Diners filled restaurant tables set out curbside along a portion of Broad Street as the first of two pedestrian plazas debuted in downtown Red Bank Thursday night.
Among the customers were Governor Phil Murphy and First Lady Tammy Murphy, with their son, Josh, having dinner at Char, at right.
Red Bank officials this week began to address one of the foremost complaints about the downtown Broadwalk zone: the presence of “ugly” orange safety barrels used to supplement steel bollards installed last year.
Red Bank’s Broadwalk returned Monday night for at least a four-month run. And the weather for the next week looks good for outdoor dining.
Robinson Ale House owner Tim McLoone at Wednesday’s council session. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s Broadwalk dining plaza will return for at least a four-month run May 15, following informal agreement by the borough council Wednesday night.
The consensus arose after Mayor Billy Portman and Councilwoman Kate Triggiano goaded the reluctant majority bloc into an immediate decision.
RiverCenter’s proposal includes plans to boost weekday activity in the Broadwalk zone. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A six-month season for Red Bank’s Broadwalk dining plaza would feature enhanced efforts to boost weekday visitors and battle litter, a business representative told the borough council Wednesday night.
The council, however, withheld an immediate decision on the request.
The abbreviated third season of Broadwalk, Red Bank’s outdoor dining plaza on upper Broad Street, is scheduled to end Sunday night, with a reopening to vehicular traffic Monday.
Created by the borough council in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and renewed in 2021, Broadwalk didn’t get a green light for this year until late July, delayed by a streetscape project. Then it was allowed to continue another month past its original termination of Labor Day, meaning the new vehicle-blocking retractable bollards (seen at right) vehicles would remain up.
Though the council has not yet determined the future of the economic experiment, Bob Zuckerman, executive director of the downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter, said he’s “hopeful” the endeavor will return in the spring of 2023.
Meantime, here’s some info on the season-ending activities. While Friday night’s weather appears conducive to a final raising of wine glasses, the rest of the weekend could be a bit chancy. Here’s the outlook:
With the extension, Broadwalk is now scheduled to continue through October 2. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s council unanimously approved a one-month extension of the Broadwalk plaza Thursday night. But at least three of its members weren’t happy about it.
A one-month extension for Broadwalk, now scheduled to end Labor Day, is up for council discussion. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Correction: The council workshop and regular sessions are slated for Thursday, not Wednesday as originally reported here.
By JOHN T. WARD
For its only public sessions of August, the Red Bank council will meet virtually Thursday night.
Among the business on the workshop and regular agendas: filling the posts of borough attorney and tax assessor; extending the Broadwalk dining plaza by a month; authorizing searches for a “strategic municipal planner” and a “municipal vision planner;” and greenlighting a “porchfest” event.
An employee of Catch 19 setting up tables Friday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With borough workers and contractors putting finishing touches on an eight-month-long streetscape project, a handful of restaurants hastily set up for a return of Red Bank’s Broadwalk plaza Friday.
Outside the traffic-free zone, however, none of the parking-space streateries used over the past two summers have returned, following a sixfold increase in fees by the borough council.
Gleaming new retractable security bollards are expected make their debut on Broad Street in downtown Red Bank with the return of Broadwalk Friday.
But will businesses be ready for the late-starting third season of the dining and shopping plaza?
Businesses readied for the second year of Broadwalk in May, 2021. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Delayed by months, the third season of Red Bank’s Broadwalk shopping-and-dining plaza may finally get going July 22.
This year’s edition, however, is slated to run only through Labor Day. And new fees for in-street dining will cost restaurateurs twice what they paid over the past two summers, said Bob Zuckerman, executive director of the downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter.
A view of Broadwalk at lunchtime last October. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank merchants and residents pressed officials with concerns regarding a third season of Broadwalk at a community forum Wednesday night.
With less than a month to go before a disruptive streetscape makeover project wraps up, they called for efforts to address litter, traffic, speeding on residential streets and more.
