BASEMENT WATERPROOFING IN Eatontown

MONMOUTH COUNTY, NJ — While many grocery stores in New Jersey will close on Christmas Day, a few will be open for those last-minute additions to the menu. Most also will be open Christmas Eve.

Here are the hours for grocery stores that will be open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, along with those that won’t. As always, Patch encourages you to call ahead to your local store to confirm hours at that location.

Aldi: ALDI stores are closed on Christmas Day. However, ALDI stores will operate limited hours on Christmas Eve and will close by 7 p.m.

BJ’s Wholesale Club: Stores will be open on Christmas Eve and closed on Christmas Day.

Costco: Some stores will be open for limited hours on Christmas Eve, and all stores will be closed Christmas Day. Call ahead to confirm hours with your local store.

CVS: While many CVS Pharmacy locations, including 24 hours locations, will remain open on Christmas, some pharmacy hours may be reduced or locations closed for the holiday. Customers are encouraged to call ahead to confirm hours at their preferred locations.

Lidl: Most stores will close at 7 p.m. Christmas Eve and remain closed through Christmas Day.

Livoti's: Closing at 5 p.m. Christmas Eve, closed Christmas Day

Sam’s Club: Stores will be open until 6 p.m. Christmas Eve and will be closed on Christmas Day.

ShopRite: Hours will vary by location. Call ahead to your local store to confirm hours.

Stop & Shop: Stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey will close at 6 p.m. Christmas Eve. All stores will be closed on Christmas Day.

Target: Most stores will close at 8 p.m. Christmas Eve. All stores are closed Christmas Day.

Trader Joe’s: All stores will close at 6 p.m. Christmas Eve. Stores are closed Christmas Day.

Walgreens: Walgreens stores will be open regular business hours on Christmas Eve. Pharmacy hours will vary by location. All 24-hour locations will remain open 24 hours. On Christmas Day, most stores will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., while 24-hour Walgreens locations and 24-hour pharmacies will remain open. Customers can check their local store hours using this store locator.

Walmart: Stores will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Stores are closed Christmas Day.

Wawa: Most locations will be open 24 hours on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Wegmans: Stores will close at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve and remain closed on Christmas Day.

Whole Foods: Stores will be open on Christmas Eve, but hours will vary by location. Call ahead to your preferred store to confirm hours. All stores are closed Christmas Day.

EATONTOWN, N.J., Nov. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bierman Autism Centers (Bierman) is excited to announce that they will host an Open House for their Eatontown, New Jersey center on November 5, 2022. This event will provide parents, guardians, and caregivers of children diagnosed with autism an opportunity to tour their facilities while the Bierman team provides sensory-friendly activities for the kids and watches them as they play in Bierman's gym.

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This event will be on Saturday, November 5, from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. EST. The Bierman Eatontown Center is located at 40 Christopher Way, Eatontown, NJ 07724.

"This is a great opportunity to open our doors to the Eatontown and New Jersey community to come to tour our facilities. It will allow families the opportunity to explore. At the same time, their kids get a chance to experience all the joy and fun of our center!" said Amanda Jacquart, Bierman's Regional Manager of Operations in New Jersey.

The open concept of the facility allows kids the opportunity to learn and play in a safe and engaging environment. Bierman opened the doors at the Eatontown center in September 2022, which joined their other centers in Berkeley Heights and Princeton.

Anyone interested in the center but cannot attend the Open House is welcome to schedule a tour of the facility by calling 800-931-8113.

ABOUT BIERMAN www.biermanautism.com

Bierman Autism Centers is a place where kids as young as 18 months to 9 years of age engage in play to learn foundational skills they can build on, such as self-advocacy and communication. They recognize that every kid's success is unique, and their one-on-one approach allows them to drive progress, and measurable outcomes, while each child is advancing on their own terms.

With almost 200 graduations, Bierman currently has centers and is expanding in: Arizona, Indiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. For more about Bierman Autism Centers, visit www.biermanautism.com or contact Alexis Ducharme at [email protected].

Media Contact:Alexis DucharmeVP of Marketing[email protected]

SOURCE Bierman Autism Centers

Five-minute read

Special to the Asbury Park Press

EATONTOWN - Growing up in Long Branch with an industrious spirit, Ron Boyadjian began working at nearly century-old Criterion Chocolates as a high school student.

