The short-lived home of a Subway shop at 60 Broad is slated to open as Luigi’s Ice Cream. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[See correction below]
By JOHN T. WARD
A restaurant departs as an ice cream shop and a clothing store prepare to open in downtown Red Bank, redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn has learned.
Details below.
The owner of Nirvana is planning a new clothing store at 37 Broad Street. Below, the restaurant is on the market at the former Belmonte following its recent closing. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
• Luigi’s Ice Cream, a year-old truck-based business, has leased 60 Broad Street, which was home to a Subway sandwich shop for just six months last year after many years without a tenant.
Luigi Beltran and his wife, Faye Salazar-Beltran, thirty-something Somerset residents, started their truck in late 2015, operating on weekdays in Jersey City and making the food-truck festival circuit on weekends.
Now, after years of dining in downtown Red Bank and coveting a brick-and-mortar space, they’ll be using the truck only to fulfill festival commitments made last year and will instead focus their attention on the new location.
“It’s a town that just has it all,” Beltran told Churn. “There’s only a few towns in New Jersey that have that vibe.”
What’s missing, he said, is “that ice cream element,” a place to get not only the homemade stuff, but treats that reflect the couple’s affinity for food mashups.
Example: ice cream slathered in between the two halves of a glazed doughnut and then warm-pressed for a “pretty mindblowing” treat, Beltran said.
The Beltrans are shooting for an April 20 opening. The space is owned by Michael Morgan Sr. and Sons, who have a number of downtown properties in their portfolio, including the home of the newly opened Playa Bowls at 14 West Front Street.
Regular Churn readers will recall the long and weird tale of Subway, which took a long time pulling into the station. The chain store was approved by borough officials in October, 2011, but after a lease termination initiated by the Morgans over Subway’s inaction, finally opened last April. By October, though, it was gone.
Beltran tells Churn he plans to better utilize the recessed open-air seating area at the front of the store, a space Subway failed to capitalize on.
• Nirvana owner Sunil Amatya confirms that he’s leased 37 Broad Street, the long-ago “Temple of Fashion” building that once served as an A&P supermarket and last saw use as Duxiana luxury mattress shop.
But that doesn’t mean he’s opening another Nirvana women’s clothing shop there. Amatya tells Churn that he’s still “finalizing  a concept for the location,” which features 2,000 square feet of retail space.
The youth-oriented Nirvana was located at 21 White Street, and moved to the Grove at Shrewsbury two years ago. But Amatya retained ownership of the 4,000-square-foot White Street property, and rented it Nemo Tile, which debuted there in January.
Jack Anderson, owner of Jack’s Music, has owned 37 Broad since 1985.
• A year and a half into its incarnation as a tapas bar called the Belmonte, the former Red restaurant and bar at 3 Broad Street closed earlier this month. The second-floor lounge, still called Red, remains open on Friday and Saturday nights.
Building owner Danlou Properties LLC has listed the business for sale for $1.15 million. The 6,800-square-foot space may be leased in whole or in part, and the liquor license is available for use under a management agreement, principal Dan Lynch tells Churn. [Correction: The original version of this article contained information, since deleted, that was published by a commercial broker not authorized to represent the seller, Lynch tells Churn.]
Lynch also owns the Downtown, at 10 West Front Street.
