RED BANK: DONUTS COMING BACK TO BROAD
The aroma of baked sweets may again waft in the area of Broad Street and Linden Place in downtown Red Bank.
Search Results for: "Buddy Valastro"
RED BANK: PANDEMIC CLAIMS BAKERY
The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed another downtown Red Bank business.
Anthony Campitello, seen above with daughters Cristina, left, and Angie, has shut down Alfonso’s Pastry Shoppe on Broad Street after only 17 months of operation.
RED BANK: PASTRY, PIZZA AND MORE
Anthony Campitello, with daughters Cristina, left, and Angie, has opened Alfonso’s Pastry Shop in the Broad Street space that was formerly home to Carlo’s Bake Shop. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Meet the new boss.
Quickly filling a retail space vacated by famed TV ‘Cake Boss’ Buddy Valastro, a new pastry shop opened in Red Bank Wednesday, offering creamy desserts… and some perhaps unexpected savory items. More →
RED BANK: PASTRIES TO FILL ‘CAKE BOSS’ SPOT
A Staten Island-based pastry shop plans to set up shop in the former Carlo’s Bake Shop at 86 Broad Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
One pastry shop replaces another; work to transform a century-old firehouse into an interior design shop gets underway; a boutique closes; and a gourmet lunch spot in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park pulls down the shutters for the winter.
Read all about it in this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.
RED BANK: NO DOLDRUMS FOR TASTEBUDS
Abby Nooney prepares cones with chocolate and sprinkles at Coney Waffles & Ice Cream, which opened last week at 18 Broad Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The doldrums of summer may be upon us, but not in the realm of tastebuds.
The ever-changing food scene in downtown Red Bank continues its evolutionary bustle, as this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn shows.
RED BANK: ‘CAKE BOSS’ BAKERY CLOSES
Carlo’s Bake Shop posted a small notice of closing on its door Tuesday or early Wednesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five years after it was opened by television baking star Buddy Valastro, Carlo’s Bake Shop in Red Bank has closed, redbankgreen has learned.
The unannounced shutdown comes just four months after a new investor in the business said there was no plan to leave town.
RED BANK: CARLO’S STAYING PUT; PHO LE OUT
Carlo’s Bake Shop has a new partner, Mike DeStafano, who says the business isn’t going anywhere. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
In this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn, there’s something a little different: news about a Red Bank business that’s neither freshly opened nor closing — Carlo’s Bake Shop, owned by TV ‘Cake Boss’ Buddy Valastro.
Plus, as usual, a few lines about businesses that have closed, as well as news about an Indian restaurant coming downtown.
RED BANK: KEVIN SMITH FILM TO DEBUT HERE
Harley Quinn Smith, Johnny Depp and Lily-Rose Depp co-star in “Yoga Hosers,” the new feature film by Kevin Smith. Below, the cake that Cake Boss Buddy Valastro made for Smith’s birthday appearance at the the Count Basie Theatre in 2010.
The last time filmmaker/ actor/ Smodcaster/ writer/ King of Most Media Kevin Smith commandeered the Count Basie Theatre for a public birthday celebration, it was with an August 2010 Q&A session that saw his milestone 40th and magnificent head immortalized in buttercream by a fellow Jersey celeb soon to establish Red Bank cred: “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro.
The multi-platform cult figure (and self-described “fat guy who got thrown off the plane”) may have left Leonardo for Los Angeles years ago — but as he approaches his 46th birthday, he returns to the borough of his birth; the town he gae its big-screen close-up in features like “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma;” a burb that sits at the nexus of the comix multiverse courtesy of the Smith-owned Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash and the AMC TV series Comic Book Men.
RED BANK: THIS HEAT TAKES THE CAKE, BOSS
With temperatures pushing 90, Carlo’s Bake Shop owner Buddy Valastro kept cool at the Red Bank Marina Thursday prior to taping an episode of his TV show, ‘Cake Boss.’ He’s seen at right with marina owner Steve Remaley and Remaley’s 11-year-old son, Christopher, who took Valastro and a film crew crabbing in the Swimming River.
Spoiler alerts: the show involves a cake in the shape of a crab, and temperatures Friday and Saturday are expected to be only slightly cooler, peaking in the mid-80s. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: CAKE BOSS COPS TO DWI
‘Cake Boss’ Buddy Valastro with Mayor Pasquale Menna at the opening of Carlo’s Bake Shop in Red Bank in November, 2013. Below, Valastro’s apology tweet Monday. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Buddy Valastro, owner of the year-old Carlo’s Bake Shop in Red Bank, pleaded guilty Monday to driving drunk in New York City last month, according to media reports.
RED BANK: CARLO’S OWNER BUSTED FOR DWI
‘Cake Boss’ Buddy Valastro at the opening of Carlo’s Bake Shop in Red Bank a year ago. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Buddy Valastro, star of TVs’s Cake Boss and owner of the year-old Carlo’s Bake Shop in Red Bank, was arrested on drunken driving charges in New York City early Thursday, according to media reports.
