Downtown Denville

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We’re Doing It Again! {Denville After Dark}

Join us for another fun night out downtown as we close down Broadway and First Avenue for our second Denville After Dark. Just like last time, there will be classic cars, good eats, fun shopping, and live music … but we’ve upped the ante by adding an extra hour to our evening, and an extra band!

The streets will be closed from 5 pm on, and there will be ample picnic tables and hi-tops throughout Broadway, First Avenue, and Main Street if you’d like to grab take-out from one of our many popular restaurants. Several of the restaurants also offer outdoor dining as well. Live music will be provided by Sugar Daddy from 6-9 pm near the corner of First Avenue and Broadway, and Christy and Steve, an acoustic rock duo, will be playing in front of The Frame Factory from 6-9 pm as well.

Stroll our shops along Broadway and check out their outside tables and pop inside to do a little retail therapy. Grab dessert at Denville Dairy, Denville Dog, The Pasta Shop, or The Tuscan Table, and perhaps a cocktail under the stars from The Second Half, Hunan Taste, or Thatchers? So many options, and you’ll have five hours to explore it all!

Hand sanitizer will be available at the common eating areas again, and masks are required, as well as social and physical distancing. While it is important to support our retail and restaurant during these challenging times, it is more important to keep everyone safe and healthy.

Lastly, please consider donating to our Relief Fund! It allows us to not only do these types of events, but to support our downtown community and community at large as well too. Full details can be found here.

See you Thursday!

How to Support Your Favorite Local Businesses

Customer support is crucial to any successful business, but there are a number of ways that you can support your favorite local business without even spending a dime.

  1. “Like” their Facebook page and “follow” their Instagram account. It’s a simple way to keep up with their events, products and news, and helps their business continue to build their audience and find potential new customers.
  2. Engage with their social media posts by liking their posts, commenting, and sharing. Not only do the businesses appreciate your interaction, the engagement helps their pages get seen by others who don’t follow them. More followers = more business.
  3. Leave their business a review on their facebook page, Yelp or Google. People read reviews, and good reviews are golden, and also help the business come up more during web searches.
  4. Share the business in a local group, whether it be a Moms’ facebook group or your favorite town page.
  5. Shop local. The small businesses in town are also the ones saying yes when you ask them to support the local sports teams or donate to your school’s Tricky Tray. And they say yes, because it’s THEIR community too. By you continuing to support them, they can continue to support you and the community.
  6. Give referrals. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, it always has been. When you see someone asking for your favorite place to buy something, give a shout out to your favorite local store and be sure to tag their facebook page while doing so.
  7. Drop them a note and tell them why you love them. Whether it’s a retail, restaurant, or service business, being a business owner in general is challenging, and a few words of encouragement or support can literally make their day. If you didn’t get one of our new Downtown Denville postcards, get in touch and we’ll get you one. They’re a great way to drop a love note in the mail to your favorite downtown business.

Event: Denville After Dark {6/26}

Downtown Denville has been hard at work behind-the-scenes to plan a fun and safe outdoor event downtown, designed to bring the community together (while we stay socially and physically distant ofc!) and enjoy live music, a mini classic car collection, outdoor dining, retail sales, and more.

Please join us this Friday night, from 5-9 pm, as we close down Broadway from top to bottom and open it up to pedestrian foot traffic only.

Many of our retailers will be staying open later than usual, and will be putting tables out on the sidewalks to showcase their wares.

Outdoor dining available at several downtown restaurants, including The Second Half, Mara’s, Beignets, The Pasta Shop, The Tuscan Table, Thatchers, Denville Seafood, Hunan Taste, and more, and additional seating by way of hi tops and picnic tables will be placed down the center of Broadway. Additionally we still have parklets with picnic tables for overflow seating for your take-out orders down along the new stone wall at First Avenue, the area in front of A&R Interior Design, and in McCarter Park, across from Denville Dog and Il Torrente.

You will be able to check out a small collection of classic cars (and meet their owners!) in the Denville Hardware parking lot from 6 pm on.

Denville’s own KickStart band will be playing live in front of A&R Interior Design, also from 6-9 pm.

The street will be closed off from 5-9 pm, so we encourage and invite you to come down, eat and shop local, and enjoy gorgeous summer weather … all while following the state’s requirements of wearing masks and practicing social and physical distancing, please. Hand sanitizers will be located on the various tables around downtown and portable ADA-compliant restrooms will also be located on Broadway.

Thank you for continuing to support our downtown businesses and Downtown Denville events – see you Friday night!

Denville Outdoor Dining Opens Up

In what can be described easily as a breath of fresh air, both figuratively and literally, New Jersey restaurants received the green light to begin the outdoor dining phase of our re-opening plan, and downtown Denville restaurants immediately rose to the challenge.

They worked hard to implement new outdoor dining areas, or reconfigure existing ones, and have done everything in their power to create warm inviting spaces while still keeping their staff and guests safe.

Restaurants like The Second Half and Tuscan Table are hosting guests in beautiful outdoor areas, while Thatcher McGhee’s (and soon to follow, The Pasta Shop) have expanded their footprint into parking spaces directly in front of their establishments.

While taking advantage of some restrictions being lifted, give a quick read to these suggestions from NJ.com if you choose to partake. Restaurants will continue to offer take out and curbside pick up as well. As always, continue to do what makes you and your family feel safe and comfortable… wear a mask when going out, wash your hands frequently, and maintain social and physical distance.

See you downtown!

Reopening Day!

Today the ban on non-essential stores being closed was lifted, and many of our downtown merchants happily threw open their doors to let customers back in. While there are still many restrictions like masks, capacity, and social distancing in place, it was nice to make one small step back to what our new normal will be.

Butter & Velvet, Sisters, and Shoe & Sneaker Barn, among others, were welcoming customers today, and several stores that are typically closed on Mondays (Dash of Thyme and Faith & Begorra, for example) opened up as a show of support for their fellow store owners. That’s what a community is all about.

As plexiglass partitions go up and store capacity comes down, the stores will face many challenges as they navigate how best to operate their business during these unchartered territories. Many will still be selling their wares online, in addition to in person sales, and look forward to an upcoming summer season. Do seek out their social media channels on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with new store schedules, promotions, and more. Additionally, Two Girls Media has updated their retail directory with store information.

Today also marks the reopening of outdoor dining, and you’ll notice many of our restaurants putting out tables and colorful umbrellas and getting ready to serve customers in a whole new way. More on that to follow later this week.

As always, our downtown is only as good as its support, so do what you can to welcome our retail and restaurants back into the fold, and continue to eat, shop, and discover your local community.