during restaurant expansion
Shop owner expects to lose $15,000
during restaurant expansion
BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer
Construction has closed Fins & Feathers, on the corner of Monmouth Street and Maple Avenue, Red Bank, due to expansion of the adjacent Buona Sera restaurant.
Overnight, Helen Kaminski-Davis went from being the proprietor of Red Bank’s sole pet shop to chief mate on Noah’s Ark.
At least, that’s how it seems to the owner of Fins & Feathers, a Red Bank fixture at the corner of Maple Avenue and Monmouth Street, where a construction project has temporarily halted operations and forced the evacuation of the shop’s inhabitants.
"They came in and started breaking up the floor with a jackhammer. They blew out the windows and it was freezing cold," she said. "Things were flying all over the place. I had to run out of the store with all my animals.
"I was running down Monmouth Street with cages of birds, cages of gerbils, and sticking them in the trunk of my truck," recounted Kaminski-Davis, who enlisted employees to help with the rescue operation on Jan. 17.
"They’re all in my house. It is loaded with animals. At this point, it’s absolutely Noah’s Ark. Fifty birds are in my living room. I have gerbils in cages and fish tanks in my office and a three-foot lizard running around."
It isn’t that Kaminski-Davis wasn’t expecting construction to begin on an addition to the adjacent Buona Sera restaurant, she just wasn’t expecting it to happen inside her store.
"They told us we would be closing Jan. 17 and a minor pre-construction period would begin Jan. 5," she explained. "But it ended up being pretty major."
"I had no idea; they never told me they were going to be jack hammering inside the shop. I thought they were going to be jack hammering on the outside."
When construction is completed, renovations will have expanded the restaurant by adding a new second story above the pet shop and remodeling the facade of the corner building to echo the brick and arched windows of the restaurant’s exterior architecture. The buildings housing the restaurant at 50 Maple Ave. and the pet shop at 91 Monmouth St. have been consolidated into a single property and are owned by Mariani LLC., whose principal is restaurateur Chris Mariani.
According to Kaminski-Davis, the 3,000-square-foot interior of the pet shop will be reconfigured at the same time.
"I’m trying to make the best of it," she noted. "I’ve been there a long time and the store did need a facelift. We’re doing our own remodel. We’re putting in new habitats for the animals, new fish tanks and a new grooming room."
Initially, Kaminski-Davis planned to keep a pet supply delivery service going while the shop was closed, but those plans were KO’d by the scale of the construction project, which has included erecting scaffolding on the exterior of the pet shop and closing down Monmouth Street while a huge crane lifted steel beams for the second level into place.
"I planned that people would call on my cell phone and I was going to make deliveries," she said. "But we couldn’t get into the building to get the stuff, it wasn’t safe."
Opened in Red Bank 20 years ago, Fins & Feathers has expanded steadily since it began operation as a pet supply store that stocked a few tropical fish. The pet shop has expanded its inventory of tropical fish and added reptiles, birds and small mammals ranging from hedgehogs to Chihuahuas.
According to Kaminski-Davis, Fins & Feathers sells several tons of dog food per month and hundreds of puppies a year.
"We’re known for our reptiles and toy breed puppies," she noted. "Plus, we have a base of 500 grooming customers."
The only pet shop in the greater Red Bank area, Fins & Feathers’ loyal customers have had to find other sources for pet supplies, especially crickets — one of the shop’s biggest sellers.
"We sell 20,000 live crickets a week," she explained of the reptilian food source. "They’re a major focus. Customers have just been scrambling to get whatever they can, wherever they can."
The extended interruption will end up costing her around $15,000 in lost business, estimated Kaminski-Davis, adding that she expects to work out a compensation agreement with her landlord.
With six more years to go on her lease, she intends on remaining at the present location.
While she will return to the shop this week to begin a cleanup, the store’s operation will be limited to selling feed and supplies until the remodeling is complete, she said.
"I won’t bring the animals back until the space reaches 74 degrees," she explained. "That’s what I consider safe for my animals. It was 47 degrees when we got them out."
Until then, Kaminski-Davis is hoping long-standing relationships with customers and being the only show in town will mean customers will hang in there until the shop is back to full operation.
"Our customer base is long term and I know them on a first name basis," she noted. "They’re definitely not happy and they’re waiting patiently."