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Woodbridge|Local Event

Sun, Mar 9, 2025 at 4:00 PM

Elks Lodge, 665 Rahway Ave, Woodbridge Township, NJ, 07095

The Woodbridge Elks is hosting a St. Patrick's Parade After Party on Sunday, March 9th starting at 4pm. Corned beef, cabbage and more. Tickets available the door only. Cash only, no Venmo will be accepted that day. Adults $20 at door and children 5-12 are $10. Open to the public.

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Trader Joe’s has heard all the requests, and another New Jersey location is finally on the way.

Woodridge Mayor John McCormac announced on Thursday, March 6, that the chain is taking over a former Bed, Bath & Beyond on Route 1 across from Woodbridge Center.

He did not announce an exact date for the opening but stated that Trader Joe’s had received frequent requests to bring its popular grocery store to Woodbridge.

“The most sought-after American-owned and operated grocery store is finally coming to Woodbridge after we beat out all of our neighboring towns that have been competing to attract it,” McCormac said. “Yes, we are talking about Trader Joe’s.”

One Redditor revealed that they were one of the lucky fans, who submitted a request for the latest location last year.

“I live in a high density suburban area. The nearest TJ was 20/30 mins in opposite directions. I thought that the town next to mine was a prime area for a store, so I put in a location request a year ago,” a user from Reddit said in a thread from Sunday, March 9. “A few days ago I just found out that they are putting a store in that town. I wonder if someone actually looked at my request!”

The franchise is known for popular items and viral favorites, like frozen kimbap, affordable fresh flowers and healthy snacks, under its own brand name.

This will be the fourth Trader Joe’s in Central Jersey, following Bridgewater, Westfield and North Brunswick.

The new grocery store also makes it the chain’s 20th location in the state.

In total, the company operates over 500 stores across 43 states.

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Victoria Rosenthal can be reached at vrosenthal@njadvancemedia.com. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips.

A controversial Middlesex County aquarium is a step closer to shutting down.

The state Department of Environmental Protection sent a letter to SeaQuest Woodbridge on Jan. 31 notifying the aquarium it has started to revoke its permits. The move comes two years after state officials placed the facility on probation after years of animal abuse allegations.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection said SeaQuest has 20 days from the delivery date to appeal the notice.

“The Notice of Revocation and Administrative Order requires SeaQuest to comply with all permit regulations and prohibits SeaQuest from transferring any regulated species to another location without the Department’s permission,” Caryn Shinske, the department’s spokeswoman, said in a statement.

If SeaQuest requests a hearing to appeal the notice, the state will review the request and either grant or deny a hearing, according to the letter. A denial would be considered the agency’s final action, it said.

But, if SeaQuest does not request a hearing within the 20-day timeframe, the denial of permits will become final on the 21st day, the state’s letter said.

SeaQuest Woodbridge officials did not respond to a request to comment.

The aquarium’s location in the Woodbridge Center mall appeared to be open Tuesday, according to the hours on its website, and tickets were available for purchase online.

The aquarium is barred from moving any animals to other locations without approval from the state, according to the state’s letter, which is dated Jan. 29. SeaQuest must also provide veterinary and death records for its animals, and is required to immediately cease public interactions with its wildlife.

“The Department has constructively seized all regulated animals possessed by SeaQuest,” the letter said.

The company must also test a few of its birds — the green-winged macaw, blue and yellow macaw and rose breasted cockatoo — for avian chlamydiosis and send the results to the state.

The state’s letter is the latest setback for the Boise, Idaho-based company.

In 2019, SeaQuest opened its New Jersey location in Woodbridge Center mall, despite protests from animal rights activists who urged the state to block the aquarium from opening.

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued the location several citations and placed it on probation in September 2023, after years of animal abuse allegations.

The aquarium’s probation was scheduled to end after a year, but state officials sent SeaQuest a letter last year outlining corrective actions the company allegedly failed to take. The probation was extended indefinitely.

The violations included conditions that allowed animals in the SeaQuest aquarium to attack each other for years, poorly constructed enclosures, inadequate veterinary records and animals found with missing limbs, the state’s previous letter said.

State officials said they received two anonymous complaints with detailed information about the alleged violations, including videos and photographs. An expert veterinary witness also interpreted the company’s limited veterinary records and submitted necropsies.

SeaQuest operates four sites in other states where visitors can observe about 300 species of animals, including stingrays, sharks, turtles, snakes, lizards and birds, SeaQuest’s website said. Visitors can pet some of the animals and pay for additional activities, including snorkeling with stingrays.

A few months after the Woodbridge location opened, three young goats were voluntarily removed from the site after complaints from animal activists.

Some of SeaQuest’s locations in other states, including Colorado and Connecticut, have closed.

The company’s sites have failed government inspections, received citations for failing to request documents to import animals and allegedly mistreated hundreds of animals. Guests have also been injured by the animals, according to an ABC News investigation last year.

SeaQuest was cited more than 80 times in the past five years by several government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ABC reported.

In December, the parent company, SeaQuest Holdings, filed for bankruptcy, saying its debts included more than $381,000 in back rent due to Woodbridge Center.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Since the 1980s, sales tax-free clothing lured New Yorkers in droves to shopping options in Woodbridge. Now, thanks to about a decade of controlled development throughout Woodbridge Township, a booming restaurant scene has followed, as have epicureans and entrepreneurs from Staten Island.

Indeed, a handful of borough business mavens recently plunked down roots in Woodbridge. The attraction is a byproduct of strategic residential development since 2015, said Woodbridge Township’s long-time mayor, John E. McCormac. And as Staten Islanders have expressed, it was McCormac, aka “Mac,” who brought them into the Woodbridge fold. He did so by coming to Staten Island and personally inviting them.

