Despite a proposed major expansion into the Garden State, New Jersey’s one and only Grabbagreen location has closed its doors.
The restaurant within the Prudential ‘Shoppes on Broad’ development at 98 Halsey Street in Downtown Newark suddenly closed on September 29th. A sign posted on the front door thanked customers for their support and encouraged them to “stay happy and healthy,” but no reason was given for the sudden closure of the business, which served juices, salads, sandwiches, and other nutritional items.
Sorry to see @GrabbagreenNJ22 close in #Newark less than 10 months after they opened… @JerseyDigs @NewarkOnReddit @DowntownNewark pic.twitter.com/m5K7VlVMxR
— Gary Sprengel (@GarySprengel) October 3, 2017
Representatives from Grabbagreen and Jones Lang LaSalle, the real estate firm for Shoppes on Broad, did not return requests for comment regarding why the Newark Grabbagreen was shuttered.
The quiet end to this location was a far cry from all of the attention that was paid to its opening on the Halsey Street corridor. The coming of Grabbagreen was revealed in April 2016, and the 1,755 square foot location opened in December of last year with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka cutting the ribbon.
At the time of Grabbagreen’s opening, company officials said in a statement that franchisees Stephen Hudson and Bernard Ciszewski of BeinGreen, Inc. planned to open 20 locations across the Garden State over the next decade. However, the Halsey Street restaurant was the only one to matriculate, and no new locations have been opened.
The Garden State may now not have its own Grabbagreen, but more locations are continuing to open up in other parts of the country. Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas each have one or more locations, and another will open in a suburb of Baltimore.
Although the Shoppes on Broad development has brought in businesses such as Nike Factory Store, Wok to Walk, Blaze Pizza, Qdoba Mexican Eats, and Starbucks Coffee, several spaces have remained vacant since the complex opened around two years ago, including storefronts along Halsey Street and all of Building E at the corner of Broad and New Streets.
