Booskerdoo’s kiosk in Red Bank sat surrounded by space vacated by Sickles Market in late February. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Was the stunning end for Sickles Market in Little Silver this week triggered by its failed foray into Red Bank?
A lawsuit and reported comments by the heir to the upscale, 116-year-old grocer suggest the answer is yes.
The entrance to the Sickles Market in Little Silver Monday evening. Below, Bob Sickles Jr., right, with his late father in 2016. (Photos by Brian Donohue and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
The family-owned business, situated amid a 6.5-acre farm off Rumson Road, shut down without any announcement Monday, eliminating 80 jobs, according to the Asbury Park Press.
As of Tuesday morning, neither the company website nor its Facebook page made any mention of the closing.
The end came less than four weeks after the equally unexpected shutdown of the market’s only other location, at 200 Monmouth Street in Red Bank, on February 15.
That store had opened in August, 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, providing the capstone to a makeover of a long-vacant warehouse known as the Anderson Storage building.
Owner Bob Sickles Jr. has not responded to a redbankgreen request for information. On Monday, he told the Asbury Park Press that “between COVID, the lockdown and the new store (in Red Bank), the last three years have been pretty difficult for us and we didn’t quite make it.
“It was a beautiful building and everything was great, but it wasn’t that good for us or our business model,” Sickles told the Press, adding that his family is “a little devastated.”
A layoff notice to employees, dated Monday, said that, “on account of challenging business conditions,” Sickles “made the difficult decision to close its operations” effective that day.
“The Market hopes to re-open but at this time, Market management is unsure of whether or when the Market will be able to re-open,” the notice also said.
According to a lawsuit filed in Monmouth County court March 1 by Anderson building owner Metrovation, Sickles business entities owed more than $324,000 in back rent and late fees for the 8,500-square-foot grocery store space; the separate ground-floor space used by the Bottles by Sickles wine shop; and office space in the building.
The entities named as defendants include Sickles Provisions LLC and TST Beverages LLC, both created in the summer of 2017, shortly before the start of the lease with Metrovation; and Sickles Market LLC, which New Jersey incorporation records show dates from 1997.
The lawsuit says Bob Sickles and and his wife, Leslie, of Rumson, personally guaranteed the rent – recently accruing at $33,000 per month – if the LLCs didn’t pay.
Though rent for the Bottles by Sickles shop also has not been paid, that store did not “abandon” the property, as the market did, the lawsuit claims.
Among the questions redbankgreen asked Bob Sickles was whether adequate legal steps had been taken to insulate the Little Silver operation if the Red Bank venture failed.
The abrupt Red Bank shutdown left a Booskerdoo coffee kiosk stranded amid empty store space. But James Caverly, who owns the coffee chain with his wife, Amelia, said at the time they would continue to do business in the Anderson building while opening another coffee station, their eighth – within the Sickles Market in Little Silver – in April.
The planned shop had been in the works since January, Caverly said.
In an email to redbankgreen Tuesday, Caverly called the Little Silver shutdown “terrible news,” adding, “I don’t know any details.”
Meantime, he said, “we are still committed to our 200 Monmouth Street location and are working out a lease directly with Metrovation.”
The Little Silver market had agricultural roots that traced back to 1663. The market has been operation since 1908.
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