New stores

[Libyan Sibyl]

I notice a lot of visitors and very little postings.

There are a few vacancies on Main Street. Anyone have ideas of what will replace the old stores.

I see that Casa Latino will be replaced by another small restaurant that will specialize in Colombian and Mexican food. Will it succeed where the Puerto Rican rest. failed?

The 2nd dollar store failed, Disco Latino, is it still there. I think it is gone.

Question: there were several people that thought that the Latino market was "saving" the town (excuse me if that is a mischaracterization)?

[admin]

Libyan said:

I notice a lot of visitors and very little postings.

There are a few vacancies on Main Street. Anyone have ideas of what will replace the old stores.

I see that Casa Latino will be replaced by another small restaurant that will specialize in Colombian and Mexican food. Will it succeed where the Puerto Rican rest. failed?

The 2nd dollar store failed, Disco Latino, is it still there. I think it is gone.

Question: there were several people that thought that the Latino market was "saving" the town (excuse me if that is a mischaracterization)?

I have to wonder how may of the visitors are even from Freehold or know anything about it. Any way, enough with being acidic.

More restaurants probably is not a good idea. Too much competition. If more food places open up, variety is key. Ethnic foods are a good start. Portuguese, Indian, German and so on. We do have some variety, but it is still a tough market with all that we do have. In my short time here, many eateries have come and gone.

I know the town government is reviewing the down town revitalization. With the old antique store gone and the Freehold Liquors up for sale there is a great deal for potential along the lines of red Bank and Lambertville. WE do know that there is one new antique store opening up. That is good.

It would be interesting to see what the mall is doing with it's new upgrades. We should get ahead of the game and ensure that the mall does not compete with us and fill a niche market of our own.

Fiber has Said before that a good anchor would be of value.

As far as the Latino market, they are subject to the same ups and downs as anyone else. If the town is smart, they will include that in the master plan. Opening a business is a gamble for anyone. In a town like this, it is unlikely that any one market will be savior. it is the equivalent of saying that antique stores or nail salons will save the town. The more the merrier will be what leads to success. Variety will draw in the visitors as well as the residents. I have written before that the events such as the concert series should really tie in some more with the businesses as opposed to operating solo.

[Freehold Resident]

What the town NEEDS to do is attract some interesting stories, such as Red Bank's Funk N Standard.

They really need to attract the creative community. That is where the money is. That is where the revitalization of the town is. If you look at any active, thriving downtown, they generally have trendy, hip stores. Look at the village in Manhattan. Look at Red Bank. Look at Cookman Ave in Asbury. It's all trendy bars, stores and that type of thing. And look at the amount of people.

A ton of restaurants is not going to cut it. There needs to be a balance. But the GOOD thing, the really valuable thing is that we are blessed to have many really nice restaurants. If we didn't have that, we would be screwed. The possibilities in Freehold Boro are endless. We just need to tap into that. It needs to be strategized effectively.

It frustrates me so much when there is so much potential and people are sitting on there hands. Makes me want to just get out and start doing it myself--if only I were able to.

FR

[LS]

the anchor, or hook, we don't have. A lot of restaurants is good, but too many destroys the healthy competition.

By the way, I mentioned that sale of the building to the liquor store owner, and he has no clue that there are any plans that fail to include him. To be sure, we need a decent liquor store (and that one while convenient for the restuarant traffic, needs some parking).

My post, while it was about the open store fronts, lead me to think about some prior posts. There were posts that discussed that the mexican market is keeping the freehold downtown afloat. Sure there are a lot of hispanic stores, but how many can the downtown hold until saturation? Now I think we are seeing several close. Have we reached that latino store saturation point?

I realize that, regardless of how well those hispanic stores were doing, Freehold needs that special foundation upon which retail stores can gain a footing in this town. But that was not the main thrust of my thread. And I think we have discussed that before.