NJ.com, quoting prosecutors at Valastro’s arraignment Thursday evening, reports that Valastro told cops, “You can’t arrest me! I’m the Cake Boss!”
RED BANK: BASIE EXCITES THE APPETITE
Scenes from the 2013 inaugural ‘Appetite’ event, which returns to the patio and stage of the Basie this weekend. (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)
Its famous stage has hosted everything from Hollywood royalty and hall of fame rockers to high school revues — but Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre seems to have hit upon a fresh recipe for success, with the new breed of live shows built around celebrity chefs.
Such culinary cable stars as Bobby Flay, Ina Garten, Robert Irvine and “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro have done boffo box office at the Basie. And with the arrival of this weekend’s ‘Appetite: A Gastronomic Experience,’ casual fans and full-fledged foodies can feast on a two-night/two-day excursion that’s highlighted by two superstars of the video-victuals circuit.
A four-course affair running from Friday night through Sunday afternoon, the second annual edition of Appetite also features tie-ins to the good works of some popular hometown favorites.
RED BANK: PATRIZIA’S, CARLO’S WIN OKS
A rendering of the proposed Patrizia’s, which would occupy the onetime Merhant’s Trust Company at 28 Broad Street, seen at center below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A restaurant that will add 198 seats to downtown Red Bank’s fast-growing dining landscape sailed through to unanimous planning board approval Monday night.
The review took less than 15 minutes.
By contrast, a hearing on whether to allow the newly opened Carlo’s Bake Shop, of Cake Boss fame, to have two tables with eight chairs went on for 90 minutes, mainly because of objections over the impact on a parking lot out back.
RED BANK: STAR POWER. OH, AND CAKE, TOO.
Cake Boss Buddy Valastro emerges to a forest of fans and cellphone cameras at the opening of Carlo’s Bake Shop in Red Bank Monday. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Starved for a glimpse of the star, fans of TVs’s Cake Boss packed newly opened Carlo’s Bake Shop in Red Bank Monday afternoon.
Standing four deep along a Broad Street sidewalk, they greeted the Cake Boss himself, Buddy Valastro, with girlish shrieks when he emerged to open the shop.
Two questions:
Why?
And how did he get the place open so fast?
RED BANK: CAKE BOSS TAKES OFF THE WRAPS
Just two months after announcing plans to open a store in Red Bank, celebrity baker Buddy Valastro, also known as the Cake Boss, is expected to debut his newest Carlo’s Bakery Monday at 4 p.m. As a worker scraped off window covering late Sunday afternoon, right, redbankgreen snuck a peek inside. The store is at 84 Broad Street, former home of Ricky’s Candy. (Click to enlarge)
RED BANK: GOLDTINKER CONSOLIDATING HERE
Goldtinker founder Joe Romanowski, left, outside his new building last week with developer Tony Busch. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Deal is done. Rumson, too.
After decades of operating jewelry stores in Deal and Rumson, Goldtinker founder Joe Romanowski is starting over in Red Bank.
He’s shutting down his shop in Deal, where he’s operated for 42 years. The town is “dead” in the off-season, he says. There’s not even a place to get a quick hamburger. His partner in the 32-year-old store on West River Road in Rumson, Penny Viau, is retiring.
Then there’s Romanowski’s Poor Cat Designs store, which he opened last year at 65 Broad Street to appeal to those with funkier tastes. It’s booming, he tells redbankgreen’s Retail Churn.
So when his friends the Winters family closed their Firehouse Specialty Shop and Jersey Shore Apparel stores at 24 Broad Street and put the building up for sale earlier this year, Romanowski bought it, paying $1.3 million.
RED BANK: CAKE BOSS TO ENTER DESSERT FRAY
Carlo’s Bakery of ‘Cake Boss’ fame plans to open in time for the Christmas holidays at 84 Broad Street, a company official said. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Make room on the oven rack: Cake Boss is moving in on Red Bank’s sweet tooth.
Carlo’s Bakery, the Hoboken pastry shop that gave rise to cable-TV phenom ‘Cake Boss’ Buddy Valastro and his growing empire of retail bake shops, has rented the former Ricky’s Candy Cones and Chaos space at 84 Broad Street, a company official confirmed to redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.
CAKE BOSS SMITH CAKE TAKES THE CAKE
Filmmaker Kevin Smith‘s 40th-birthday Q&A show at the Count Basie Theatre Monday night drew a scale-model lookalike. One covered in icing.
A few hours before the show, the auteur of such films as ‘Clerks‘ and ‘Chasing Amy‘ (and owner of the Red Bank comics/toy store Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash) got a delivery of a cake in his own likeness from fellow Jersey native Buddy Valastro, aka the Cake Boss.
“It was huge,” says Basie spokeswoman Diana St. John. “I mean, like, bigger than Kevin Smith’s actual head.”