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After more than a decade, Asbury Park’s “home of retro and modern fashion” is leaving town.

By the end of September, Susan “Suzi” Kandel and Allan Pollack will soon pack up the wares at Allan and Suzi to head back north, making their flagship New York store their only location once again.

Kandel and Pollack have owned and operated the store at 641 Cookman Ave. for the last eight years. Before then, the store spent five years at 711 Cookman Ave., where the Cookman Creamery is now located. Changes in the economy and the current landlord’s desire to reclaim the space for another use have left them with little choice but to move again, this time out of the city entirely.

Allan and Suzi, the self-proclaimed “home of retro and modern fashion” sells “new and old” men’s and women’s clothing and accessories that have a unique flare to them, Kandel said.

“This is a special store,” Kandel said. “People have come from all over to this store.”

Over the years, Allan & Suzi’s Asbury location has seen its fare share of big names in the fashion and entertainment industries grace the entryway, including Chi Chi Valenti and Alexander Wang.

Wang made a visit to the New York location and was prompted by Pollack to go check out the store on Cookman.

“Allen said, ‘you have to go down to Asbury Park’,” Kandel said.

The two let Wang in the back door and let him peruse the back room, reserved for items that had not yet hit the sales floor. Pollack and Kandel were able to push traffic down to their Asbury Park store by these word-of-mouth tactics used in their New York location.

The pair has been in business together for 27 years. They met while working out of the same New York salon years ago.

“Allan was a hairdresser and I had a boutique within the salon,” Kandel said. After Allan expressed to Kandel his disinterest in employment as a full-time hairdresser, the two decided to go into the fashion retail business together.

In 1987, they opened their first Allan and Suzi store in Brooklyn. Six months after they opened, the two moved the store out of Brooklyn and into Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In 2011, their New York location made another move to downtown Manhattan.

Thirteen years ago, Kandel read an article in a LGBT-themed magazine that described Asbury Park as an up-and-coming area and decided to go see it for herself.

“There was nothing here,” she said. “The eeriness…it was fun.” When you move into a city that is mostly vacant, “you have nowhere to go but up.”

Kandel said back then, Bruce Springsteen could be found wandering the streets of the downtown and would often stop in and say hello to her.

But, over the years, a rough economy and the city’s recent development have taken their toll.

“This has been the worst year, ever,” Kandel said. “I even made more money in 2001. But, I understand the economy is tight. People used to come in and spend $500. Now, they buy a couple $10 and $20 items. The economy has changed and I have to think about this because it means I’ll be working harder and making less.”

Kandel’s landlord, Patrick Fasano, also has plans to extend the liquor license from his Bond Street Bar location to the building that Suzi and Allan currently occupies, and to redesign the space into another establishment.

Fasano approached Kandel in May with a 30-day notice that she would have to leave the space. Kandel was able to negotiate with Fasano to stay at the 641 Cookman Ave. location through the busy summer season while he obtained permits.

Fasano offered other spaces to Kandel but they were either too small or the rent too expensive, she said. By the end of September, Allan and Suzi will leave the city.

But for Kandel, the move out of Asbury Park will not be an easy one.

“When you do something for 13 years, to all of a sudden stop doing it, puts a hole in your heart. But you’ve got to move on,” she said. “The bottom line is this — maybe I’ll come back in the summer and do a pop-up store.”

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Photo at top: Susan “Suzi” Kandel in the Allan and Suzi Asbury Park location.

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