More than 50 years later, Boyadjian now serves as co-owner of the third-generation, Eatontown-based company, along with Allenhurst resident George Karagias Jr., grandson of the company’s founder, and the two couldn’t be more dedicated to honoring their company’s iconic past while forging an exciting new future.

Founded by Louis Karagias in Asbury Park in 1929 as Criterion Candies, “our company established a factory in Eatontown in 1970 called Criterion Chocolates to supply our Asbury Park retail location(s),” said Boyadjian, 68, a Middletown resident. “In July 1971, right before my senior year of high school, I started working there cutting taffy, helping one of the owners cook batches, and assisting with other jobs.”

Following high school, Boyadjian went on to graduate from Georgetown University with a degree in business management and returned to work full-time at Criterion Chocolates at a managerial level.

Then owned by Louis’ sons, George Sr. and Demitri, along with a third partner, “the company’s third partner passed away in 1985 and Demitri left the business in 1989, leaving just George Sr. and myself to run the operation,” said Boyadjian, who had no ownership stake at that time. “However, in 1992, George Sr. brought myself, his son George Jr. (who had worked at the company throughout high school and college and came on-board full-time in 1986) and a third partner, Jim Samaras, in as owners.

"Jim ended up retiring at the beginning of the pandemic and George Jr. and I have been the sole co-owners of Criterion Chocolates since March 2020,” Boyadjian said.

'Tried-and-true recipes'

Supported by 17 full and part-time team members today, “we left Asbury Park in 1993, and, though we returned to Asbury Park in 2012, we closed that shop in 2016 and Eatontown is now our only location,” Boyadjian noted.

But while its footprint may have changed over its 93-year history, the menu of products has largely remained the same at the beloved company, which has been part of the fabric of the Jersey shore since the close of the Roaring Twenties.

“We offer over 100 everyday bulk items in milk, dark and white chocolate varieties, from simple chocolate pops on a stick to more complex almond butter crunch and everything in between, including vanilla buttercreams, plain and sea salt caramels, chocolate turtles with almonds, cashews or pecans, nut clusters, jellies, creams, nonpareils, chocolate-covered pretzels, coconut patties and much more,” Boyadjian said of confections that typically sell for either $17.95 or $19.95 a pound. “While we discontinued some boardwalk products over time, we never stopped making taffy items and continue to offer them year-round.”

These and an extensive selection of other products are available at the 1,200-square-foot retail shop that sits adjacent to their 7,200-square-foot manufacturing facility, but Criterion Chocolates also supplies bulk items to farm markets, drug stores and candy shops both locally and as far away as North Jersey and Long Island as well as pre-packaged items to such outlets as Joe Leone’s Italian Specialties in Point Pleasant, Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck and Dearborn Market in Holmdel.

“Though we don’t make chocolate — we buy it from a chocolate manufacturer, melt it down and work with it from there — we use top-quality milk and dark chocolate,” Boyadjian said. “We haven’t changed some of our tried-and-true recipes at all, and we’ve brought back some original processes while enhancing others.”

When it comes to trends, “almond butter crunch is one of our biggest sellers and chocolate-covered graham crackers in both milk and dark versions are also extremely popular,” Boyadjian said. “We don’t necessarily hop on fads, but longer-term trends that we’ve worked into our line over the years include sugar-free products and sea salt caramels.”

In other trends, he added, “dark chocolate has grown in popularity over time, perhaps because of its publicized health benefits, and we’ve moved to some different packaging strategies, including smaller packages for customers who want to enjoy a treat without the guilt.”

Among challenges, Boyadjian said that pandemic-era supply chain issues made it difficult to get certain flavors and raw materials. In addition, like many businesses, “product costs and wages have all gone up and it’s also been hard to get people, so we’ve tried to remain flexible and make things more efficiently using less hours of labor.”

On a positive note, “we have a good relationship with some of our competitors and have helped each other at different times,” he said. “There’s a lot of diversity in the industry and we all have our niche.”

Since the pandemic, “I spend half of my time on production activities such as making products and tweaking our processes and the other half interacting with customers and developing new products, while George supports our product development and sales/distribution activities,” Boyadjian said.

'Offering great memories and value'

Looking ahead, “we’re poised for a great holiday season on the retail, wholesale and corporate gift fronts,” he said. “We’ll be expanding our offering of candy platters starting at $25 that people can serve at parties or give as gifts and this year we’re offering a peppermint-stick taffy that features a different texture than our normal peppermint taffy; it’s a nostalgic item that people remember from their childhood.”

