A proposal to repurpose the Boylan Funeral Home on Easton Avenue in New Brunswick recently took a step forward after the city’s planning board voted to approve a site plan.
Officials voted to approve the proposal on May 11.
Meeting materials state that the applicant, Middlesex County restaurateur Sam Algar, intends to convert the funeral home at 188 Easton Avenue into a sit-down restaurant with outdoor seating and additional seating on the second floor. The garage portion of the funeral home will be raised to match the elevation of the entire building and converted into a kitchen, while the project will primarily update the structure’s interior and exterior.
Professionals working on behalf of the applicant stated that the project will not make any new structural additions to the building but rather will add new columns and balusters to give the property a more classic restaurant feel. The applicant also sought three variances: one for impervious coverage, one for a reduction in the total number of on-site parking spaces, and one for signage.
Documents filed with the city’s planning board show that the first floor will seat up to 172 guests and includes a covered outdoor seating section for up to 76 patrons. The first-floor seating area will span 4,329 square feet, while the second floor will include a 2,100-square-foot seating section for up to 72 guests.
Nassir Almukhtar, a principal at Heritage Madison Architecture and the lead architect for the project, added that Algar first intended for the restaurant to include a banquet hall on the second floor, but that is no longer part of the plan. He added that most of the partitions on the first floor will be demolished to create an open space.
Algar said during the planning board meeting that he purchased the funeral home four months prior to the meeting and that he intends for the new restaurant to be Italian-fusion-themed. It will be named ‘ZENO’ and will also include a mezzanine on the second floor with additional seating, he said.
The restaurant will be open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to midnight. Deliveries to the new restaurant will be made in the morning and will only occur twice a week, he added.
A report in TAPinto New Brunswick said that Algar has owned the Sahara Middle Eastern restaurant located at 165 Easton Avenue for 22 years. That report also said that the new restaurant could open as soon as this year.
Records from the Middlesex County Board of Tax show that the funeral home was sold in February for $2.5 million. The property was built in 1950 and has been assessed at $3 million for at least three years. Algar secured a $3 million mortgage from Magyar Bank in February, county records show.
An archive from Boylan Funeral Home in Edison says that Edward R. Boylan Sr. was the owner and operator of the funeral home in New Brunswick from 1958 and later in Edison from 1978 until his passing in 2003.
