Cassie Fishkin has purchased both Mac Attack restaurants, including the one on Broad Street, and rebranded them as the Spot. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
In this edition of Retail Churn:
• A 28-year-old woman who’s already had a brief career as a lawyer has acquired both Mac Attack Cheesery restaurants — one in Red Bank and the other in Montclair — and is giving the menu a complete makeover in keeping with a dream she’s fostered since she was 16.
• Three Ocean County sisters have opened a women’s clothing store on Monmouth Street.
Sisters Nicole, Alyssa and Megan Lindenbaum have opened Sorella Bella on Monmouth Street. The scaffolding recently came off at 6-8 Monmouth Street, below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
• In the last three years, the storefront space at 20 Broad Street has gone from Zebu Forna to Boardwalk Burgers to Mac Attack.
As of last week, it’s the home of a new restaurant called the Spot, created by Cassie Fishkin of Springfield.
Back in high school, Fishkin tells Churn, she began telling her friends that she would one day open her own restaurant. It would be called the Spot. And its menu would feature healthy comfort food.
While in college in Maryland, Fishkin waited tables at a restaurant that epitomized her approach to freshness: it didn’t even have a freezer, she said.
Last year, after a brief career as a lawyer and then a real estate agent, Fishkin invested in a Mexican restaurant calls Tinga Taqueria in Millburn, and liked the experience. So last month, she bought out Mac Attack.
“I just realized that it was time to do it,” she said about making her dream a reality.
The Spot picks up on the cheese-centric Mac Attack menu, but recognizes, Fishkin said, that customers want more: salads, burgers and sandwiches.
It also reflects Fishkin’s insistence on fresh, healthy eating. Nearly all of the dishes will be available as gluten-free, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, high-fructose-sweetener-free and made fresh, including the French fries. Its small freezer will be used only to overnight a few items, said Fishkin. Soups are made daily, there’s a kids’ menu, and the place is BYO friendly, Fishkin reminds customers.
Her aim is to create “a place where people can indulge without worrying about quality,” she said. “It’s kind of a healthy take on American comfort food.”
Fishkin is no relation to Tom Fishkin, who own’s Readie’s Fine Foods, also on Broad Street.
• A trio of sisters from Brick Township have opened Sorella Bella Boutique, or “beautiful sisters,” at 27 Monmouth Street, a space previously leased by Wayward & Co., a combination vintage clothing and hot yoga business, and before that, by the Wooly Monmouth knitting store.
“We all have a little bit of a different style,” said Nicole Lindenbaum, who at age 25 is the eldest of the three. “So we combined them.”
With siblings Alyssa, 22, and Megan, 20, Nicole hopes to make Sorella Bella stop for clothes-shopping women of all ages.
The store carries an array of clothing and jewelry brands that include Show Me Your Mumu, WildFox, DL 1961 and James Jeans.
• The scaffolding came down earlier this month at 6-8 Monmouth Street, the landmark three-story, century-old building at on the northwest corner of Broad Street. Mike Morgan, whose family bought the building earlier this year, said just a little bit of work remains on brick-repointing project begun in August. Then, he tells Churn, they’ll turn their attention to gutting the second and third floors, which have been vacant for years.
No tenants have yet been signed, and all the ground-level storefronts have tenants.
