Nab a table at Collingswood’s Sabrina’s Cafe at 11 a.m. on a Sunday without a wait? Good luck with that.
A dinnertime walk-in at one of the town’s many vaunted restaurants might be easier. On a weekday, you’ll practically be a shoo-in.
Despite its reputation as a South Jersey dinner destination — owing to longtime red-sauce staples like Villa Barone and Il Fiore and newer fine-dining joints like Hearthside and June BYOB — restaurant owners on Collingswood’s popular Haddon Avenue say business isn’t booming on weeknights.
With thinner margins brought on by the higher costs of food, dry goods like to-go containers, and labor, it’s getting harder for some of these spots to get by.
The Camden County town of 14,000 is hopping with energy on weekend days thanks to the beloved Saturday morning farmer’s market, a bevy of city-organized events, and Collingswood’s variety of stores. But the energy on Haddon Avenue often fizzles come evening.
Business owners of all types point to one main reason: Collingswood is dry.
“During the day on Saturday when we’re prepping, there are people walking around everywhere, but on the weekdays after 5 o’clock, there’s just nobody walking around,” said Dominic Piperno, chef and owner of Hearthside, which opened on Haddon Avenue in 2017.
Piperno said weekday evenings have become increasingly quiet in the past few years. There was a boom just after COVID-19 restrictions lifted, when folks were happy to get out of their homes, but it didn’t last. He and other Haddon Avenue restaurant owners say inflation and the rising cost of living are partly to blame, with disposable income for many out the window.
Giovanni Barone, whose family has owned and operated Haddon Avenue Italian restaurant Villa Barone for 32 years, thinks the town could make some changes to support restaurants. He motioned toward nearby Haddon Township, which has long allowed alcohol sales and on-site consumption.
There, “on a weekday night — Wednesday or Thursday, for example — I drive down the street and it’s packed,” Barone said. “We’re losing a bit of that piece of the pie.”
A thriving daytime scene
Yet amid the challenges, Collingswood’s share of Haddon Avenue is experiencing a wave of new businesses filling long-vacant storefronts and injecting fresh daytime activity.
Kaival Patel of John’s Friendly Market in nearby Haddon Heights is preparing to open a convenience store-like concept in Collingswood with a deli case and prepared foods in the former Wawa space, likely this summer.
The business was courted by Collingswood commissioner and Deputy Mayor Amy Henderson Riley. She campaigned with Mayor Daniela Solano-Ward on the promise of ensuring downtown continued to welcome diverse business owners and shoppers of various income levels. James Maley, a commissioner since 1989 and Collingwood’s mayor from 1997 until Solano-Ward took office, continues to serve as a commissioner.
“We’re replacing Wawa in our own way,” Patel said. “We’ve heard that people used to get their groceries from Rite Aid next door that closed, too, so we’re going to try to add groceries as much as possible.”
Nearby, a bank that has sat empty for years is primed for a new life as a three-storefront building topped with condos, said Keller Williams real estate agent Pat Ciervo. The parking lot will become public parking, Ciervo said — a perk for that end of downtown.
Charm bar and permanent jewelry studio Chatterbox celebrated its first anniversary July 4. Business has been good for owners Douglas and Nikki Coleman. People are eager to support a Black- and family-owned business, Douglas said.
“Weekends have been very steady for us,” he said. Weekday business fluctuates, “but this has become a destination for people, just the store in itself. We’ve had people come from Boston and Virginia.”
Lindsey Ferguson, Collingswood’s director of business and community development, praised the store.
“We have loved the addition of Chatterbox because, simply, their business model includes waiting for your jewelry, so people then walk around and shop” at other businesses on the avenue like suburban birding store House Finch or Occassionette gift shop, she said.
Ferguson would like to see more so-called experiential businesses like Chatterbox and nearby pottery-painting studio All Fired Up! And she’d like to add nighttime businesses “that can kind of lift everybody up.”
Ends of the Earth, a cigar bar that recently debuted in Collingswood’s former fire station, is open until 7 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday — a welcome evening addition, according to Ferguson.
Ferguson said the chasm between daytime and nighttime foot traffic along Haddon Avenue dates to the pandemic years, when some businesses began closing earlier.
But that lack of deep overlap between so-called daytime and nighttime businesses has left Collingswood’s restaurant scene in the lurch.
‘Let’s not mess this up’
Liquor was prohibited by ordinance in Collingswood in the 19th century, dating back to its Quaker roots.
Now Collingswood’s three-person Board of Commissioners, which includes Henderson Riley and Solano-Ward, is considering a resolution to put liquor sales on the ballot in November.
“It’s a conversation we need to keep having as a community,” Henderson Riley said. “It would be an influx of cash into the town that would be up to voters to decide.”
In 2015, Collingswood voted to allow craft breweries, and now Raccoon Taproom operates on Haddon Avenue under a state-issued limited brewery license. The license allows operator Swedesboro Brewing to serve beer in the taproom.
Henderson Riley said officials are concerned about how to equitably distribute the restaurant and retail liquor licenses. Collingswood would receive up to four, based on its population, which isn’t enough for all of its dinner-serving establishments. And if they are auctioned to the highest bidder, Ferguson noted, out-of-town restaurant groups could come in and create even more competition for licenses.
“We want to keep restaurants open. We want to keep our downtown thriving,” Henderson Riley said. “We see neighboring towns that are open a little later than us, and the main reason is liquor.”
And as a result, Henderson Riley said, the restaurants in those neighboring towns have a lower price point for their food.
Nearby Haddonfield is also a dry town but allows businesses to operate under state-issued manufacturing licenses — not just for beer — and is now home to a brewery, a winery tasting room, and a distillery. Piperno, of Hearthside, sees how these businesses help feed the area’s restaurants, even if the restaurants can’t sell alcohol.
“My wife and kids and I will walk Haddonfield at night, and like on a Monday, Tuesday, it’s jamming,” Piperno said. “It just has helped that downtown a lot, especially with younger families.”
Piperno said Fridays and Saturdays at Hearthside are still “jammed,” but “it’s really hard to survive this industry with just two really busy nights.” The restaurant plans to relocate to Haddon Township in 2027, where it will have a liquor license.
“It’s a bittersweet thing for us because we love Collingswood,” Piperno said, “but something has to change.”
Still, for Collingswood, much already has. Former Mayor Maley is owed much of the credit, says Henderson Riley, the deputy mayor.
Henderson Riley recalled Maley’s efforts to attract new homeowners by incentivizing converting former duplexes into single-family homes, and appeals to Philadelphia’s LGBTQ+ population to move across the bridge.
“Part of what drew us here was what he used to call the Collingswood story,” Henderson Riley, who has lived there for 15 years, said. The businesses and restaurants that germinated from it are the basis of Haddon Avenue’s reputation today.
Nikki Coleman, of Chatterbox, grew up in Cherry Hill and has watched throughout her life as Collingswood’s downtown transformed from a dingy strip into a robust retail scene. She has shared her observances with her husband.
“This has been a great case study for how to take a town and really bring a certain dynamic to it that I think a lot of other small towns wish they had,” Douglas Coleman said. “I don’t know if we’re doing anything wrong, but it’s more of a ‘Let’s not mess this up.’”