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Business & Tech

Upscale Restaurant Planned on Former Nick the Greek Site

Owners expand despite slump in real estate development

It's not all closings and for commercial real estate development in Toms River: In July, the owners of hope to unveil their newest venture – Aqua Blu – a planned bar, restaurant and banquet hall on the former Nick the Greek spot on Route 37.

 "We've had a lot of success here, so we wanted to try to expand," said owner Cathy Varriale. 

Varriale and her husband, Enzo, founded Caffe Italia, which has been stationed at 2414 Route 37 East near Garfield Avenue, in Toms River, for more than 15 years. She said that while customers "rave" about the restaurant's Sicilian pie, "Aqua Blu is not going to be an Italian restaurant, and it's not an expansion of Caffe Italia – it's a whole new restaurant."

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The two-story, 15,000-square-foot redevelopment project broke ground in January, and Varriale said they're hopeful for a late-summer opening.

Glendenning Capital Partners financed the purchase and construction of the project between the Nick the Greek family — which owned and operated the property as a restaurant for about 60 years — and the Varriale family.

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Aqua Blu "will be a plus for the community," said James Anzano, Glendenning president. "They want to build a nicer place to eat, and that location is ideal for that."

Aqua Blu is stationed at the base of the bridge that leads into Seaside on Route 37. Varriale said the site has the potential for a waterfront view.

Anzano said the Varriale project is on par with a slight comeback in commercial development in Toms River. "We're really seeing activity popping," he said. "We're seeing people buying, building and wanting to renovate."

Bank financing is hard to come by, Anzano said, but more and more people are renovating existing buildings, like the former Nick the Greek site, in order to save on costs.

Anzano declined to disclose the sale price of the Aqua Blu property, or the cost of the renovations.

“The reuse of the existing building along Route 37 in Toms River includes partial demolition and creative use of the existing framing to create a new 15,000-square-foot, two-story restaurant and banquet facility," according to project engineers KSI Professional Engineers, in Farmingdale. "The use of new structural steel, helical piles and timber piles in conjunction with the existing framing created a cost-effective solution" for the Varriale family.

Township Planner Jay Lynch said he was encouraged by the Aqua Blu development project. "It's a sign of somebody thinking enough of the site that they want to rebuild it – not abandon it," he said.

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