Government

Brick Approves Distillery, Tap Room to Open in Brick Boulevard Shopping Center

by
Daniel Nee
March 31, 2026

Garden State Distillery plans a 2026 opening at their new location in Brick Township. (Credit: Garden State Distillery)

Brick Township’s planning board has approved an application seeking to permit a distillery to open in the now-vacant space of a Brick Boulevard shopping center.

The board last week unanimously approved an application that would allow the Garden State Distillery, currently located in Toms River, to open a new facility in the shopping center at 580 Brick Boulevard. The distillery will take the space that once housed a Chinese buffet restaurant. The shopping center itself, located between Duquesne Boulevard and Cedar Bridge Avenue, is best known for being the location of the now-shuttered Boston Market restaurant, as well as a free-standing Taco Bell restaurant. Those buildings will not be impacted by the approval, nor will the footprint of the main shopping center change at all, attorney John Jackson explained.

The board’s approval was needed solely because the shopping center’s uses are are under board jurisdiction dating back to its original approval in 1994. Any change of use requires an application, even from a restaurant use to a distillery use. According to Township Planner Tara Paxton, the new use of what was the China Buffet King restaurant will consist of a 1,200 square foot kitchen, 1,620 square foot distillery, and a 2,988 square foot tap room.

Garden State Distillery plans a 2026 opening at their new location in Brick Township. (Credit: Garden State Distillery)

Garden State Distillery is owned by Rick Norman and his wife, Sissy Starr-Norman, who are both Brick residents. The distillery produces its own varieties of vodka, rum, whiskey and bourbon. The Normans have said they were seeking a new location for the business so they could host more events, create a larger gathering space for people to enjoy a drink, and add new products to its lineup, which are made with locally-sourced ingredients.

“We control the production of our spirits from grain to glass, ensuring a quality product distilled from New Jersey,” the company’s website proudly announces. Its products include unique local flavors, combining oyster juice and seaweed-sale flavored vodka, a series of “Weather Vane” coastal American whiskey, “Bricktucky” moonshine, and more traditional offerings of clear vodka and spiced rum, among others.

Garden State Distillery plans a 2026 opening at their new location in Brick Township. (Credit: Google Earth)

Representatives for the business said work is already underway on the conversion of the restaurant space, and it is expected to open sometime this spring or early summer.