ENVIRO-PIZZA BIZ EYES BROAD STREET

A Florida-based organic pizza chain that uses recycled Coke bottles in countertops and makes deliveries by hybrid car is planning to open in Red Bank. 

Pizza Fusion, which uses the slogan “Saving the earth one pizza at a time,” has a deal pending with Downtown Investors LLC to lease 95 Broad Street, opposite St. James Church. 

One of the two storefronts at that address is empty, last used by Computer Gallery; the other is being vacated by Sole Solution, which is in the process of moving to a freestanding building in Little Silver between Brave New World and the train station. (Sole Solution has already moved its well-known neon-trimmed-boot sign.)  

Downtown Investors’ principal Jay Herman tells redbankgreen that Pizza Fusion will take the combined 2,500 square feet of space for its eat-in and take-out establishment.

Plans for the change in use from dry goods retailing to a restaurant have been filed with the borough planning office.

Herman says the pending deal, combined with others such as the Urban Outfitters lease at 2-10 Broad Street announced this week, are evidence that “Red Bank is rebounding quicker, and better” than other towns that have been equally hard-hit bit the recession.

Pizza Fusion says on its website that it expects to open the restaurant in the third quarter. Of two dozen stores nationwide, the franchiser has one other New Jersey location, in Ridgewood, a Bergen County town to which Red Bank is frequently compared.

The company boasts of a 75-percent organic menu and buildings that are LEED certified. Herman says the building will be “completely” gutted and remodeled.