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.