New market opens on Mattison
Fresh produce, bread, household items now available at downtown location
A new market in Asbury Park now provides access to various household items and fresh local produce, priced moderately and located conveniently within walking distance of the downtown area.
Sunday saw the grand opening of DJ’s Market, the third venture of co-owners DJ Presto and Ron Wendolowski. The two also co-own and operate DJ’s Delights, a deli and catering business, and DJ’s Restaurant. The string of businesses occupy side-by-side locations along Mattison Avenue.
Presto and Wendolowski have been operating DJ’s Delights since 2010. They always had a small section in the deli that carried a few items of convenience.
“After Hurricane Sandy hit, people came in for whatever they could get,” said Wendolowski.
It was then they decided it was “well past time” to add the space, which Presto had been considering for a few years, he said. They started with research, first asking regular customers what they might like to see in a local market, then thinking about items renters might forget to pack in their summer arsenal along with things neighborhood residents might need to throw together a last minute dinner, Wendolowski said.
A few weeks ago they started with an area for over-the-counter medicine and went from there, adding groceries, chips and snacks, and whatever else the public wanted. The market now carries fresh local produce provided from a Rutgers University co-op program, bread delivered fresh from Brooklyn, baking items, household cleaning items, toiletries and more.
“It happened in waves,” Presto said.
“It’s all priced economically, we tried to be as affordable as we could be,” Wendolowski said. “People come in now and say ‘do you carry breadcrumbs?’, or “please tell me you have tomato paste’.” The answer to both questions is now yes.
City resident Anita Weiner lives around the block and sayd she is “very excited” about the market.
“I’m looking forward to the produce and the bread,” she said. “If I run out of lettuce to make a salad this is the place I can come to when I don’t want to get in the car to go anywhere.”
Presto and Wendolowski have been life partners for 23 years. Presto owned a catering business and Wendolowski suggested he open a deli in Asbury Park. The two had heard through the gay community that Asbury Park was an “up and coming” area, said Wendolowski.
In 2010 DJ’s Delights came to fruition. It offered a menu of cold sandwiches and salads and off-site catering services. Within the next six months, they added a full kitchen and acquired the space adjacent to the deli when Cowerks Shared Meeting Space re-located to the LakeHouse building on Lake Avenue. There, Presto and Wendolowski added a small, 16 person dining room so deli patrons could sit and eat.
In January of 2013, when neighboring business BandsOnABudget followed Cowerks to the LakeHouse building, they decided to expand again to include a full restaurant. The restaurant provides an at-home atmosphere where patrons nosh on burgers, panini’s, specialty sandwiches, breakfast items and traditional Italian dishes.
To have a business as successful as DJ’s Delights expand locally is exactly what Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jackie Pappas hopes to see in the burgeoning city.
“We kind of fell into it and we never looked back,” Presto said.
“That, for us, is the most important measure of growth — because it shows sustainable growth,” she said. “New businesses are great, but when you have business that want to grow in town, that is the best. They define what commerce is all about. They are not just a business in the community, they are a community business.”
DJ’s Market is located at 620 Mattison Ave. It is open Monday – Wedesday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday -Saturday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
[Photo at top: Members of the Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce along with DJ’s Market and DJ’s Delights employees gather to cut the ribbon in front of DJ’s Market on Sunday. Wendolowski is standing in the center, wearing black. Presto is standing to the left of Wendolowski. Pappas is standing on the left, also wearing black.]
———————————————————
Follow the Asbury Park Sun on Facebook and Twitter.
