Leonardo Jewelers - Metuchen Photo Credit: Leonardo Jewelers

Vivian Zeik-Lund, Annie Leonard, Ivette Zeik-Fernicola, John LeonardPhoto Credit: Leonardo Jewelers

By Elise Phillips Margulis

PublishedDecember 1, 2020 at 9:42 PM

Metuchen, NJ — Leonardo Jewelers was founded in Elizabeth in 1964 by Leondardo Zeik. He, his wife and children had immigrated from Cuba just a few years earlier during Fidel Castro’s rise to power.

Three of his children--Ivette Zeik-Fernicola, Vivian Zeik-Lund and Leo Zeik--moved the family business to Metuchen in 2017.

According to Ivette, they chose to move their store to Metuchen because “it’s truly a community.”

Sign Up for FREE Edison Newsletter

Get local news you can trust in your inbox.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Ivette reported that she and her siblings are “Very happy to be in Metuchen because their clients are wonderful, and it’s a very accessible location.”

Their father taught them to offer the best quality, value and exceptional service. He traveled to Italy and built a network of designers and vendors who made jewelry with 18 carat gold, a favorite of the Cuban community in Elizabeth, and platinum. The siblings still work with those businesses.

Ivette explained, “All of the pieces in our stores are great quality, from the least to the most expensive.” She added, “We have strong relationships with our vendors and work with them to get the best prices for our clients.”

Leonardo Jewelers specializes in fine jewelry and luxury watches. Their Red Bank store, which opened in 1989, is an authorized watch service center. Leonardo Jewelers is also well-known for custom-made jewelry and jewelry repair.

They carry time pieces by Rolex, Breitling, TAG Heuer, Tissot, Philip Stein, IWC, David Yurman, Ulysse Nardin, Omega, Baum & Mercier, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Shinola.

Ivette shared that Leonardo’s has three generations of clients who return to them for happy occasions.

“I consider myself so blessed to be in the jewelry business. Our clients arrive at the store filled with joy because they are becoming engaged, planning a wedding, buying a gift for a loved one, or treating themselves to something special.”

Ivette continued, “We enjoy becoming a part of our clients’ lives and their happy occasions, and we strive to have a lifetime relationship with each one.”

She also noted that their staff is like family. “Everyone who works with us is caring, compassionate and committed to helping our customer’s find what they are looking for.” Staff members include Colleen Grieco, Julia Peller, John Leonard and Rose Rivera.

Ivette added that they consider their clients to be part of their family, and some drop by often just to visit. “We welcome clients like good friends or relatives visiting our home.”

She pointed out that clients always collaborate directly with an owner because the three siblings are onsite. Her nieces Kaitlyn Zeik and Annie Leonard work at the Red Bank store and sometimes in Metuchen. Her nephew John Leonard works in Metuchen.

Ivette’s sister Lourdes and brother Michael have retired in the last couple of years.

Leonardo was a kind and generous man who helped newly arrived Cuban immigrants despite not having a great deal of money himself. His children continue his altruistic legacy by assisting local organizations.

Ivette serves on the board of Trinitas Hospital in Elizabeth. They also donate to Hackensack Meridian Health Riverview Medical Center, which is located near their Red Bank store.

During COVID they have contributed funds to hospitals, high schools and other establishments. Their website invites everyone to visit their store. “Come see for yourself why we believe quality, value and service are the true gems of life.”

Click HERE for more information.

The familiar bright orange signs inside Home Depot stores direct customers to items such as lightbulbs, paint, power tools and plants.

At one Home Depot store in Mount Laurel, N.J., the heating and air conditioning aisle has a different handwritten sign: “Please do not take Leo’s shirt off.”

It’s written on a cardboard box that often contains the store’s lounging tabby cat, an internet star who has a varied wardrobe, but often wears a striped T-shirt.

“People kept taking Leo’s shirts off because they thought he was hot,” said shopper Jeff Simpkins, who works as a commercial floor installer in Mount Laurel, and is a regular at the store.

Home Depot employees initially bought the cat T-shirts and dressed him up to keep him from removing a bandage after a trip to the vet to treat a scratch on his skin.

“Then they kept dressing him because they thought he looked cute,” Simpkins said.