Small business expansion and general wanderlust from New York dining shutdowns during COVID-19 have been prominent themes in the food migration story over the Arthur Kill.

About eight years ago, Anthony Wilkinson of Rab’s Country Lanes fame, routinely visited friends in Woodbridge. He became familiar with the area, and when the Avenel Performing Arts Center opened, he recalled, “I saw it as a perfect fit for me.”

Now he is the building’s executive and artistic director. Wilkinson shared, “We do a lot of comedy shows, dinner theater, intimate performances you would find on a larger level on Staten Island.”

As the arts center’s name suggests, the complex is located in Avenel, N.J., one of Woodbridge Township’s 10 neighborhoods. It includes a restaurant, formerly called Curtains.

Curtains went dark in the summer of 2024 and it will soon be replaced by Caroline’s Tavern, with seating indoors for 90 and on a covered patio for 60. The casual Caroline’s concept was developed by Staten Island’s own Peter Botros and Philip Farinacci.

Wilkinson reflected, “It’s been a building partnership. But I think the theater exposed people from Staten Island to Woodbridge as a destination — because a lot of people once knew Woodbridge just for shopping.“

Wilkinson explained, “Over time, the influx of Staten Islanders to Woodbridge has grown, especially during COVID-19 when New York City had strict dining restrictions.”

He observed how many Staten Islanders who crossed the bridge found it more convenient than traveling within the borough itself. This trend highlighted the potential for further development in Woodbridge, given its accessibility and appeal particularly to South Shore residents.

Restaurateurs Botros and Farinacci own 14 eateries between New York and New Jersey. The Garden State has become fertile ground for their newest ventures, with Woodbridge figuring grandly into an immediate, bigger picture. After Caroline’s, the partners will finish Violette’s in 6,200-square feet of virgin space on the first floor of Modern, a new Woodbridge residential complex in the heart of Woodbridge Proper.

Between indoor and outdoor seating for 250 guests, Violette’s takes shape across from the Woodbridge Municipal Complex, a conglomerate of courts, police headquarters, the buildings and tax departments, along with other city offices, including Mayor Mac’s.

On a recent afternoon tour of the upcoming Violette’s, Farinacci stood in the midst of what could be likened to a blank canvas of concrete and glass. He pointed upward to where a mezzanine would be built for private seating, a reverse plan of what Staten Islanders know in Grant City as a subterranean Violette’s.

Additionally, Botros and Farinacci’s project is steps away from the Woodbridge train stop, near a multilevel parking garage and a courtyard-like park peppered with picnic tables. In the warmer months here, the Violette’s kitchen crew will have their own food stand servicing an area that the mayor envisions further with food trucks and entertainment.

Mayor Mac said he doesn’t want his city’s restaurants to cannibalize each other. That’s why he’s fussy over placement of Staten Islanders' investments. On one side of town, diners can discover eclectic American at Violette’s, and on the opposite end pizza from soon-coming Angelina’s Kitchen with Strickland’s Steakhouse in between.

Less than a mile up the road on Main Street is Strickland’s Steakhouse, an increasingly popular, one-year-old dining and drinking destination staged in a majestic bank building. The bi-level, 300-seat operation takes its name from Mike Strickland, a Woodbridge native and resident who has owned the West Shore Inn of Travis for 14 years come this March. The restaurant has drawn rave reviews with a NJ.com food critic dubbing it “New Jersey’s best new steakhouse.”

Historically, Strickland himself is connected to his restaurant’s New Jersey structure; his great uncle hung the signature clock that still marks the building’s facade. When the mayor scouted potential tenants for the spot, Woodbridge city Councilwoman Sharon McAuliffe thought of Strickland immediately. He worked his first job as a teenager in her shop, Knot Just Bagels.

Strickland said, “We like where we are and enjoy giving back to the community.”

Angelina’s Kitchen at the Staten Island Mall will be expanding into Woodbridge to a stand-alone structure the Malerba family built from scratch. It will be the complement to Vermella, a nearby, freshly built luxury apartment development.

Mayor Mac pointed the Malerbas to this Woodbridge destination.

Co-owner Vincent Malerba said, “The mayor’s unbelievable. We’re hoping to open the new restaurant in the next few weeks.”

According to records, Woodbridge was so named for the Rev. John W. Woodbridge of Newbury, Massachusetts. Located in Middlesex County, N.J., the area had been settled originally by the Lenni Lenape people, then the Dutch, the latter who incorporated the city in 1669.

The Garden State Parkway and I-95 slice through the township with a notable engineering feat — the construction of the U.S.‘s first cloverleaf highway interchange. Neighborhoods include Colonia, Fords, industrial Port Reading, Keasbey, Hopelawn, Sewaren and Menlo Park Terrace. Iselin has been known since the 1990s for its Indian and Southeast Asian restaurant scene. Avenel was once home to a paint factory, a massive tract of land cleaned up to make way for apartment housing. And Woodbridge Proper is home to the Violette’s, Strickland’s and Angelina’s.

McCormac said that the philosophy is clear. “If you build the housing, the businesses will come. We have a lot on Main Street — a new Irish pub, a Mexican restaurant, coffee houses. In the last two years, we’ve opened a Greek restaurant . . . Playa Bowls is wildly successful as is Eric LeGrande’s coffee shop. So Main Street is really popping — and we’re not done yet."

Farinacci confessed, “New Jersey is the next logical step for a business owner on Staten Island. There’s not much more we can grow on an island. We’re already looking at Pennsylvania, Philly and then into Florida.”

He added, “Traffic and tolls . . . and an environment that’s not business-friendly make us go away from expanding to Brooklyn. But we certainly have our anchor down on Staten Island.”