Netted scaffolding went up above the sidewalk outside the building that houses Restoration Hardware at 54 Broad Street in Red Bank over the weekend, and began going up outside the five-story office building at 12 Broad Street on Monday.
The building at 14 West Front Street, center above, has changed hands. The white one next door is the site of a proposed roof deck for the Downtown, at far right. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
This edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn takes note of news at three key downtown properties.
Two are in the heart of a strip of businesses undergoing rapid change on West Front Street.
The other, on Broad Street, is marking the completion of an overhaul that’s been underway for more than three years.
The oven, assuming it’s sold, will have to go out the way it went in: through the front window. Below, Anthony “Tito” Vega with the three-ton oven last year. (Photo above by John T. Ward, below by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Need some sturdy metal chairs for your kitchen? How about a service counter? Or a custom-built, 6,000-pound, tile-covered, wood-burning oven?
Well, who doesn’t, right?
Here’s your chance to get those items, and more, as the contents of the short-lived Biagio restaurant in Red Bank are going up for auction.
Zebu will close next week and a new restaurant will take over its space at 12 Broad Street. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Just five months after a high-profile relocation up Broad Street, Red Bank’s Zebu Forno plans to close next week to make way for a new wood-fired pizza restaurant.
Zebu owner Andrew Gennusa tells redbankgreen he’s partnered with borough resident Biagio Schiano, owner of Mossuto’s Market in Wall Township, to create a new pizzeria at 12 Broad that that they plan to franchise as Biagio Wood-Fired Pizza.
Meantime, Gennusa said he’s hopeful that Zebu itself will reopen elsewhere in town under new ownership, though no buyer has yet been found.
After five months of downtime, popular Red Bank coffee mainstay Zebu Forno reopened at a new address Thursday: 12 Broad Street just a few doors down from the storefront it occupied for a decade at 20 Broad.
Mike Rovere of Red Bank, above, was the was first customer in the door, grabbing a coffee and staking out the best table for people-watching as the flow of humanity resumed. (Click to enlarge)
A worker restoring the arched windows at 12 Broad Street recently. Nima Nili, below, is overseeing the building’s transformation. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
There’s no scaffolding, and few external signs of what’s going on inside, but one of Red Bank’s stateliest business addresses is getting its most extensive makeover in decades.
It’s not just about bringing in Zebu Forno, either. While the popular coffee-slash-bagel-slash pizza spot is relocating to the ground floor from three doors south, a gut-job transformation of office space above has already begun to attract well-heeled tenants that many downtown merchants say they can’t survive without.
The popular coffee house closed its doors Sunday night, and plans to move three doors north, to 12 Broad Street, below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Zebu Forno, one of Red Bank’s most prominent see-and-be-seen eateries, locked its doors and papered over its windows this week after a long-running rent dispute.
But the coffee urns and pizza ovens won’t stay cold permanently. Owner Andrew Gennusa tells redbankgreen he’s signed to take over storefront space just three doors away, in the former Broad National Bank building at 12 Broad Street.
Pending approval of a variance for a conversion to a food use, Gennusa said the new shop could be ready in six to eight weeks.
“We’re coming back,” said a smiling Gennusa, as he and operations manager Ryan Timmons were busy breaking down equipment in the darkened space at 20 Broad. “It’s an opportunity to rebirth the business.”
The three-story structure changed hands on July 1, records show. (Click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
The former home of Ballew Jewelers at has been sold, officially severing a relationship with Red Bank that lasted 124 years but sputtered to an anticlimactic end earlier this year.
Through an entity called LLC 36 Broad Street, Rumson resident Michael Morgan paid $1.5 million on July 1 for the three-story building at 36 Broad, according to Monmouth County property records.