Simpkins first met Leo in June when he was shopping at the store and came across a cat tree, a used litter box and a large planter filled with pillows and plush toys in the garden center.

‘Please write me,’ she scribbled on a random egg in 1951. Someone just did.

Simpkins is a cat lover with two cats at home named Will and Grace. He said he figured there must be a cat living in the store, so he asked an employee, who led him to the heating and air conditioning aisle and introduced him to Leo.

“I thought he was a pretty cool, plump-looking cat. He was also very friendly,” Simpkins said. “I’ve always been a cat guy, and I wondered if there was something I could do for him.”

The employee told Simpkins that the cat was adopted by staffers from an animal shelter about a year ago to help with a rodent problem at the store. Several employees take turns cleaning Leo’s litter box, filling his food and water bowls and changing his T-shirts, Simpkins said.

“I learned that he lived there year-round, and they didn’t close the store until they could find Leo and put him in the climate-controlled garden center for the night,” he said.

Simpkins decided to start visiting Leo several days a week. During one of his visits in June, he took along his cat Will, and he decided to shoot a video and put it on TikTok. The video, which showed Leo lounging in a planter in the garden department, quickly racked up more than 1.5 million views and hundreds of comments.

“I’m complaining to my local Home Depot, we don’t have a Leo,” one of his followers commented.

“He needs a Home Depot vest — he’s working hard!” suggested someone else.

“He’s an emotional support animal for everyone who spends too much money there,” one commenter noted.

Dog kept escaping shelter to sleep in nursing home. Staff adopted him.

Over the summer, Simpkins would sometimes go every day to see Leo and make a TikTok, hoping the attention would help draw awareness to the importance of adopting homeless cats.

“People loved Leo, so I decided to keep going to the store to shoot videos,” he said.

He posted Leo in his element, greeting customers, being dressed by employees, napping in the toilet aisle and hanging out on tall shelves. A video of the cat being locked into the garden center at night has amassed almost 13 million views.

In total, Simpkins’s Leo videos on TikTok have been viewed more than 35 million times over the summer, he said.

“A lot of people who live around here tell me they started coming in to visit Leo after they saw one of the videos,” Simpkins said.

Sometimes they bring cat treats when they stop to pet him and praise him.

“He loves that, but he also likes mice,” Simpkins said. “When I was here the other day, I was told he ate an entire small mouse.”

World’s oldest chicken is 21: ‘Peanut loves to sit in my lap and watch TV’

Leo always eats what he catches and doesn’t usually leave remnants behind, he said.

The cat has been known to occasionally chase customers’ dogs around the store, but Leo generally gets along with everyone, Simpkins added.

Home Depot’s corporate office declined to allow employees at the Mount Laurel store to comment publicly about Leo, but a company spokesperson said the cat is a welcome addition to the store.

“We understand that Leo has become a big sensation. But the store team is extremely busy, and we don’t want to distract from the business,” Home Depot corporate communications manager Terrance Roper wrote in an email to The Washington Post.

“I can tell you that our store was proud to have adopted Leo, and we’re thrilled that Leo loves taking care of our people as much as we love taking care of him,” Roper added.

Simpkins said he recently started an Amazon wish list for the home improvement feline to keep him supplied with outfits, treats and catnip toys.

Although he bought Leo a new cat bed, he said the dapper feline seems content to lounge on top of cardboard boxes or inside of them, which at a Home Depot store, is like reaching feline nirvana.

Leo isn’t the first cat to take up residence inside a Home Depot — a cat named Cat runs free in a Home Depot in Chandler, Ariz., and an orange cat named Oscar lives in a store just 20 minutes away from Leo in Cherry Hill, N.J.

But Simpkins said Leo is probably the best dressed. A “Hocus Pocus” T-shirt he bought the cat last Halloween is among Simpkins’s favorite outfits.

“He doesn’t have any pajamas yet, but the people who work here love to dress him, and he’s getting quite the wardrobe,” he said.

For the past couple weeks, though, Leo hasn’t worn clothing at all. The cat has a small spot of irritated skin — brought on by excessive licking and scratching — that needs to heal. Simpkins said a T-shirt could cause it further irritation.

He said Leo should be back to his fashionable self soon.

Customers who come to the store to visit Leo enjoy the challenge of finding him, he said, since the cat roams wherever he likes, from the bath and hardware sections to the door department — probably Leo’s least favorite place, since cats famously hate closed doors.

