demolished to make room for gas pumps
Quick Chek and gas station
could replace bar, pizzeria
Vacant Madison Inn bar would be
demolished to make room for gas pumps
By sue m. morgan
Staff Writer
The vacated Madison Inn in Old Bridge, notorious for its checkered past, might eventually be demolished to make room for a Quick Chek convenience store and gas station.
The Old Bridge Zoning Board of Adjustment is expected to hold a hearing on Quick Chek’s application, which requires a use variance in order to proceed, at the board’s Dec. 5 meeting.
The Madison Inn, considered an eyesore since it closed at the corner of Laurence Parkway and Cliffwood Avenue, and a commercial building to its south would be demolished, according to plans filed with the township by the applicant, Quick Chek Food Stores Inc.
Those plans, drawn up by Bohler Engineering, of Watch-ung, call for a free-standing 4,000-square-foot Quick Chek convenience store to be constructed where a strip shopping center housing the Yogi Food Store and Attilio Pizza & Sub shop stands now.
The Madison Inn would be replaced by a Raceway gas station comprised of six fuel islands and at least one attendant booth, plans show.
The use variance is needed because 12 of the site’s 34 parking spots would be located in the OG-3 or office zone, according to Jonathan Heilbrunn, the Old Bridge-based attorney representing Quick Chek.
The parking spots would be located around the perimeter of the convenience store. The 12 parking stalls in question are located closest to the Globescan office park located behind the site.
The Madison Inn, once a thriving local neighborhood bar, was the site of many brawls, according to Old Bridge Police Capt. William Cerra.
"It was a rough place," Cerra recalled. "We had our share of arrests over the years."
The closing of the Madison Inn helped mark the end of an era in which neighborhood bars were more prominently owned by local individuals rather than conglomerates such as TGI Friday’s, Cerra said.
"It was one of the last neighborhood-type bars that was privately owned," Cerra said. "They’re few and far between anymore."
Repeated calls to Rati Patel of Cranford, the landlord listed on the application filed in the township’s planning department, had not been returned at press time.
Antonio Scotto DiFrega, a manager at Attilio’s, told a Greater Media Newspapers reporter that Patel has not told him that the restaurant/pizzeria might have to be moved to make room for Quick Chek. As a result, he did not know if Attilio’s, which has been at its present location for 32 years, would be relocated.
An employee at the neighboring Yogi Food Store also said he was not familiar with the situation and referred a reporter’s inquiries to Attilio’s management.