Navigating sidewalks on Broad Street in downtown Red Bank is a bit of a challenge these days.
What’s the latest on the streetscape project that’s been underway since November in the streets northernmost blocks? Read on.
Curb replacement work underway as part of the Broad Street streetscape project last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
An ongoing split among Red Bank council Democrats played out as a power struggle Wednesday night over who will steer the reopening of the seasonal Broadwalk dining and shopping plaza.
Diners enjoying lunch in the Broadwalk zone in October. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Delayed by street a reconstruction project, Red Bank’s Broadwalk outdoor dining plaza will return this summer, borough officials agreed Wednesday.
The informal consensus of the council was the first indication that the downtown car-free experiment, launched in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, would get a third edition.
Temporary barriers at the south end of Broadwalk last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Originally slated to end its second season this week, Red Bank’s ‘Broadwalk‘ begins a one-month extension Friday.
But while Red Bank RiverCenter and many business owners say the mid-street, car-free promenade has succeeded in attracting customers over 18 months of pandemic, others say it has hurt them.
Beanbags were flying at Red Bank’s “Broadwalk” plaza on Broad Street as some 128 players competed in the town’s first-ever cornhole tournament Sunday afternoon.
With $8,300 raised and a match provided by Northwestern Mutual, the event raised $16,600 for Alex’s Lemonade Stand, an organization that funds research into childhood cancers, said Sagar Shah, president of the Red Bank Business Alliance, the event’s organizer. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Broadwalk bars vehicular traffic to enable restaurant expansions into Broad Street between Front and White Streets. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With the second season of Red Bank’s Broadwalk about to begin in earnest – weather permitting – downtown merchants say the pedestrian dining and shopping concept is doing what it’s intended to do: improving their receipts.
Broadwalk, Red Bank’s foremost attempt to bolster downtown business in the COVID-19 pandemic, returns for a second year of mid-street strolling, dining and cone-licking Friday.
Visitors dining on (and in) Broad Street in June. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
An effort to spark downtown business activity as the pandemic nears its second year is among the items on the Red Bank council’s agenda for Wednesday night.
After a five-month closure, the northern blocks of Broad Street in downtown Red Bank were reopened to vehicular traffic this week.
Empty tables and idle heaters on Broadwalk on a chilly Sunday evening in October. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s in-street shopping and dining plaza known as ‘Broadwalk’ will go on winter hiatus at the end of November.
Borough council members informally agreed Wednesday night that the prospect of dealing with a snowstorm before winter is over makes keeping the plaza going impractical.
A view down Broad Street last Friday afternoon. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s ‘Broadwalk’ experiment with in-street dining on Broad Street is going 24/7 for at least the next two months.
The change, from a four-day-a-week schedule, goes into effect Thursday, following a surprise proposal at Wednesday night’s council meeting.
Abutting restaurant setups at the north end of Broad Street have created an atmosphere that’s drawing customers away from other restaurants, some owners say. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
[See CORRECTION below]
By JOHN T. WARD
Is a north-south divide developing on Broad Street in Red Bank?
Owners of some businesses located just south of the month-old Broadwalk street plaza say they’re being unfairly cut out of a boom in downtown visitors.
A public parklet on Witherspoon Street in Princeton. Red Bank officials plan to allow parklets for designated restaurant use. (Photo courtesy of Planet Princeton. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Among a series of adjustments, Red Bank’s economic reopening committee has scrapped the Sunday pedestrian plaza on Monmouth Street.
Instead, the Broad Street plaza, which has drawn large turnouts three nights a week since debuting June 18, will become a four-day affair with the addition of Sunday operations starting this weekend, Red Bank RiverCenter executive director Laura Kirkpatrick tells redbankgreen.
At the same time, plans are in the works for “parklets,” or temporary seating structures, to be built in parking spots outside a handful of downtown restaurants, including three that participated in the aborted Monmouth Street plaza effort.