{"id":25977,"date":"2026-01-30T07:41:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=25977"},"modified":"2026-01-30T07:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T12:41:06","slug":"brick-developer-seeks-to-replace-retail-with-burger-restaurant-near-sports-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2026\/01\/brick-developer-seeks-to-replace-retail-with-burger-restaurant-near-sports-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick Developer Seeks to Replace Retail With Burger Restaurant Near Sports Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Brick sports complex at the Foodtown property on Route 70, Sept. 2025 (left) and a Habit Burger location. (Photo: Shorebeat\/ Yum Brands)<\/p><\/div>\n

The developer of the commercial half of the “sports dome” complex on Route 70 in Brick \u2013 the home of the former Foodtown supermarket \u2013 will appear before the township’s planning board to pitch a change to the layout of the site \u2013 replacing retail space with a fast casual hamburger chain.<\/p>\n

Developer Jack Morris, who owns the front portion of the site where the Aldi supermarket is now located, is scheduled to appear before the board at its Feb. 11, 2026 meeting to formally propose the change to the site plan. In a notice published this week, his company, M&M at Route 70, announced it will seek to replace the previously-approved 6,400 square foot commercial building with a 2,426 square foot Habit Burger fast casual restaurant. The restaurant will include a drive-through portion.<\/p>\n

Restaurants are a permitted use in the underlying zone, meaning the board will not be tasked with debating a use variance. Instead, board members will consider modifications and improvements to the parking areas, landscaping, lighting, as well as general site improvements. The application complies with previous mandates by the board and is consistent with the plan that was approved in 2019 for the site, the notice said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Brick sports complex at the Foodtown property on Route 70, Sept. 2025. (Photo: Shorebeat)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Habit<\/a>

Habit Burger (Credit: Yum Brands)<\/p><\/div>\n

Habit Burger is a California-based fast casual restaurant chain that specializes in chargrilled hamburgers. It was founded in 1969 in Santa Barbara and since 2020 has been owned by YUM Brands, which is also the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. The closest existing location is on Route 35 in Eatontown, though the company operates 19 restaurants statewide, mainly in North Jersey. The company operates 372 locations nationwide.<\/p>\n

According to its website, Habit Burger features more than a dozen hamburger options, including teriyaki burgers, bacon cheeseburgers and California burgers. It also offers chicken sandwiches, tuna filet sandwiches, veggie options and grilled cheese. The menu includes a large collection of salads as well as “charboxes,” which are entire meals intended for families. There are also kids’ meals including burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches.<\/p>\n

\"Habit<\/a>

Habit Burger (Credit: Yum Brands)<\/p><\/div>\n

The proposal will slightly reduce the impervious building coverage on the site by about 1 percent, and seeks minor variances or design waivers related to signage and a deviation of traffic flow as compared to the originally-approved plan, owing to the presence of a drive-through lane.<\/p>\n

The application will be heard Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026 at 7 p.m. at the township municipal complex.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The developer of the commercial half of the “sports dome” complex on Route 70 in Brick \u2013 the home of the former Foodtown supermarket \u2013 will appear before the township’s planning board to pitch a change to the layout of the site \u2013 replacing retail space with a fast casual hamburger chain. Developer Jack Morris, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,1649],"tags":[24,4484,286,5555,322,5304,287,2907,3499],"class_list":["post-25977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-local-business","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-featured","tag-foodtown","tag-habit-burger","tag-jack-morris","tag-newsbreak","tag-route-70","tag-sports-complex","tag-sports-dome"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/habit_burger-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-6KZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25981,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25977\/revisions\/25981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}