RED BANK: RALLO PLANS EATERY FOR FORMER GAS STATION

A 2025 photo showing the vacant gas station next to Birravino. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)

By BRIAN DONOHUE

A place where generations of locals (oh, and Cary Grant) filled the tanks on their Bel Airs and Ford Fairlanes might become a place to fill up their bellies under a plan restaurateur Victor Rallo is slated to unveil Wednesday night.

Reps from Rallo’s company All Things Vic LLC, are slated to appear before the Red Bank Planning Board on Wednesday night seeking approvals to convert the former gas station at 187 Riverside Avenue into a “pizza restaurant”, according to the agenda – although Rallo says pizza is just one option being considered.

Rallo says the menu and full concept for the new place, tentatively named “Rallo’s” is still in the works.

The new eatery would sit alongside Birravino, which is also owned by Rallo.

A photo taken Wednesday, April 7, shows the Saxum building rising across the street and exterior improvements already made to the former gas station slated to become a pizza restaurant.

The restaurant would have seating both inside and outside the restaurant, according to the planning board agenda posted to the borough’s web site this week.

The new eatery would be part of a dramatic transformation underway at the northern gateway to Red Bank near Cooper’s Bridge, which carries Route 35 over the Navesink River.

Construction is well underway at the massive 211-unit apartment building that the developer Saxum is building across the street at 176 Riverside Avenue..A painted mural on the side of a building behind Birravino pays homage to the pizzeria Victor Rallo’s father owned in Newark. Rallo now plans a pizza restaurant in the long vacant gas station in the background, according to the planning board agenda. (Photo by Brian Donohue)

Rallo had wanted to buy the old gas station property for decades, partly inspired by a scene in the 1962 film “A Touch of Mink” starring Carey Grant and Doris Day. (see previous redbankgreen coverage below).

RALLO GETS HIS GAS STATION, PLANS NEW RED BANK “GATEWAY”

We were salivating for more details, but Rallo declined to divulge them ahead of the hearing.

Plans were not available for review at Borough Hall Tuesday and redbankgreen‘s request to see the plans was pending the approval of an application filed under state Open Public Records Law.

We’ll just have to wait until the meeting like everyone else, I guess.

The meeting begins at 7 pm at Borough Hall, 90 Monmouth Street. You can watch it (but not comment) via zoom at the link here.

redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.

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