Cé La Vi at 16 Monmouth Street (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge)
By Brian Donohue
NOTE: This story has been updated from a previous version to include comments from the business owner.
It seems like Nick Napoletano may be done with Red Bank.
Four months after he vented on social media about his new landlord jacking up the rent, Napoletano appears to have shut down Cé La Vi cafe at 16 Monmouth Street. He and his girlfriend and business partner Erica Lieberman have also closed Whipped Creperie at 6 Monmouth Street.
Chairs stacked inside Whipped. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
Details on all this are murky. Napoletano and Lieberman initially did not return calls or text messages before an initial version of this story was published.
Lieberman said Monday the couple have not made a final decision on what to do with the 16 Monmouth Street space.
“There’s still stuff we are trying to do there,” she said.
But Cé La Vie and Whipped have both been closed all week with visible signs of equipment and furniture being packed up.
An employee at Ce La Vie gave a finger-across-the-throat gesture to a reporter who asked what was happening and said, “Yes’ when asked if the place was shut down for good.
The apparent closures end a whirlwind run for the couple along the stretch of Monmouth Street.
They opened a pastry shop called Whipped Bites in 2013 then closed it and opened the cafe Cé La Vi on Monmouth Street in mid-April 2019. Along the way, the couple bought the iconic Mr. Pizza Slice in 2016 and opened the salad spot Toss’d, first as its own storefront then, more recently, as a separate business inside Mr. Pizza Slice.
A posting on Toss’d instagram page says they are planning to open a new location of the salad eatery in Morganville in spring or early summer.
It’s a story − partly due to Napoletano’s outspokenness – certain to fuel debate over the effect of jaw-dropping investor-driven real estate deals have on small businesses in a downtown pocked with empty storefronts.
As redbankgreen reported in October, the building at 16-18 Monmouth Street was sold by its owner for $2.1 million – $900,000 more than he had paid for it 18 months earlier. The buyer, was Daniel Mladenovic, president of the Wayne-based commercial real estate developer DOBCO.
Following the sale, Napoletano took to Facebook and spoke with redbankgreen about what he described as a lease renewal offer that would hike the rent at Cé La Vi from $5400 a month to $7,000 a month. In addition, he said the landlord wanted 5 percent increases every year and 2 percent of his gross sales. Mladenovic did not return a voicemail left at his office seeking comment.
Napoletano said he was able to negotiate that down to $6200 a month with 3 percent annual increases, but was still considering packing it in. The whole experience had him considering leaving Red Bank altogether, he said in October.
“Business is so bad right now, Monmouth Street is a disaster,” he said. “We’re very upset.”
The couple’s third business on the stretch, Toss’d salads wraps and smoothies, which operates inside Mr. Pizza Slice remains operating pending a possible sale of both busineses, which is under negotiation.
And Mr. Pizza Slice itself, which the couple bought in 2016, is somewhere in the process of being sold to the guy who’s been making the pizza there for years, depending on whom you ask. Read all about in the latest installment of redbankgreen’s Retail Churn.
When a reporter asked him to confirm long-time Mr. Pizza Slice employee Victor Carrillo’s statement that he was buying the iconic eatery in January, he said, “I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s not sold.”
Asked to clarify the conflicting accounts he said, “I really don’t want it in a story at all. I don’t care what you have him saying, I don’t want to talk about it.
He then said the deal was “still under negotiations” and added, “This is why I don’t deal with you people, to be honest.” When a reporter asked what he meant by that statement, he hung up.
In other Retail Churn news:
•RSM Sports Medicine, a strength training, sports medicine and chiropractic treatment center is opening a location at 59 Maple Avenue inside the longtime home of Red Bank Sleep Shoppe. The storefront has been vacant since the death of owner Thomas Ertal last April. RMS has signs in the window and on their facebook page advertising the move.
Have a news tip or story idea? redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your own level of monthly or annual contribution.