The company is also excited to reinvent classic products for today’s consumers. “For example, we’ve been ‘holiday-izing’ such products as our nonpareils by changing their seed colors to commemorate the holidays — e.g., red, green and white seeds for Christmas, brown, yellow and orange ones in the fall, etc.,” Boyadjian said. “And we recently added a new variety of chocolate turtle featuring broken pretzel pieces with sea salt on top that we call our ‘Sea Turtle,’ which is great for people who don’t like or can’t eat nuts.”

As the company approaches its milestone 100th anniversary in just a few years, Boyadjian and Karagias take pride in the indelible mark their products have made on customers near and far.

“People grew up with us, love that taste and ship our products to others located all over the country to share them,” Boyadjian said. “We love hearing customers tell us that they used to go to our store in Asbury Park when they were kids. People have great memories of our brand and we look forward to seeing current customers someday become old-time customers who look back on and remember our products fondly.”

As for his favorite part of the job, “I enjoy finding new ways of delivering quality and freshness in an ever-evolving market,” said Boyadjian, whose own favorites include the company’s almond butter crunch and any of its peanut butter items. “I love the challenge of reinventing and always becoming better while offering great memories and value.”

Criterion Chocolates

Location: 125 Lewis St., Eatontown

Phone: 732-542-7847

Owners: Ron Boyadjian and George Karagias Jr.

Founded: 1929

Five-minute read

Special to the Asbury Park Press

EATONTOWN - Brian Stretton, owner and operator of the Comic Crypt in Eatontown, got his start reading comic books at 12, taking after his older brother who generated the spark that got Stretton into the world of superheroes himself.

“I saw him reading them from a young age and it really made me excited to see these beings that had these incredible superpowers and wore these really cool costumes that signified a higher calling,” Stretton said.

Stretton grew up going to a local comic shop near where he lived in Brooklyn, New York. “The guy who owned the shop really paid attention to me and we connected,” Stretton said. “It was a great experience for me to be around someone that had the same interest in comic books that I did. We were miles apart in terms of age, but when it came to comic books, we were both on the same page. We had equal appreciation for our favorite superheroes.”

Stretton also got into drawing superheroes at the same time he was reading about them.

“I followed in my brother’s footsteps after he got into drawing first,” Stretton said. “He inspired my interest in art in general and we both liked to draw and had a passion for it. I would sit down and just watch him do his thing and I paid close attention. We always had art and comic book-related art in the house and it was always accessible. I was always excited to pick up a comic or a pencil and have fun with it.”

As Stretton grew up in the 1990s, comic book writers were getting notoriety.

“There were so many writers of all ages that began to get noticed within the industry,” Stretton said. “We had a lot of breakout artists and some of them were just a couple of years older than me. I was so inspired to get into the industry from that point because I knew, if they could do it, then so could I. I became very motivated and wanted to do great things with this unbelievable art form. I wanted to be connected to this industry and there was no turning back.”

Unfortunately for Stretton, his love for comics dissipated after he moved to New Jersey, because comic book shops were few and far between where he lived.

“We didn’t have any local shops in town, so I was kind of hindered by that experience,” Stretton said. “I did not get back into it until I was much older. I had no real way of keeping my interest in comics since I had no means of accessing them. It was kind of sad for me because I loved the act of reading them and I got so much joy from picking up a comic and reading it from cover to cover.”

After an eight-year hiatus, Stretton was working at Toys R Us and one of his co-workers began talking about his favorite superhero.

“He was talking up a storm about what was happening in his favorite superhero universe,” Stretton said. “For some reason, I was instantly hooked and I wanted to immediately get back into reading my favorite comics. I went to this place in Old Bridge and I dropped $600 just like that and I was officially back in the game.”

'He took me under his wing'

Stretton started going to a comic book shop called Amazing Stories in Shrewsbury and became friendly with the owner there.

“I frequented that shop and I really enjoyed my time there because I could talk comics with him. We shared a passion for the same superheroes and we would talk and talk about everything Marvel or everything DC. It was something that I was happy to do and I wanted to pursue it to the fullest. He took me under his wing and took a liking to me, so much so that he made me an offer to take over the shop that I couldn’t refuse. One day, he just looked at me and said, 'Hey man, you should just buy my shop.'”

