A two-story West Grand Avenue building is looking better after a facelift and ready to welcome its first retail tenant, a deli.
Category Archives: Retail
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.
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.”
Mr. G’s Coffee ‘coming soon’
It looks safe to say that Cuppy’s Coffee is D.O.A. in Rahway.
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.
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.
Retail recruitment, retention recommendations
So the results of the Rahway Survey are in. Now what? Among the recommendations by Community Insights, it suggests that Rahway must undertake “a concerted retail recruitment effort to attract the kinds of stores, restaurants and businesses that consumers most want.”
Continue reading Retail recruitment, retention recommendations