Saffron takes over the space that was home to the Front Street Trattoria for 35 years. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A three-year vacancy at a high-visibility spot in Red Bank is set to end with the opening of an Indian restaurant next week.
Read about what’s coming, and two departures from downtown, in this edition of Retail Churn.
Soul Focus has vacated 73 Broad Street, above. Below, Amrita Jogi, one of Saffron’s four owners. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
• Saffron restaurant plans to open next Friday at 31-33 West Front Street, where Front Street Trattoria operated for 35 years before closing in 2020.
Saffron co-owner Amrita Jogi told Churn that she got a warm vibe the first time she visited the narrow, brick-walled space adjoining the English Plaza municipal parking lot.
For one thing, the brick walls were reminiscent of those in another Saffron restaurant she and her partners – husband Manish Kumar, his brother, Hanish Kumar, and Hanish’s wife, Fatima Kumar – opened 18 months ago in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
But Jogi, of Millstone, also had heard that another couple, the Trattoria’s Michael and Valerie Aufiero, were ever-present owner-operators, greeting and chatting with diners.
“From the very second I walked in here, there was just warmth,” said Jogi, who grew up in Carteret. “I’m a big believer in energies, and I know they left such good energy in this place.”
Though the two couples who own the Saffrons are 900 miles apart, all four have an active hand in running both restaurants, said Jogi, a former fashion industry worker who selected the decor for both.
In Red Bank, chef Abhishek Patil’s menu “has a little bit more focus on seafood” than the typical Indian restaurant, Jogi said, and includes dishes such as tandoor-oven baked shrimp and octopus, as well as more traditional mutton, saffron-butter chicken and biryani. The menu will rotate seasonally, she said.
The newly renovated 1,700 square-foot space, with seating for 65 (and outdoor seating in nice weather) will be BYOB, open for lunch and (after a two-hour interval) dinner Tuesday through Sunday.
• Soul Focus has vacated 73 Broad Street, the distinctive 1920 structure known as the Whitfield Building, which sits facing west down Monmouth Street.
The spa lasted little more than a year in the space it too over from an OceanFirst Financial branch office in mid-2022.
Jay Herman, a principal in Downtown Investors, which owns the building, tells Churn the 7,300-square-foot space has been leased to a new tenant, one he expects “will occupy that space for a very long time,” though the tenant is not yet ready to be identified.
• Witch Baby Soap has slipped out of 17 Monmouth Street. The self-styled seller of “occult bath and beauty products for people who want to get naked and do witchcraft” store opened in June, 2021.
Witch Baby shared an entryway with Feet First skateboard shop, which closed in early October. As previously reported by Churn, that space has been leased by Gennaro Monaco to house a business called Shore Gamers.
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