops.
The spa is Woodhouse Day Spa, at 73 Broad Street, directly opposite Monmouth Street. The space, which is below-ground, has been home to two other spas in recent years — Skinprint Day Spa and SkinScience Aesthetic Medical Spa — both of which turned out to be short-lived. But like any entrepreneur, Woodhouse owner Alla Shapiro believes she can break the pattern and massage her salon to profitability.
Adam A. Brancazio, above, plans to open a women’s clothing store on Monmouth Street. Elliot Laniado, below, recently moved his window coverings shop to street level after a decade below-ground. (Click to enlarge)
What’s different this time? “A holistic approach” to skin care that employs only natural, organic products, for one thing, said Shapiro, who lives in Wyckoff and owns another Woodhouse salon in Montclair.
“You try to stand out from the competition,” said Shapiro. Even the spa’s cleaning products are organic, she said.
Does that really improve the bottom line?
“Yes,” said Shapiro. “In Montclair, this lady came in and wanted to know every product we used to clean the spa. People look for that today.”
Diagonally across Broad Street, at number 80, Elliot Laniado recently opened Window Treats, a window-coverings business that for the past decade was located in the interior basement of the same building, which was once the Red Bank Mini Mall.
The basement was fine, Laniado said, because most of his clients were designers and architects shopping on behalf of homeowners. But Window Treats had an opportunity recently to become a consumer showcase for HunterDouglas products, and with street-level rents having been tempered since the 2008 financial crisis, the change made economic sense, Laniado said.
The move, under the same landlord, gave the business the same amount of floor space, but ceilings as high as 12 feet, compared to the 7.5-foot ceilings in the basement. That means more room for large displays, Laniado said.
Window Treats is planning a grand opening on August 16.
Opening less grandly either Friday or Saturday of this week is Bella Chic, taking the Monmouth Street space last occupied by David Levine Salon, which relocated to 69 Monmouth a few months back.
The store is located smack in between Jessy KrolÂ’s Emilia, a dress shop at 28 Monmouth, and Rue Royale Couture, specializing in prom and pageantwear, at 24 Monmouth, both of which opened in the past year. But Bella Chic owner Adam A. Brancazio said he won’t compete with either.
Brancazio, 30, has had retail and wholesale stores in SoHo, Livingston and Staten Island, and continues to operate a wholesale business in midtown Manhattan as well as a retail store called Vera Donna in Livingston. He became familiar with Red Bank, he says, through his sister’s Vera Donna accessories store, which operated for a while at 47 Broad Street.
Monmouth Street, he believes, is a perfect fit for his “bohemian, funky, fun stuff,” which includes garments from Peru, accessories and organic skin-care products.
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In other Churnings:
NinaÂ’s Waffles and Cones shop, which opened at 15 White Street last November, is closed “for the remainder of the summer,” with a planned reopening date of September, says a sign posted on the door. No reason for the closing was given.
Also closed: Jade Garden, at 143 Broad. A sign on the door says the takeout Chinese eatery will reopen in about a month after remodeling.
