If you've driven past Brick Plaza this summer, you've probably noticed the plywood coming down on the old Quaker Steak & Lube pad and the "Coming Soon" banners multiplying near Cava. If you've walked Windward Beach Park on a Saturday morning, you've seen the tent line stretch farther than last year. Two addresses are quietly doing most of the work of reshaping how Brick residents eat, shop, and spend a weekend in 2026, and both of them are within a five-minute drive of most of the township.
Here's the shift worth paying attention to: Brick Plaza is no longer a place you go to run errands, and Windward Beach is no longer a park you visit only on the Fourth of July. The two anchors are becoming a weekend circuit.
Brick Plaza is being rebuilt as a destination
Brick Plaza has evolved from a typical strip mall to a lifestyle-centric shopping center with a mix of retail, restaurants and outdoor amenities in its "Boardwalk" section. Federal Realty, the plaza's owner, spent the last year signing a wave of tenants that shifts the center's center of gravity from utility to a Saturday-afternoon reason to leave the house.
The existing anchor lineup was already dense. Trader Joe's, Burlington, Barnes & Noble, AMC Theatres, PetSmart, Michaels, Chipotle, Applebee's, Cava, Crumbl Cookies, Men's Wearhouse, Wonder, and Ulta Beauty all sit in walking distance of each other. What's coming next changes the mix from "we have everything" to "there's a reason to stay for two meals."
Four new restaurants, each doing something different
| Concept | Where it's landing | Why it matters locally |
|---|---|---|
| Cuzin's Seafood and Clam Bar | Former Rosalita's / Tre space, Brick Plaza | Third NJ location for the Marlboro-based raw bar |
| Gregorys Coffee | Next to Cava, with a drive-through | First Ocean County outpost of the NYC chain |
| Raising Cane's | 1036 Cedar Bridge Ave., replacing Quaker Steak & Lube | The chain's first Jersey Shore location |
| Dae Gee Korean BBQ | Brick Plaza, already open | Colorado-based chain's first New Jersey restaurant |
A few of these deserve a closer read.
Cuzin's is the one most likely to reshape date-night patterns. The growing chain has been serving up seafood since 2016 with restaurants in Marlboro and New Brunswick, with fish and shellfish imported daily. A liquor license transfer was recently approved for the new eatery, which took the space previously occupied by Tre and Rosalita's. If you've been driving to Marlboro for a seafood tower, that trip is about to shrink to ten minutes.
Raising Cane's is the higher-profile arrival because of what it isn't: a repaint of the existing building. The existing 8,148-square-foot building that housed Quaker Steak and Lube will be torn down. In its place will be built a 3,333-square-foot restaurant with two full-access driveways connected to Cedar Bridge Avenue. There will be a two-lane drive-through and 37 parking spaces. The Brick location will be the first in Ocean County, and the fast-casual eatery expects to open by late 2026 at 1036 Cedar Bridge Ave., pending local approval and permitting.
Gregorys Coffee is the quiet one, but the one likely to change morning routines. Gregorys Coffee, a New York-based coffee shop and retailer, will open its doors next to Cava. Gregorys was founded in 2006 and now operates 54 locations nationally. A drive-through coffee option on Cedar Bridge that isn't a chain gas-station kiosk is a genuinely new thing for this stretch of road.
Dae Gee is the most unusual bet on the list. Dae Gee is a small chain that was founded in Colorado and operates several restaurants there, as well as two in Texas and one in Massachusetts and North Carolina. Brick Plaza is its first New Jersey location, and is already open. Korean BBQ in Brick is not a category anyone had a year ago.
Retail that matters, too
Alongside the food buildout, J Crew Factory and Gap Factory are joining the plaza. Fashion retailers J.Crew Factory and Gap Factory will join the plaza's tenant lineup in 2026. For most Brick households, that's a Freehold Raceway trip subtracted from the calendar.
Off the plaza: Buzz Bird lands on Route 70
Not everything new in Brick is inside a Federal Realty parking lot. A family-owned fast-casual called Buzz Bird opened at 519 Route 70, keeping daily hours from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. The menu leans on crispy chicken, stacked burgers, loaded fries, wraps, and what the owners are calling "dirty sodas," a category that hasn't shown up much yet on the Shore.
What's interesting isn't the concept, it's the location. That stretch of Route 70 has been dominated by chain quick-service for years. An independent operator opening a made-from-scratch fast-casual on that corridor is a small bet on the idea that Brick drivers will slow down for something local if the sign is bright enough.
The other anchor: Windward Beach on Saturdays
While the plaza has been busy leasing, Windward Beach Park has been quietly doing the same work it's done for years, only bigger.
The farmers market runs six months, not six weeks
The Brick Farmers Market is in its 12th season. The market, held on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Windward Beach Park, kicks off May 2 and runs through Oct. 3. There are more than 70 vendors signed up so far, township officials said. The market is free and dogs are permitted but they must be leashed.
The number that matters here is 70 vendors across five months. That's not a pop-up. That's a weekly habit for anyone within a ten-minute drive of Princeton Avenue, and it runs deep enough into fall that you can still get local greens after Labor Day weekend has cleared the barrier island.
SummerFest closed out July, but the pattern is what to notice
If you missed it, SummerFest kicked off its 31st season on July 2 at Windward Beach Park. All concerts were held at Windward Beach Park and free to attend thanks to the generous support of title sponsor Pine Belt Cars. Each evening concluded with a fireworks display over the Metedeconk River.
For many residents, SummerFest is now a second and even third generation tradition, with parents and grandparents bringing their children back to the same concerts they once enjoyed themselves.
That's the quiet argument for why Windward Beach keeps working as a civic anchor. It isn't a new venue, it isn't reinvented every year, and the concert bookings this summer, The Brit Pack, The Ronald Reagans 80s vs. 90s Show, and Suit and Mai Tai's yacht rock set, are chosen for exactly the multigenerational crowd that shows up.
The last SummerFest fireworks went off in late July, but the farmers market still has all of August, September, and the first Saturday of October left on the calendar. That's the part most people miss.
What this means if you already live here
The takeaway isn't a list of restaurants. It's that Brick's weekend geography is consolidating around two addresses that are three miles apart: Brick Plaza on Cedar Bridge Avenue and Windward Beach Park off Princeton. For years, the plaza was where you went to buy something and the park was where you went during a specific two-week window in July. Both of those descriptions are now out of date.
A Saturday in Brick this fall looks different than it did five years ago:
- Farmers market at Windward Beach from 8:30 a.m.
- Coffee and errands at the plaza (with Gregorys as a new option once it opens)
- Lunch at Cava, Dae Gee, or eventually Cuzin's
- A movie at AMC or a bookstore stop at Barnes & Noble
- Dinner off Route 70, whether that's Buzz Bird or something older
None of that requires leaving the township. A few years ago, most of it did.
If you're a longtime Brick resident, the practical read is this: the plaza and the park are becoming the two poles of local life in a way they weren't before, and the stretch of Cedar Bridge Avenue between them is getting denser and more useful every quarter. Learning where to park at the plaza after Raising Cane's opens is going to be a real problem by December. That's a good problem to have.
For a wider look at what daily life around the water looks like in Brick, our neighborhood page on Brick breaks down the lagoon streets, the mainland pockets, and the corridors closest to the plaza.
If you're thinking about what your Brick home is worth in a market where the local amenity map is being redrawn month by month, Dominick Leone can walk you through it. Request Your Free Home Valuation and we'll put a number on your address that reflects what buyers are actually paying in your corner of the township right now.
