Customers at the community knitting table at Chelsea Yarns, which opened on Mechanic Street two weeks ago. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A retail business moving into Red Bank from out of town. An existing business rebranding itself. Another one moving a few doors away. And a fourth calling it quits.
You might say this edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has it all, churnwise.
Lunch at Runa: cebiche two ways and chicken empanadas. Below, the fried sweet potato. (Photo by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge)
By JIM WILLIS
PieHole and our frequent lunch companion rolled into Runa at about 1pm, excited to try out Red Bank’s Peruvian restaurant that opened recently after two years of gestation.
We didn’t know exactly what to expect, but had heard that fish featured prominently on the menu. So we came armed with a chilled bottle of vinho verde leftover from a recent pork belly party.
The restaurant had two other tables of lively lunch guests animatedly discussing the food that they’d just been served.
At Runa: a quinoa croquette appetizer topped with avocado, heirloom tomato and aji amarillo pepper. Runa owner and chef Marita Lynn, below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The runway to Runa turned out to be long and bumpy, but Red Bank’s first Peruvian restaurant is finally about to open.
Really, definitely this time, says owner Marita Lynn.
The Monmouth Street eatery, which has been “coming soon” for two years, is set to soft-open by August 30, Lynn told redbankgreen Thursday, shortly after clearing one of her final inspections by the borough.
What took so long?
“I had the wrong perception of what it takes to open a restaurant,” Lynn said, standing in the brightly painted, 44-seat BYOB-er. She calls the interim “a great learning experience and a personal journey.”
A 2013 view from the kitchen at Locals Creative Fresh Takeout in Rumson. (Click to enlarge)
redbankgreen’s PieHole is all about local food and drink. If you haven’t liked us on Facebook yet or followed us on Twitter, you may have missed some of these recent stories . . .
• A tryptophan trip, perhaps? PieHole‘s turkey sandwich from Locals in Rumson triggered a flashback to middle school.
• Peruvian eatery Runa will open in Red Bank this summer, its owner writes in a blog post in which she admits she was “paralyzed by fear” over business issues.
• Our latest visit to the Fair Haven Community Garden finds it looking a bit like an airport runway.
Follow the links to the stories, and check out PieHole’s Facebook page or follow its Twitter feed @RedBankPieHole for up-to-the-minute postings.
Runa, a proposed Peruvian restaurant on Monmouth Street in Red Bank that’s been “coming soon” for two years, will open this summer, owner-chef Marita Lynn writes in a new blog post.
“I got paralyzed by fear” after realizing that “cooking is not the same as running a business, and I didn’t have the full knowledge of opening and running a business,” Lynn writes at a site called called PlanDay, but the restaurant “is going to open this summer,” she says.
As reported by PieHole in May, Runa is the subject of a Kickstarter campaign. (Click to enlarge)
Marita Lynn of Red Bank’s Runa is hoping a bit of help will finally get the doors to her Peruvian restaurant opened. (Photo by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge)
By JIM WILLIS
We’ve been taunted by the tantalizing prospect of a Peruvian restaurant on Red Bank’s Monmouth Street for almost two years now. Now, Runa owner Marita Lynn has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help her raise the money she needs to get over the last barriers to opening the doors.
In an Andean language of Peru, runa means “people.” Lynn tells PieHole that when she was in culinary school she dreamed of calling her restaurant Runa, because she enjoyed being around and cooking for people.
Now she’s depending on those people to help her get her doors opened. Lynn tells PieHole that she has simply run out of money.
Why is a bagel sandwich so cheap here? Because they make bagels. They want you to eat bagels. (Photo by John T Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JIM WILLIS
redbankgreen’s PieHole is all about local food and drink. If you haven’t liked us on Facebook yet or followed us on Twitter, you may have missed some of these recent stories…
A Runa employee tells PieHole the Peruvian restaurant on Monmouth Street is a few weeks from opening. (Photo by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge)
By JIM WILLIS
Several PieHole readers have asked what’s up with the much-anticipated Peruvian place on Monmouth Street in Red Bank.
The space, vacated by Eurasian Eatery in spring of 2012, began its transformation in the summer of 2012 into the town’s first Peruvian eatery, but appears to have been “under construction” ever since.
Marc Fontaine outside the now-closed Bienvenue, which will become a Thai restaurant. Fontaine plans to open a pastry shop on Monmouth Street. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Restaurant-crazy Red Bank’s ethnic pot is getting stirred again.
For Francophiles, the news is bad, as Bienvenue, the only French restaurant for miles around, has closed.
Those hankering for another Thai choice, though, will get their wish, as one moves into the space Bienvenue vacated last month, at the corner of East Front Street and Wharf Avenue.
Bienvenue’s chef, Marc Fontaine, meantime, plans to open a pastries and crepes café at 8 Monmouth Street.
Farther west on Monmouth, work has resumed on yet-to-open Peruvian restaurant after months of inactivity.
And, for dessert, a homemade ice cream shop plans to open before summer begins on White Street, in the space held by the short-lived Nina’s Waffles.
Marita Lynn describes her native country’s cuisine as a melting pot of international influences. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Upscale fish and Chinese; affordable Vietnamese; gluten-free pizza: Red Bank’s ever-expanding menu is about to make room for yet another type of cuisine not seen here recently, if ever.
Caterer Marita Lynn of Aberdeen plans to open a Peruvian restaurant called Runa sometime next month in the Monmouth Street space recently vacated by the Eurasian Eatery.
In the language of Peru’s indigenous Quechuas, Runa means ‘people,’ Lynn tells redbankgreen. But Runa’s menu, like the food of modern Peru, is transnational, she said.