Category Archives: Commercial

Dessert cafe coming to corner space

Kim’s In The Mix, a dessert cafe, soon will occupy the corner of West Main and Irving streets.

Rafael Ortiz, who owns the property at 209-219 W. Main St. along with several other downtown sites, said some interior work still remains to be done. He estimated the shop could be in operation within a month.

The cafe signed a two-year lease with an option for three years on the 1,200-square-foot space at $1,500 a month, according to Ortiz. It will replace a camera and phone store that left in December.

What to replace Drug Fair?

Drug Fair filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and 31 of its stores were bought up by Walgreens, with plans to close 11. With a Walgreens just blocks away, it wasn’t much of a surprise that Rahway’s Drug Fair on St. Georges Avenue was among the 11 to close.

Continue reading What to replace Drug Fair?

Summer opening pegged for Kataluma Chai Co.

One year we’re bemoaning the lack of coffeehouse/cafe options downtown, now we’ve got at least two coming our way soon; well, one coffee shop and one chai cafe if you want to be technical about it.

Kataluma Chai Company expects to open this summer, by June or July depending on how long the city’s permit process takes, according to Aisha Thomas Petit, a co-owner along with Danielle Etienne.

Kataluma will take up about 650 square feet at 1470 Main St., leasing out part of the property from the adjacent Nieces Pieces, a home decor shop that had occupied the entire site to the corner of Lewis Street.

No word on how long a lease has been signed but Petit said that in addition to their signature chai tea lattes, the cafe will serve ice cream, gourmet sweets and coffee, as well as offering “Wi-FI, live entertainment and special events.”

Filling space


As loyal reader Larry first pointed out in his comments to last week’s post, it appears a shoe repair shop will be coming to fill the vacant space at the corner of East Cherry and Main streets.

Continue reading Filling space

Cuppy’s? Cuppy’s? Bueller?

Back in June, Cuppy’s signed a lease for one of the first retail spaces at Carriage City Plaza. At the time, its Web site touted locations “coming soon” to East Brunswick, Phillipsburg and Whippany. Earlier this week, when I checked their Web site, they were down to zero locations “coming soon” in New Jersey. Last night, they were just down. Trying to get to the site, I was greeted with a “Page Load Error.” Not sure if that’s temporary but fear not, the Cuppy’s MySpace page is still active (although he hasn’t logged in since September).

A quick Web search reveals quite a bit of info about Cuppy’s, some of it dating back well over a year. And not much of it good, if it’s accurate, especially if you consider the Web sites are called Ripoff Report and Unhappy Franchisee. Here’s some franchise info, which indicates required liquid capital of $100,000 and net worth of $50,000. The complaints pre-date a change in ownership this past May.

It’s not all bad news though. Apparently, Cuppy’s can make it in South Africa, Mechanicsburg, Pa. and Wilmington, N.C., among others.

Joint advertising, co-op marketing

Consider this a sequel to Monday’s post about retail recruitment and retention, as well as the penultimate post on the first phase of the Rahway Survey report, presented last month.

Continue reading Joint advertising, co-op marketing