Alexander Meder’s women’s clothing store, Theo, opened at 3 East Front Street this week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two new clothing stores open. A cupcake shop adds a coffee bar as another dessert business prepares to open. One restaurant changes hands while another goes dark. And a longtime barber sweeps up the clippings for the last time.
This edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn finds the usual elevated level of change in the face and character of downtown Red Bank.
Now open: Sugarush Café, in space adjoining the Sugarush cupcake bakery on East Front Street. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
• Theo Clothier has opened at 3 East Front Street in space recently vacated by Sciortino Tailors, which as we reported previously is relocating about a block away to 19 West Front Street.
The shop specializes in European and American contemporary sportswear for women. Proprietor Alexander Meder, who named Theo after his father, tells us he has about a quarter of the inventory he expects to have on display but was eager to open the door at the artfully remodeled space.
• Tom Cappello has sold Gaetano‘s restaurant on Wallace Street to Louis and Maria Andrianos, the brother-and-sister former owners of a restaurant in Roselle, according to an email sent to customers last month.
A contract filed with the Monnouth County clerk’s office indicates that Cappello also plans to sell the building in which Gaetano’s is located to an entity called Lakonia Properties.
Neither Cappello, who started the restaurant in the former Ludwig’s Deli space in 2000, nor the new owners responded to requests for comment.
Earlier this year, Cappello and fellow restaurateur Nick Napoletano, of Whipped Bites, bought, gutted and reopened Mr. Pizza Slice, at 10 Monmouth Street.
• New Sugarush owner Amanda Porter has opened Sugarush Café next door to the five-year-old bakery at 37 East Front Street. The café has a separate front entrance, but the two shops are internally linked so that a coffee customer can first peruse for a cupcake and then settle in at a table or one of the four window stools.
As previously reported, Porter took over the business earlier this year from her brother, Chris Paseka, and brother-in-law, Jesse Bello-Paseka, after they relocated to Las Vegas.
• Lady K’s Bake Shop, based in Marlboro, is opening a second store, this one in the former Old World Shaving Parlor space at 4B West Front, according to filings at borough hall.
Proprietor Kayla Barbuto gained quick approval from the planning and zoning office, without needing any variances, to create “a full commercial kitchen” that will take up just 225 square feet of the space, which is 450 SF in total. The front half of the space would have a sales counter and two small tables.
The shop plans to offer coffee, cakes and other baked goods.
Old World Shaving, meanwhile, has moved a few doors away to 12 West Front.
• Castello has opened, also with limited inventory, at 48 Broad Street, in space formerly leased to Red Ginger Home, which relocated just a few doors south, to 66 Broad.
Castello manager Yamil Medina tells Churn that the store, once full stocked, will carry a range of “higher end” sportswear, such as polo and t-shirts, backpacks, footwear and sunglasses.
• Cuban restaurant Chikyboom has been dark in recent days. The former No Joe’s coffee shop, at 51 Broad Street, was acquired in early 2015 by architect Dan Salazar, his Cuban-born wife, Grisel, and her sister, Adela Carrazana.
Salazar did not respond to a request for comment.
• Art’s Barber Shop at 81 Monmouth Street has closed. A notice taped to the front door says:
After nearly 50 years, Art’s Barber Shop will be closing and I will be retiring. I would like to thank all of my customers for their loyalty and for making my job one that I looked forward to every day on the drive into Red Bank. Very few people can say that. I regret that I can’t thank all of you personally and I will miss seeing you, some on a weekly basis. My very best to all of you and your familes.
With Love,
Artie the Barber