Before that time, Stretton was bouncing around from dead-end job to dead-end job. Stretton realized that he wasn’t meant to be in a job environment where he was being told what to do, so he should become his own boss and take over Amazing Stories.

After taking over the shop, he moved it to Little Silver and later to Eatontown, just so he could adjust to he foot traffic and the volume of business he was taking in at the time.

'We’re all family here'

“In 2008, I took it over and changed the name to Comic Crypt and I’ve run it successfully for the last 14 years,” Stretton said. “I like to run this place as more than just a comic shop. It’s more personal for me because of my history with comic books and my history with this place. We’re all family here and we have things that no other comic shop has, like personality and close interaction. It’s very important to have these things when you run a business.”

As you might expect, the Comic Crypt has everything comic books.

“We have classic superhero stuff like DC and Marvel, but we also have other genres like horror and romance comics, which are really making a comeback,” Stretton said. “It’s great that everyone loves Spider-Man and Batman because they don’t change much, but still maintain their appeal. They are there for you as a reader and they are uplifting in a way. You can relate to them. It’s like trying your favorite flavor of ice cream.”

Stretton looks toward the future with confidence.

“I would someday pass of the store to someone who loves the store just as much as me,” Stretton said. “My main guy, Mike Becraft, does a wonderful job and has been here for some time. I couldn’t ask for a better guy because he takes care of the place like it’s his own. We are lucky to have him and I definitely see him taking over the business someday.”

The Comic Crypt

Owner: Briad Stretton

Location: 73 Route 35, Eatontown

Phone: 732-747-8686

Hours: 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays; noon to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays; noon to 5 p.m. Sundays

EATONTOWN – The members of the Eatontown Borough Council have passed a resolution which supports the proposed location and operation of a business to be operated by Sweet Side, LLC, that would function as a cannabis cultivator and a cannabis manufacturer.

Representatives of Sweet Side, Neptune, are seeking approval to establish the business at 265 Industrial Way West, Eatontown, according to the resolution.

As stated in the resolution, council members recently approved a new marijuana business license application requirement for all potential cannabis businesses seeking to operate in Eatontown.

An application for a retail cannabis dispensary was filed by Sweet Side.

According to the website www.state.nj.us/treasury, the authorized activity for a cannabis retailer is to purchase recreational use cannabis from licensed cultivators, manufacturers or wholesalers and sell those items to consumers in a retail store.

However, Eatontown officials reviewed Sweet Side’s application and found it meets the criteria for the applicant to obtain a cannabis cultivator license and a cannabis manufacturer license from the borough, according to the council’s resolution.

According to the website, the authorized activity for a cannabis cultivator is to grow recreational use cannabis and the authorized activity for a cannabis manufacturer is to produce recreational use cannabis.

“It is in the best interest of the borough to provide a resolution of support to Sweet Side,” municipal officials wrote in the resolution.

Potential cannabis business operators are required by the state to submit a resolution of support from the governing body of the municipality in which they intend to do business to the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission. The commission will then review the applicant’s documentation to determine if a license should be issued.

A conditional license application to Sweet Side was approved by the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission in March, according to the resolution.

In 2021, state legislators approved the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act after New Jersey voters in 2020 approved a constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana.

The state legislation legalized the recreational use (also known as adult use) of marijuana for certain adults; it decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana and hashish (a marijuana concentrate); and it removed marijuana as a Schedule I (high potential for abuse) drug.

The law established six marketplace classes of licensed marijuana businesses in New Jersey: cultivator, manufacturer, wholesaler, distributor, retailer and delivery.

Eatontown officials subsequently adopted an ordinance which established the locations where cannabis businesses will be permitted to operate and the standards by which a business operator may receive a license. Every marketplace class except cannabis delivery is permitted in the borough.

Under these regulations, up to two cannabis cultivator licenses and up to two cannabis manufacturer licenses may be issued in Eatontown. Cannabis cultivator businesses and cannabis manufacturer businesses will be permitted to operate on Industrial Way, west of Route 35.

The application fee for the cannabis business license will be $10,000 and each cannabis business that is approved to operate in Eatontown will be required to pay $2,500 annually to maintain the license, according to the ordinance, which will also subject a cannabis business to a 2% local cannabis tax (excluding wholesalers, which are subject to a 1% local cannabis tax).