“You’ll find him almost anywhere, but the strangest place I’ve found him is in the plumbing aisle, curled up inside a box, sleeping on top of some of the merchandise,” Simpkins said.

“Like any cat, he’ll sleep anywhere,” he said.

HAZLET, NJ — Charles and Joanne Mule opened TST Country Bar & Grill in Hazlet in November, after starting TST BBQ & Mini Golf in Leonardo back in 2017.

TST stands for Top Shelf Gate, which hearkens back to the origins of the business: Tailgating for concerts and football games.

"We grew rapidly and couldn’t handle the amount of business from home so we were just looking for a kitchen to run tailgating and catering from. Then we came across our Leonardo location," Charles Mule told Patch.

A year after opening in Leonardo, they bought the adjacent gold course.

"We did all this with no restaurant experience, just a love of BBQ, family, friends and community," Mule said.

Find out what's happening in Holmdel-Hazletwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

As the name indicates, TST BBQ is all about the meats — everything from pulled pork to racks of ribs. Among other dishes in the menu, Mule also highlighted the Texas Twinkies, which is bacon-wrapped jalapeño stuffed with cream cheese and brisket.

"We will never sacrifice product for profit," Mule said. "We always buy the best cuts of meat, we truly smoke everything ourselves in-house regardless of the conditions or time it takes. It’s a labor of love and I think our food shows that."

More recently, they have also come up with a vegan menu, which at the Hazlet location includes vegan burgers, a vegan apple crisp and a smoked tofu platter.

The fact there were so many empty storefronts with the pandemic ended up presenting an opportunity for the duo to expand.

"We came across the Hazlet location and after lots of thoughts and negotiations, it was something we thought we could make work. Hazlet itself needed something (in that location)," Mule said.

The recent uptick in COVID-19, however, was a challenge to overcome and came not long after the new location opened.

"(A) combination of this spike and Christmas and New Years falling on Fridays and Saturdays (our busiest nights) was really a tough blow," Mule said. "But we came through it and are fighting forward."

The Leonardo location has a 45-minute eating challenge called the Beast Challenge. Mule said diners could look forward to a new one coming to Hazlet in the next couple of weeks.

Have a news tip, correction or comment? Email catarina.moura@patch.com

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — At their meeting this past Monday night, the Middletown Township Committee approved a $1.3 million bond to build a new skate park at Bill Kunkel Memorial Park.

This is Kunkel Park located on Brevent Avenue in Leonardo. There is currently an unused roller hockey rink there that local kids have turned into a skate park. However, now Middletown Twp. wants to invest in the park and officially make it a skate park. The Henry Hudson Trail connects to that park.

Spohn Ranch, a skate park design firm, designed the proposed skate park and showed these renderings to the Township Committee Monday night on how it would look.

"It's an old roller rink that was not being utilized that was turned into a DIY skate park. That wasn't necessarily the best thing," said Mayor Tony Perry Monday night. "It's a great location, with the Henry Hudson Trail right there. It's something we can all really be proud of."

"The scoreboard will be turned into a cool design and really clean up that area of Kunkel Park," continued Perry.

Find out what's happening in Middletownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Middletown Twp. is still in the design stage and hopes to send this project out to bid this summer, with construction starting in August at the absolute earliest, or most likely in the fall of 2022. There are some wetlands around Kunkel Park that Middletown has to address there, too.

The bond means Middletown will borrow the money and Middletown taxpayers will pay it back.

As Patch already reported in February, Highlands is also getting a skate park at Snug Harbor; construction on that is supposed to start this spring.

Also on Monday, the Township Committee voted to purchase via eminent domain a lot at Fairview Fields on Oak Hill Road for $3.2 million, as reported by the Asbury Park Press. Middletown will also take out a bond to pay for Fairview Fields as well.

There will be a public hearing April 18 on both the new skate park and the Township's purchase of Fair View Fields. All are welcome to attend and give their thoughts.

Here is Monday night's Township Committee meeting; they start talking about the new skate park at 9:57:

Prior: Highlands Borough Getting A Skatepark: See Renderings

Sign up for Patch emails: https://patch.com/subscribe and don't miss important local news. Contact this Patch reporter: Carly.baldwin@patch.com