New Chipotle, Starbucks, Hibachi Chain Coming to Brick Shopping Center

A Quickway Hibachi restaurant in Annapolis, Md. (Credit: Quickway)

Brick Township officials have approved a plan to bring the second Chipotle and Starbucks locations to the township, as well as a growing Hibachi-style restaurant chain.

All three restaurants will be constructed in the Laurel Square shopping center, which spans a swath of land between Route 70 and Route 88 in the northern portion of the township. The shopping center is anchored by Livoti’s Market and At Home. The three chains, including the region’s first Quickway Hibachi restaurant, will move into the two buildings that were previously occupied by a Provident Bank branch and the former Fin’s Tropicali Cuisine restaurant. Both of those buildings are located along the eastern portion of the sprawling property, close to Route 88.

The planning board provided unanimous approval to the project with no objectors. According to testimony at the meeting, the two existing buildings will be renovated and retrofitted to accommodate the new restaurants, with Starbucks operating a full drive-through service out of the former bank building, and the former Fin’s building housing the Chipotle and Quickway restaurants in what will be two separate spaces. The Chipotle will feature the company’s new “Chipotlane” concept, though there will be no sign boards or ordering from vehicles; the pickup lane will allow for pickup of mobile orders only.

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Quickway/Chipotle (Planning Document)

The addition of the three restaurants will also come with significant improvements to the eastern portion of Laurel Square, including circulation, landscaping and parking upgrades. In addition to signage that will suggest customers utilize the Route 70 exit rather than attempt a dangerous left turn onto Route 88 – which a traffic engineer testified can take as long as seven minutes in some cases – the parking lot will be repaved and spaces will be realigned. The number of spaces allocated to the restaurants, about 87, will far exceed the 30 stalls required. Even after the improvements are completed, the shopping center will have 1,151 spaces – down slightly from 1,155 before the renovations.

The former Fin’s building will have approximately 138 more square feet for the bump out for the pick-up window, but otherwise no changes in the footprint of the buildings were proposed. The planning board conditioned its approval on the Chipotle’s pick-up window remaining as “pick-up only” without ordering.

Chipotle and Starbucks both operate restaurants in the  central and southern portions of the township, respectively, with the new locations coming to fill demand for quick-serve restaurants in the northern portion of the township, which traditionally has not seen the development of major chains outside of a McDonald’s location in a nearby shopping plaza.

Chipotle operates 3,726 fast casual restaurants serving Mexican-style burritos, tacos, bowls, quesadillas and other options. Starbucks, with 40,199 locations worldwide, serves coffee, tea, as well as other trendy drinks and pastries. Chipotle’s Brick location is in Brick Plaza, while Starbucks is located in the Bay Harbor shopping center off Brick Boulevard.

Two outparcels at the Laurel Square shopping center. (Credit: Google Maps)

The Laurel Square shopping center, Brick, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

The new addition will be Quickway, a fast-growing chain of Hibachi-style quick-serve restaurants that is based in Maryland. The company currently operates 54 restaurants, primarily in its home region of Maryland and Virginia. The chain’s Japanese fare includes options from “Hibachi” style chicken dishes, to crisp vegetables, to fresh sushi. The company’s food uses no MSG or trans fats, and also features catering. Quickway also serves “bento boxes,” popular packed meals as served in Japan, plus poke bowls, and dishes that include chicken, beef and shrimp. Sushi options include traditional options such as tuna, salmon and spicy versions of each, as well as avacado rolls, chicken rolls and shrimp tempura rolls.

The owner of Laurel Square, Brixmor Property Group, received its memorialized resolution authorizing the development at last week’s planning board meeting, and will be able to begin construction after obtaining required building permits.

Laurel Square was built in 1972, anchored by a K-Mart big box store and a Pathmark supermarket. The two outparcels where the restaurants are to be located were originally built to house a Russler Steakhouse and a Shore Federal Bank branch. Fin’s and Provident moved into the spaces years later, with the Provident having moved to a location on Chambers Bridge Road and Fin’s having moved north on Route 88 to Point Pleasant Borough.