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.
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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.
Dinner theater and drinks
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.
Seeding the Garden State
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.
Steaks from Staten
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.”
Houses first with restaurants to come
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.”