Marking the end of an era, Fantastic Signs owner John Oakley and his 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte, removed the cursive sign atop Laird’s Stationery in Fair Haven Tuesday afternoon.
As previously reported, the store, which traces its lineage back more than half a century, will close by the end of September, after a new landlord declined to renew the lease.
Bob and Rose Budnick outside their store with longtime customer Katherine Brounley. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Tucked into the corner of a Fair Haven strip mall, marked with minimal signage, Laird’s Stationery is easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. But locals know it, and know it as a jam-packed emporium of not only paper goods and office supplies, but everything from backpacks to wiffle bats.
“The register never stops ringing,” owner Bob Budnick said early this week, as three customers converged at the front desk to pay for their purchases. “This store is woven into the fabric of a lot of people’s lives.”
But the register is about to stop ringing, here at least, and the business may be doomed, said Budnick and his wife.
The new shop as it appeared before dawn Wednesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After nearly two and a half years of town-splitting arguments, Fair Haven now has a Dunkin’ coffee shop.
Considering the wringer he went through to get to this point, owner Domenic Sequeira was in a pretty affable mood Wednesday morning.
Almost three years after it was removed, and five months after redbankgreen last reported on it, the Fair Haven post office still doesn’t have an identifying sign out front. Instead, there’s a hand-lettered cardboard sign in the window, now surrounded by holiday trimming.
What’s Going On Here? Read on.
A flag and two mailboxes out front hint at what’s inside, but the Fair Haven post office hasn’t had identifying signage for about two years. That’s created the mistaken impression that the office is closed, says the frustrated local clerk.
What’s Going On Here? Read on. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
The shop would occupy newly renovated space formerly home to Laird’s stationery store. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven residents steamed over the possibility of a Dunkin’ Donuts opening in town had to keep a lid on it Tuesday night.
Instead, a three-hour planning board hearing that required a change of venue to accommodate a spillover crowd was dominated by occasionally hostile cross-examination of a traffic consultant by lawyers representing two objectors.
Plans for the former Laird’s Stationery space in Fair Haven have borough residents abuzz. What’s Going On Here? Click ‘read more’ for the answer. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Three renderings of the proposed monument sign that proved a sticking point for planning board members. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A makeover of Fair Haven’s dowdy Acme shopping center won borough planning board approval Tuesday night, but minus a proposed slab of signage that dominated a three-hour meeting.
Forman Street resident Bonnie Moore photographs an exhibit used in the hearing. Below, an illustration showing proposed changes to building 1, on the western end of the site. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Overdue for a new look, the 1950s-vintage Fair Haven strip mall anchored by an Acme supermarket is also badly in need of a new parking scheme, its owner told the borough planning board Thursday night.
It would get both by the end of October if the board approves an extensive makeover plan in coming weeks, Dan Hughes, a principal in the company that bought it for for $5.8 million two years ago, told the board.
Plans call for the creation of a pedestrian passageway linking the north and south parking lots through the former Laird’s Stationery space next door to the existing Post Office. The “salon & spa” sign is for illustration purposes only. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The owner of the Fair Haven strip mall anchored by an Acme supermarket plans extensive renovations to the site, according to documents filed with the borough last week.
The plans include dividing the former Laird’s Stationery space in two to create a pedestrian breezeway linking the front and rear parking lots. But they leave unanswered questions about whether other longtime tenants might be forced out, as the owners of Laird’s contend they were.
Bike Haven will close by the end of September, its owner says. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A second longtime retailer is leaving the Fair Haven Shopping Center.
But unlike Laird’s Stationery, which is temporarily relocating to smaller quarters in the center after getting squeezed out of its home by a steep rent increase, Bike Haven is simply calling it quits, owner Cliff Wittenberg tells redbankgreen. And a rent hike is only the final nail in the tire.
Bartenders, preparing to compete at Taste Tuesday night. Chris Paseka, below, emceed the well-attended event. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
A feeling of autumn was in the air Tuesday night at Taste in Red Bank.
A Laird’s Applejack mix-off, a continuation of Cocktail Week, was in full swing, featuring nine enthusiastically adept bartenders and their apple-inspired concoctions.
Dressing up table displays with brightly colored fall motifs, the imaginative bartenders mixed cinnamon apple margaritas – and muddled everything from sage to peaches – while dipping the rims of tiny shot glasses in cinnamon sugar.
Jamie Gray prepares a cocktail at red‘s upstairs lounge bar. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
There’s a party going on in Red Bank over the course of the next week, and it’s going to be a bit of a booze-filled frenzy.
At the kickoff of Cocktail Week Sunday night, bartenders prepared specialty drinks made with Leaf vodka, just one of several sponsors for the event organized by Red Bank Flavour.
Bartender Jamie Gray of red restaurant on Broad Street squeezed fresh limes for the Thai basil martinis while Matt Monaco was busy muddling mint for the Hendrick’s Gin mojitos served with cucumbers.
Mary Ann Goodwin’s “Laird’s in Winter” is but one of the applejack artworks of local scenery now on display at Middletown Main Library.
Babies, it’s cold outside as we suit up for a December edition of our monthly artwalk through the winter-greying ‘green. Cold enough to freeze your wine and cheese, for sure. Cold enough to geler your Giclée, and to turn a Plein Air painting session into just plein hell.
Fortunately, the galleries and public spaces of greater Red Bank offer up some warm and welcoming refuges from both the cold and the cacophony of the calendar-year caboose. So if squinting at your next-door neighbor’s hi-wattage holiday display isn’t doing it for you, join us for a change of scenery that begins just past that virtual velvet rope.